After weeks, Mugabe finally buried in his hometown
01 October, 2019
After weeks of delays Zimbabwe’s former ruler Robert Mugabe was finally buried over the weekend, closing a battle between the state and his family over the fate of his remains.
Mugabe was buried over the weekend in a low-key private ceremony at his natal village.
But the decision to finally bury him at a private rural home amid tight security came after a battle played out for weeks between Mugabe’s family, local traditional chiefs and the government.
Mugabe, who died at 95 at a Singapore hospital on Sept. 6, was laid to rest 22 days later in a concrete cast grave in the courtyard of his rural Kutama home, 90 kilometers west of Harare.
Inside the grave, the coffin was placed in a container and then covered with a maroon lid. At its head, “R.G. Mugabe” was inscribed on a yellow plate.
Heavy rectangular blocks matching the shape of the grave were piled on top of the coffin, an AFP photographer saw.
The original coffin, in which Mugabe’s remains were flown from Singapore, was changed, said family spokesman Leo Mugabe, the former president’s nephew.
“We wanted a tamper-proof casket because of [the fear of] rituals,” he told the Zimbabwe Television Network recently.
Mugabe had told his wife to guard his body once he died for fear it could be used by his opponents for ritualistic purposes, he added.
“People are after his body or his body parts,” Leo Mugabe was quoted as saying.
Family members have said the decision to bury Mugabe at the village should not be misconstrued as bad blood between the government, the ruling party and the former first family, but a fulfillment of his wishes.
The family had initially agreed to a government-sponsored special mausoleum. Its construction was already underway at a public shrine in Harare, where dozens other liberation war heroes are buried.
But in a surprise about-face, it was announced the burial was going to be in Kutama village.
It was only at the burial on Saturday that family members explained that Mugabe had indicated that when he died he did not want to be buried at the national shrine because he had been “ridiculed.”
Mugabe was bitter over his ouster nearly two years ago and the role played by his then deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was elected president after Mugabe was toppled.
A family source told AFP that one family member had even wanted to bury Mugabe on the grounds of his vast Blue Roof mansion in an opulent Harare suburb, but municipal laws forbid burial in noncemetery designated space.
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