He Fought For Me To Live - Mnangagwa Mourns Father Ribeiro
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has expressed sadness over the death of Father Emmanuel Ribeiro saying the clergyman “fought for me to live.”
Father Ribeiro, Roman Catholic Church priest, composer, novelist and nationalist died this Thursday at St Anne’s Hospital in Harare aged 86.
Mourning Father Ribeiro, Mnangagwa recalled how he was removed from the death roll. He said:
_Almost 50 years ago, Father Ribeiro saved my life. When I was sentenced to death in prison, this great man fought for me to live._
_A gifted composer, a talented writer and a true Zimbabwean hero. May his soul rest in eternal peace._
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Pindula News present Mnangagwa’s official statement on the passing of Father Ribeiro.
CONDOLENCE MESSAGE BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT, CDE E.D. MNANGAGWA, FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF FATHER EMMANUEL RIBEIRO, 17TH JUNE, 2021.
I learnt with profound sadness and grief of the passing on today of Father Emmanuel Ribeiro, after a short illness. Not long ago, I had an opportunity to interact with the late departed cleric, until now the only one still alive from a generation of Prison chaplains who ministered to many incarcerated nationalists and condemned freedom fighters during the dark days of our struggle for Independence. The others who are all late were: Father Swift, Father Nyahwa and Father Mapondera.
Little did I know that I would not see him again in this life.
Father Emmanuel Ribeiro’s service to the Catholic Church and to our country was long and eventful. From serving in many remote rural parishes, the late Father Ribeiro dedicated the latter part of his ministry in colonial days to catering to the spiritual needs of many freedom fighters serving long prison terms, and to those summarily condemned to death for resisting settler colonialism. Equally, he would frequent prisons and detention centres housing leading nationalist leaders to pray with them, thus giving them hope and infusing faith in the eventual triumph of our cause to free our people and our country from colonial bondage.
In the case of condemned former prisoners like myself, his figure became one of the only contacts we had with the outside world. Or the only and last human being one would see before one met one’s cruel fate at the hands of colonial authorities. His religious chores as a prison chaplain thus brought him in direct contact with souls in acute distress, indeed exposed him to horrid scenes of settler penal cruelty, scenes which haunted him to his last day In this life.
I am aware that he breathed his last while working on what has now turned to be his last assignment, namely that of tracing last steps of numerous freedom fighters whose lives were shortened by the cruel penal system of settler governments. A good many of these he had vainly tried to save, with lack of success in each case weighing down on his conscience. I mourn his passing on as one of the few lucky ones he was able to rescue from the gallows, a development which makes his demise particularly poignant and quite painful to me personally.
He also worked with singular dedication on reconstructing the lives and last moments of the famous Chinhoyi 7, including tracing their families across the length and breadth of our country. We owe him greatly for such key interventions which have gone quite some way in the reconstruction of narratives of our National Struggle.
His service to the cause of our freedom took many forms including undertaking missions at great personal peril. Alongside late Sister Aquina, late Moven Mahachi and Sekuru Tangwena, Father Ribeiro played a key relaying role which ensured late Cdes Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Edgar Zivanai Tekere absconded to Mozambique for purposes of leading the Struggle after the assassination of Cde Herbert Chitepo, Chairman of our Party then in exile. Until the attainment of Independence in 1980, his commitment to the Liberation Struggle was unwavering.
A devout Catholic, Father Ribeiro was a great composer of numerous hymns which to this day animate many sermons in the Church. We drew from his unmatched skills as a songwriter and an artist when we worked on our National Anthem and the National Flag. He did a lot more than singing; he was an accomplished novelist who wrote in one of our National Languages under the then Rhodesia Literature Bureau. Alongside late Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa and late Solomon Mutsvairo, Father Ribeiro blazed the trail in employing National Languages for creative writing.
It spoke highly of him as an author that his flagship novel, Muchadura, became an abiding set-book in schools. Today we mourn the passing on of this man of many talents.
On behalf of the Party, Zanu-PF, Government, that of my Family and on my behalf, I wish to express my deepest, heartfelt condolences to the Ribeiro Family. Above all, I tender my sincere condolences to the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Harare, His Grace Archbishop Robert Ndlovu, and the entire membership of the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe. We keenly feel and share your pain and grief, praying that the Good Lord rests Father Emmanuel Ribeiro’s soul eternally.
Mnangagwa was put on the death roll for blowing up a locomotive but Father Ribeiro who a prison Chaplain then reportedly influenced authorities to change the sentence.
Mnangagwa who was a 16-year-old boy was also underage, a factor that also worked to his advantage.
More: Pindula News
