Exhume Remains of De Beers Founder, says Zimbabwe President
December 20, 21
(IDEX Online) - The remains of De Beers founder Cecil Rhodes should be exhumed, says the Zimbabwean president, and sent to Britain, where he was born.
Emmerson Mnangagwa told traditional leaders in Harare on Friday that there was no place for them in his country.
Rhodes, the imperialist, businessman and politician who founded Rhodesia as a British colony, died in 1902 and was buried at Matopos National Park, in Matabeleland South.
"His remains must be returned to where he hailed from and we can also have our ancestral remains which are being kept in Europe," said President Mnangagwa.
His predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe blocked members of his ruling Zanu-PF party from exhuming Rhodes' remains in 2012, saying his legacy was part of the country's history.
The University of Cape Town, in South Africa, removed a statue of Rhodes in 2015. A statue at Oxford University, where Rhodes studied, remains in place, despite a campaign to have it removed.
Pic shows Rhodes' grave in Matopos National Park, Zimbabwe.