Tinotenda Hove- President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s public mourning of Ambassador Victor Matemadanda is being slammed as hollow and calculated, with insiders saying the carefully worded tribute is aimed at cooling CAB3 factional heat while he quietly maneuvers to stay in power beyond 2028.

Matemadanda, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Mozambique and Eswatini, died Saturday night. In a statement on Monday, 22 June, Mnangagwa said he learned of Matemadanda’s “untimely demise” with “deep grief and sadness”.

“I learnt with deep grief and sadness of the untimely demise on Saturday night of Cde Victor Matemadanda, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the sister Republics of Mozambique and Eswatini,” reads the statement.

Mnangagwa described Matemadanda as “a war veteran who became part of the leadership of the association of our Liberation Veterans after Independence,” noting that “the late Cde Matemadanda’s association with nationalist politics and the National Liberation Struggle for our Independence dated back to his youthful days as part of the Zimbabwean migrant community, which had settled in Zambia to escape persecution and inhibitions in the then settler colonial Rhodesia.”

He said Matemadanda “readily swapped the relatively quiet and comfortable life of the largely successful Zimbabwean migrant community in Zambia for a fraught one of Struggle,” and worked with “the likes of late Cde Patrick Kombayi to mobilise support for fighters and refugees in several camps in both Zambia and Mozambique.”

Mnangagwa recalled that “before long, his involvement would be more direct, including helping with the transportation of war material using large Scania trucks to various operational forward points, for the smooth prosecution of the war of liberation.”

“At Independence, Cde Matemadanda would join the Zimbabwe National Army, in which role he served his country with loyalty and utmost distinction,” he added.

Yet the tribute sidesteps the real political undercurrents. Mnangagwa himself admitted Matemadanda’s “principled stance in defence of the interests of our war veterans, including their welfare and substantive incorporation into Party structures, led to his repeated incarceration under the First Republic.”

That line exposes the long-running friction inside ZANU PF, where Matemadanda often clashed with the old guard. As National Political Commissar, Mnangagwa says Matemadanda “brought exceptional vibrancy to the Party, which at the time sought to put behind it the largely fossilised ethos and inertia which had developed over time under the First Republic.”

Critics argue Mnangagwa is now co-opting Matemadanda’s liberation credentials to pacify restive war veterans as CAB3 tensions flare and internal resistance grows to his bid to remain in office beyond 2028.

Mnangagwa said he redeployed Matemadanda to diplomacy “to broaden his vista as one of the promising cadres in the leadership of the Party,” where “he distinguished himself in that role, traversing all the Provinces in Mozambique which housed our wartime bases, and in which remains of countless Zimbabwean freedom fighters lie buried in mass graves.”

“He pushed very hard to have all such burial sites and shrines properly rehabilitated as a show of our respect and dignity to our fallen heroes and heroines,” Mnangagwa said. “It is sad that he has been snatched away from us before completing this vast project which summoned all his attention and energies.”

“Under my direction, the Second Republic will ensure these revered sites and shrines are rehabilitated and properly curated,” he promised. “This is the least we can do to honour our fallen heroes, and to pay lasting tribute to the late Cde Matemadanda.”

To many veterans, the pledge is too late. Liberation shrines have rotted for years while Mnangagwa’s government focused on consolidating power. Now, with 2030 talk and term-extension plans unsettling the party, the president is invoking dead comrades.

“On behalf of the Party, ZANU PF, Government, my Family and my behalf, I wish to express my deepest, heartfelt condolences to the bereaved Matemadanda Family, especially to Amai Matemadanda and the children in this their hour of profound grief,” Mnangagwa said.

“May they derive solace from the exceptional contribution which Ambassador Matemadanda made towards the freedom and development of his people whom he so deeply loved. Our Nation joins them and shares in their grief. May his dear soul rest in eternal peace.”