WHEN he died in 1902, Cecil John Rhodes declared in his last Will that his remains be interred at the Matopo Hills in Matabeleland South.
Since then, his burial there has remained a permanent monument of colonialism.
He did this by making sure there was watertight legislation that protected his interests even when he was gone.
Today, more than 100 years after his death, we are still feeling his presence through the Rhodes Estates Act Chapter 20:17 of 1978.
Through the Act, the colonial architect apportioned himself the most unspoiled and nicest of the places in Zimbabwe, mountainous Nyanga in Manicaland and the rocky Matopo Hills, places historically revered as sacred by the indigenous people, where communication with Mwari and our ancestral spirits took place.
Scornfully, the Act does not give the local people access to land around Matopo Hills despite the fact communities near Matopos National Park are overcrowded and in need of farming land and pastures for their livestock, while the same is happening in Nyanga National Park.
According to the Act, the development or use of sites for the purposes of agriculture should come from the committee overseeing the two estates.
This is despite the fact that Rhodes did not even buy that land in the first place.
A paragraph in the Act further states that permission should be sought to use Rhodes’ ‘land’.
“The lease of any portion of the Estates to the State or to any local authority or statutory body where the Trustee considers it necessary for the provision of facilities for administration, a post office, police station, aerodrome, school, hospital, cemetery or other like purpose as may be required from the administering committee.”
Legal and political experts have long questioned why Rhodes’ legacy has been kept for such a long time and at times taking precedence over the needs of thousands of Zimbabweans who fought a bruising battle to dislodge colonialism and white rule.
Rhodes also left a water-tight Will that granted his wish to be buried atop a Mwari shrine in the Matopo Hills.
His burial there, just six years after the end of the First Chimurenga, rather than Cape Town in South Africa where he had died or his native Britain signified the totality of the conquest of our land and its peoples and their culture.
An extract from Rhodes’ Will reads in part: “I admire the grandeur and loneliness of the Matopos in Zimbabwe and therefore I desire to be buried in the Matopos on the hill which I used to visit and which I called the ‘View of the World’ in a square to be cut in the rock on the top of the hill covered with a plain brass plate with these words thereon – ‘Here lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes’ and accordingly I direct my executors at the expense of my estate to take all steps and do all things necessary or proper to give effect to this my desire and afterwards to keep my grave in order at the expense of the Matopos and Bulawayo Fund hereinafter mentioned.”
On the poignant issue of land which sons and daughters of Zimbabwe took up arms to fight for, Rhodes had strict instructions in his Will that his estates shall only be cultivated for experimental farming purposes:
“For the guidance of my Trustees I wish to record that in the cultivation of my said landed properties, I include such things as experimental farming, forestry market and other gardening and fruit farming irrigation and the teaching of any of those things and establishing and maintaining an Agricultural College.”
Ironically, in part of Matabeleland South in the Matopo Hills vicinity is a thriving agricultural college at a farm run by the Cunningham family.
The farm, although having been designated by Government several times, still remains in the hands of whites, while numerous other projects such as fisheries, angling, lodges and other tourism facilities are run by white people.
Could this be a coincidence or a well-orchestrated move by former Rhodesians to fulfill Rhodes’ Will?
European penetration into Zimbabwe began through Christian missionaries who befriended King Mzilikazi in 1858.
They were followed by fortune hunters, soldiers and land-grabbing settlers.
Rhodes and his British South African Company (BSAC) secured the Rudd Concession from King Lobengula, ostensibly for mining purposes, but he brought an army and settled at present-day Harare (then Salisbury) in 1890.
Thereafter, Rhodes declared war on Lobengula, overthrew him and named the country Rhodesia.
As a British colony, Rhodesia was characterised by resistance to British rule from the beginning of European settlement.
Although King Lobengula was defeated in 1893, indigenous Zimbabweans in both Mashonaland and Matabeleland took up arms in the First Chimurenga of 1896-97, which was led by the famous spirit mediums Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi.
The uprising was suppressed by use of unparalleled brutality and torture of prisoners of war and civilians.
And most painfully, after 36 years of independence, Rhodes’ remains are still interred at the most sacred shrine in Zimbabwe because of an Act and a Will.
The Shona and Ndebele people still hold the place sacred despite Rhodes’ grave being there.
Placing Rhodes there was the defilement of the highest degree as it disturbed the ancestral spirits of the land, as well as the destruction of the spiritual pillars of the indigenous people.
According to historians, the fact that we still have a piece of legislation that legitimises the presence of Rhodes in our midst gives regime change architects the power to try and dislodge a legitimate and sovereign Government.
Hordes of tourists are seen everyday visiting the grave of their colonial architect where they openly brag that as long as Rhodes is resting in this country, they will do anything possible to safeguard his Will.
The place where the colonial architect was buried is called Malindadzimu, which means the resting place of the spirits.
Rhodes’ resting place, to most whites, is more than a grave—its an instituition and a monument to imperialism.
Why then should we keep the grave if it does not have any value to locals?
Debates have taken place over the years with some pressure groups saying the grave should be removed as it was an insult and abomination to our ancestors.
Worse still, Rhodes’ gay partner Leander Starr Jameson is buried next to him.
The liberation of Zimbabwe is therefore not complete as long as we continue to revere colonial relics and honour legislation of our former colonisers.