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Herald Reporter
Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Minister Perrance Shiri dedicated his energy in ensuring that the country attained national food security, a Cabinet minister has said.

In her condolence message, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa described Minister Shiri as hard working.

“Lately, the hard working Cde Shiri was leaving no stone unturned to restore national agriculture to optimal production,” Minister Mutsvangwa in a statement last night.

“He was committing every ounce of his energy to the great cause of national food security and revival of exports.

“He was reaching out to erstwhile white commercial farmers, negotiating compensation and promoting the great Pfumvudza project.

“His dedication and unwavering commitment to this country was unquestionable. In recent years, Cde Shiri traded his military fatigues for a new uniform, the green farmers overall, as he pushed to boost agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe.

“Indeed, he was a true son of the soil. On behalf of myself and the Government, my condolences go to our dear departed Cde Shiri and to the nation. Words cannot express our sorrow, as to our comrade and brother, Go well Gudo Guru.”

Minister Mutsvangwa described Air Chief Marshal Shiri’s demise as a painful blow to the country.

“Cde Shiri was an illustrious and gallant son of the soil who devoted his entire life from his teenage days to the armed struggle for the liberation of the motherland, its post war reconstruction, integration and formation of its defence and security apparatus, as well as playing a sterling role in sub-regional Sadc and Pan African solidarity and unity,” she said.

“He has long been a shining beacon of the Samora Machel-Soweto Generation that was ready and committed to restoration of African military pride in the defence of the people.”

Cde Shiri abandoned his secondary school studies in Wedza in 1973 to seek guerrilla military training in Tanzania, the bastion of the militant national liberation movement.

He was inspired by the ongoing Zanla battles in the North Eastern Zimbabwe.

Cde Shiri trained at Mgagau.

He was one of Zanla fighters that shunted aside squabbling to prosecute the liberation struggle.

“The youthful fighters instead opted to focus solely and squarely on prosecuting the armed struggle to dislodge the racist Rhodesian settler minority regime from power they had usurped by force as of 1890,” said Cde Mutsvangwa.

When the war restarted in 1975 in Mozambique, Cde Shiri, together with colleagues at Mgagau, Zanla cadres and their Zipra counterparts began prosecuting the armed struggle on a 1 000km long military front marked by camouflaging mountains and forests.

In 1975, Cde Shiri was deployed to the war front in charge of Tete military province as Provincial Commander and member of the Zanla High Command.

As field commander, he exhibited exceptional military flair in this cradle of the Zimbabwe People’s War. He was later tasked with training urban guerrilla commandos from those of Zanla that had an urban background.

“By December 1978, his charges set ablaze fuel tanks in Salisbury — an act of exceptional valour culminating in the publication of pictures of a demoralised and dejected Ian Smith,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

At independence, Cde Shiri was also the inner core of the troop integration exercises that gave birth to ZDF and helped inculcate its much admired discipline and professionalism.

From the ashes of the sabotaged Zimbabwe Air Force, at ThornHill Airbase, Cde Shiri helped rebuild the Air Force.

He was later to participate in the Mozambican campaign, Democratic Republic of Congo campaign and lately Operation Restore Legacy, which saw the birth of the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa.