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Address by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, his Excellency, Cde Dr ED Mnangagwa at  the burial of the late national hero Father Emmanuel Francis Ribeiro at National Heroes Acre yesterday.

A dark cloud hovers our country and the church at large, as we gather here at the National Shrine to lay to rest, mourn and celebrate the life of our Roman Catholic Cleric Father Emmanuel Francis Ribeiro. Father Ribeiro died on Thursday at the age of 86, at St Anne’s hospital in Harare after a short illness.

We thus, mourn a great son of the soil, a Roman Catholic church priest, Father (Baba), a brother, a comrade, composer and novelist.

He worked tirelessly and used his diverse talents to nurture the souls of many people in our beloved country.

On the same day of his passing, we also received sad news of the passing on of the last surviving Founding Father on our continent and Founding President of the Sister Republic of Zambia, Dr Kenneth Kaunda.

May their dear departed souls rest in peace.

Your Grace the Archbishop, Fellow mourners, comrades and friends:

Today’s solemn occasion is special in that we gather to lay to rest a distinguished servant of God in the Roman Catholic church, who also stood out as unique fighter for the freedoms of our people and our once shackled country.

He was and remains special in our hearts. I am personally pained by his demise, for our lives and fates intersected under extremely difficult and unenviable circumstances.

Those circumstances knit us together, after he saved me from the gallows, with his sheer compassionate goodness and astuteness. Allow me to say: Thank you, Father Emmanuel Ribeiro for agreeing to be an instrument of God’s saving Grace! I am reminded of a verse from the Bible in John 15 verse 13 which says: “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

May I, once again, on behalf of the Government, the party ZANU PF, my family and indeed on my behalf, express my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved Ribeiro family.

Profound condolences are equally extended to His Grace, Archbishop Robert Ndlovu and the entire Roman Catholic church, on the death of Father Emmanuel Francis Ribeiro.

You are not alone in this hour of deep grief. Our whole nation stands and mourns with you.

Father Ribeiro is the first ever cleric to be interred here at the national Heroes Acre. Indeed, the decision to honour him in this very special way was befitting and unanimous.

I am aware that the Roman Catholic Church has its own burial arrangements for personages such as the late Father Ribeiro, yet the church, along with Ribeiro family, accepted Government request to have our beloved national hero rested here.

Thank you, Archbishop Robert Ndlovu and the entire leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Government does not take this gesture for granted; you have given us one of your own, so that we rest him together with his liberation war compatriots.

Your Grace, fellow mourners, comrades and friends;

Over last few days, we have listened to and read about the rich riveting life story of Father Ribeiro. The late national hero, Father Emmanuel Ribeiro was son of Francisco and Hilda Ribeiro. He was born on 15 August 1935 in Chivhu. He did his sub A and Sub B in Kadoma from 1944 to 1945.

From 1946 to 1950, he undertook standard 1 to standard 5 at Driefontein. In 1951, he went to Kutama Mission for his Standard 6. The late national hero, Father Emmanuel Ribeiro did his Junior Certificate in Education in 1952 at Chishawasha seminary.

By then he had already started answering his call to priesthood. He proceeded to Gokomere Mission for a teaching course. He started philosophy studies in 1957 and completed in 1959 at Chishawasha Seminary. He then went on probation in 1960, during this time he was teaching at Marymount Mission.

He was conferred the ministry of sub-deaconate in July 1963 and was ordained a deacon in December 1963 at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, in the then Salisbury. The following year in December 1964 he was ordained a priest.

In 1965 to 1957 that he was assigned at St Michael’s in Mhondoro. He later moved to St Mary’s Highfield in 1967, where he stayed until 1969. Thereafter he was appointed chaplain of Rhodesia Prison Service, a position he held until 1982. The late national hero worked in the Ministry of Education from 1983. In August 1990 he went to study in the United States at Indiana University, where he furthered his music education. In January 2009 he was assigned to St Mary’s Highfield as a curate until the time of his death.

Distinguished mourners comrades and friends; The late national hero, Father Ribeiro was a man of many talents. He had outstanding musical prowess particularly in the area of church music. In his quiet yet, effective way, he subtly challenged the church ethos.

Often, this challenge would take innocent forms such as the nature of hymns that expressed worship and inspired fellowship within the church.

He knew the power of music. For him, the Catholic Church in Africa, or any Church at all, had to express and fulfil its mission in the African context.

Motivated by the conviction, he composed songs inspired by African musical traditions. Through his trail-blazing efforts, indigenous instruments such as ngoma, hosho, hwamanda and mbira began playing in the church. This was contrary to the dominant colonial view and indeed liberating.

Through such far-reaching acts, the late Father Ribeiro and his peers showed the way. Today some of our Churches have truly transformed the value of our African music instruments and ways of worship.

Together with his late friend Stephen Magwa Ponde, he composed songs for liturgy and many Shona hymns. His first composition was “Gamuchirai Mambo mupiro uyu.” Other songs include Alleluia Munyika Dzose; Tauya Nezvipo; Mambo Mwari Wamasimba; Mwari Ngarumbidzwe among others.

Fellow mourners;

Exposed to the poverty and suffering of his fellow African compatriots under settler Rhodesia, Father Ribeiro’s priestly ministry fused the spiritual and glaring national realities for a fuller, rounded ministry. Indeed, he followed in the footsteps of Jesus Christ by standing for the poor, downtrodden and broken hearted as well as helping setting prisoners free.

My early personal encounter with the late National Hero Father Ribeiro was in circumstances of penal incarceration at Salisbury Maximum Prison in the 1960’s.

Through his spirited intercession which included legal representation, my death sentence was commuted to 10 years in isolated cells.

Together with Fathers Swift, Nyahwa and Mapondera, he became my link with humanity and with society from which I had been removed.

Although my fate was painful, I was one of the lucky few to be spared the gallows. My colleagues in the Crocodile Gang and many other captured freedom fighters and collaborators, who came after us, were brutally hanged.

It fell on prison chaplains like the late Father Ribeiro to do the last rites and prayers for these condemned comrades. It was during his time as the Chaplain at Rhodesia Prisons Service that he again met the late former president, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe. In 1975, he helped the Former President to escape from the Rhodesian Forces and cross to Mozambique.

He also sheltered the late Former President Cde R.G Mugabe and the late Enos Nkala at his rectory at Rhodesville parish when they were being hunted down by the security forces of the country.

Our late national hero would recall the numerous cases where 15–year- old or younger teenagers were hanged by the savage settlers regime. There were other incidences where condemned men and women who would have miraculously survived the noose were finished off in cold blood, by the regime’s teams of hangmen. This took a heavy toll on Father Ribeiro and others in his position, creating never ending trauma.

 

We shared strong views against the death penalty. He was against death penalty, fought and campaigned against it.

The decision by our National Hero to trace the lives and families of such ill- fated cadres of the struggle was part of his attempt to have that part of the cruel colonial history correctly told. His life came to an abrupt end before he had completed this assignment.

Thankfully, the bulk of research work had been done, laying a solid base for our historians to pick up the tab so the story is conclusively written for posterity. To lay him to rest here at the National Shrine is thus a call to re – engage our past and our history as a Nation born out of a bloody and protracted struggle for our Independence.

Under the Second Republic, we continue to tell the correct history. We refuse to endorse narratives that depict our struggle for liberation as having been mindless efforts by an ill-informed race fighting and resisting Christianity and civilization.

Comrades and friends

The late National Hero was a man who had a deep love for God and the people of God. He equally loved his country and would talk passionately about it. He was pained by the fact that many people did not know the history of our country.

The late National Hero, Father Ribeiro was also a literary man who pioneered the tradition of Zimbabwean literature through national languages along with the likes of the late Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa, Solomon Mutsvairo and others. He was an eminent writer and two of his novels, Muchadura and Tonderai scooped the Rhodesian Literature Bureau prizes and were also used as set – books for our schools.

To this day, many of our indigenous writers look up to this pioneering generation of writers. There is nothing demeaning or un – literary about expressing one’s creativity in local languages. In this spirit, our 2013 National Constitution accorded pride of place to 16 of our national languages. Our languages are indeed a part of our identity as a people and as a nation.

It is also encouraging that the NDS1 has already been translated into all the 16 languages.

The Cleric, cum nationalist we are laying to rest today lived and demonstrated unity in struggle. He was part of the committee that designed Zimbabwe’s National Flag and Chaired the committee which penned Zimbabwe’s National Anthem. Such contribution to the nation will forever be cherished.

We shall equally remember how he joined hands with fellow Christians from different denominations to denounce the heinous illegal sanctions unjustly imposed on our nation by the West. He never wavered on the question of land, the recovery of which, he located in scriptures.

Today as well lay to rest this unique and celebrated Cleric, of wide ranging talents, the lessons to our Nation from his life are many and varied. He saw God manifesting himself in the everyday lives of the people. The life of the late National Hero teaches us the importance of righteous simplicity, virtue, morality and goodness.

The late Father Ribeiro also esteemed the Hunhu/Ubuntu philosophy. Let us draw from these values of humility, courtesy, honesty, and thoughtfulness as we build a morally upright and prosperous society. More-so when we face countless societal ills some of which can be attributed to the impact of globalization. These threaten to flatten and overwhelm local cultures.

Unbecoming trends such as the alarming entry of destructive drugs into our jurisdiction, threaten the fate of our youth. To the youth in general bring honour to your families, communities and nation. This is what we also learn from the late Father Ribeiro. There is need therefore to redouble our collective fight against this new phenomenon of drugs and other harmful substance abuse. My government will thus continue to take stern measures to stamp out this growing threat. In the same vein, gun-related crime will not be tolerated.

Law enforcement agencies and the courts must work in concert to ensure that perpetrators of gun related crimes, violent drug kingpin, the supply chains and drug vendors are definitely smoked out and brought to book.

The Late Father Ribeiro was a clean man who hated corruption. The National Development Strategy – 1 and Vision 2030 cannot be realized in an environment that breeds corruption. Equally, we must work together more concertedly to improve the welfare of our people. Business people should not confuse profit for profiteering.

The realization of Vision 2030 must truly create a middle income society which leaves no one behind. Let us therefore all uphold the great values of patriotism, hard honest work and taking care of the vulnerable within our society, which were embedded in the man we are laying to rest today.

We say to our beloved National Hero, thank you for a job well done for a life lived in righteousness, with honour and distinction. You fought a good fight, you ran a good race, you showed the way.

Farewell Son of the Soil! Go well the people’s priest. Rest in eternal peace, our hero. Rara murugare Gamba reMagamba! Lala ngokuthula, Qhawe lama Qhawe!

God bless you all.

 

God bless Zimbabwe.

I thank you.