By Lance Guma
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British MP Kate Hoey has stirred a hornet’s nest after moving a motion in Parliament to officially condemn the shooting down of Air Rhodesia Viscount RH827 by the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas during the liberation war in 1979.
The plane (the Umniati) flying between Kariba and Salisbury (now Harare) was shot down on the 12th of February 1979 using a Strela 2 heat seeking missile soon after take-off. All 59 holidaymakers and crew on board were killed.
The circumstances were very similar to the downing of Air Rhodesia Flight 825 (the Hunyani) five months earlier when the guerrillas used a SAM 7 missile, causing the deaths of 48 passengers and crew including 10 crash site survivors who were shot and bayoneted to death.
Last week Hoey, who is the chairperson of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, moved the motion to have the shooting condemned and the commemoration of it given official recognition. Hoey’s motion noted that “this was the second such shooting down of civilian airliners by ZIPRA.”
“The 107 victims comprised civilian men, women and children, some of whom survived the crash of the Hunyani and were subsequently murdered on the ground by bayoneting and shooting,” she said. The victims were from countries like Switzerland, Scotland, Belgium, New Zealand, the UK and South Africa.
The motion already signed by six MP’s has not gone down well with the UK chapter of Zimbabwe’s opposition Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn party led by former Zanu PF politburo member and finance minister Dr Simba Makoni. UK spokesperson Tendai Kwari accused Hoey of opening old wounds.
Kwari told Nehanda Radio the motion is opening healing wounds, especially amongst black Zimbabweans. “Thousands of poor Zimbabwean refugees were massacred by the Rhodesians at Tembue and Chimoio. These two camps had schools and clinics and thousands of children were butchered,” he said.
Kwari said he hoped Hoey had not been “forced to present this motion by former Rhodesians, who can still not accept that a black man in Zimbabwe should be the master of that land.” He also demanded that relatives of those killed in Chimoio and Nyadzonia be compensated by the British government.
