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Nqobile Tshili
PEOPLE living in rural areas are among the unsung heroes of the liberation struggle as they were victimised and brutalised for assisting freedom fighters, a senior Zanu-PF official said.

As the country commemorates Heroes’ Day it will be easy to remember some the prominent heroes, the likes of late Father Zimbabwe Dr Joshua Nkomo, General Lookout Masuku among others and forget those who capacitated the guerrilla freedom fighters.

The common man and woman who supported the liberation struggle are hardly remembered as their stories were never documented.

Most of the rural people were persecuted by the settler regime for supporting freedom fighters.

Their situation was worsened by the fact that sometimes they were victimised by both the settlers and the freedom fighters due to mistrust.

In an interview ahead of today’s holiday, Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Cde Obert Mpofu said the rural people should be remembered for the role they played during the war.

“The rural people bore the brunt of the entire liberation war. If you look at the ex-combatants, most of them are children of villagers. More than 90 percent of war veterans are actually crop of fighters who were recruited from the rural areas,” said Cde Mpofu.

“Of course, there are few who were recruited from urban areas but in any case we cannot talk about urban areas at the time because they were predominantly for white dwellers.”

He said the liberation war could not have succeeded without the contribution of the rural folks.

“It is them who nurtured the struggle through logistical support to the fighters and also through providing information to the fighters about the enemy’s movements. And they were also subjected to all sorts of torture, suspicion and all maltreatment because they were suspected by the regime as people who cooperating and feeding the freedom fighters,” he said.

Cde Mpofu said it is not surprising that Zanu-PF enjoys a lot of support from the rural people.

The ruling party has firsthand experience of the war, he said, and it will be difficult for that relationship to be destroyed.

Cde Mpofu said the rural people were also appreciative that Government was committed to providing their needs.

“They are very patient. They do not read about their problems in the newspapers and neither are they told about them through television. They know issues that affect them,” said Cde Mpofu.

“They are concerned about water, roads, schools, clinics and government is doing its best to provide these services to them. We are drilling boreholes for them. We are building more schools for them, we are providing farming implements among other things.”

He said due to the relationship the party has the rural people who are the most populous in the country, Zanu-PF will rule the country for a very long time.

The Secretary for Administration said the party through the Chitepo Ideological School aims at reorienting those who seem to have lost touch with ethos of the liberation struggle.

He said the ideological school was targeting the youth who are easily swayed by neo colonialists who offer them money.

“We want to teach young people that there is need to put the interest of the country first, instead of their own interest as there are some people who sacrificed their lives to ensure they enjoy their freedom. We want to teach them that there a greater good in being patriotic,” he said.

Cde Mpofu said teaching about patriotism will discourage youths from participating in violent protests where they destroy infrastructure.

He said they have gone to school, but instead of using their education for developmental issues some of them want to use their knowledge to derail progress.