Sabina Mugabe
Posted by ZDN on July 30, 2010
Sabina Mugabe (75), one of President Mugabe’s three surviving sisters, who was counted among his closest allies and confidantes, passed away at the Avenues Clinic in Harare on Thursday after a long battle with illness.
Almost ten years younger than the President, Sabina was the mother of Leo Mugabe, Patrick Zhuwao and Robert Zhuwao. Her nephew is the prominent and controversial businessman Philip Chiyangwa.
In 1985, Sabina served as a Member of Parliament for Makonde East and was subsequently legislator for Zvimba South constituency between 1990 and 2008. She was also the Zanu PF Women’s League national secretary for production and labour.
During her time in active politics, Sabina was described as being an integral part of the Mugabe political dynasty.
She withdrew from active politics two years ago, shortly before the controversial elections in 2008.
Prior to independence in 1980, Sabina taught dressmaking to aspiring entrepreneurs from the townships around Harare (then Salisbury).
It was Sabina who gave Robert Mugabe the tragic news of the death of his three-year-old son, Nhamo, from encephalitis in December 1966. The toddler had passed away at the home of his maternal grandparents in Ghana.
At the time, Mugabe was in detention and had been moved from the Midlands to Salisbury Remand Prison. Despite Sabina’s efforts, he was inconsolable and struggled to come to terms with the tragedy and the fact that he had seen so little of his son.
After Mugabe’s release from prison in 1974, the church gave him an office in Silveira House, where his sisters Sabina and Bridget were employed to work on women’s development programmes.
According to a Catholic churchman interviewed by journalist and author Heidi Holland, Sabina in the latter years turned into a different person, barely recognisable as the gentle woman they had known.
In November 2000, nine months after the farm invasions began, Sabina, then Zanu PF MP for Zvimba South, and Agness Rusike, a war veteran leader, united to lead a terror campaign against white commercial farmers and their farm workers in the Norton district, 40 km south west of Harare.
Travelling in an official black Mercedes Benz, they urged black squatters to grab white-owned farmland for themselves. One of the farms targeted was that of Terry Ford (55) whom they visited in tandem with a large truckload of militant youths.
Sabina insisted she would take over the house and furniture of Ford’s aunt, who had died a few months earlier. Further threats ensued and soon afterwards, Ford’s farm equipment was confiscated.
Four months later, Terry Ford’s battered body was found beside the gate of his homestead on Gowrie farm. After the vicious beating he had been shot in the head. Earlier that night, the house had been surrounded by militants and the police had refused to assist.
The photograph of Ford’s beloved Jack Russell, Squeak, curled up on the blue bedspread covering his master’s body, focused international attention on the tragic events taking place across Zimbabwe.
On a list of the people who have taken over farms and are multiple farm owners, Sabina is noted down as having three farms. The document was released in November 2009 by human rights activists.
The Zanu PF politburo has agreed that Sabina will be declared a national heroine and will be buried at the Zimbabwe National Hero’s Acre on Sunday.
Zimbabwe Democracy Now
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08-02-2010
3:33 am
Ingwe
The only good Mugabe is a dead Mugabe. Let all Mugabe’s go to hell along with the West and EU so they can co-exist forever.
08-12-2010
3:50 am
Dave smith
So right !!! Mugabe the mad dog
Terrorist dictator once a terrorist always a terrorist
Terror watch