The Sunday Mail
Zanu-PF Disabled and Disadvantaged Persons Welfare secretary Colonel Stanley Urayayi Sakupwanya (Rtd), who died in Harare on Tuesday after a long illness, has been declared a National Hero.
He will be buried at the National Heroes’ Acre on Sunday [6 July 2014].
Party Information and Publicity secretary Rugare Gumbo said the Zanu-PF Politburo unanimously accorded Col Sakupwanya (75) the status.
“The Politburo has already met and accorded him National Hero status because he was a dedicated cadre who worked towards the unity of the nation,” he said.
A medical doctor, Col Sakupwanya was a long-standing Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) member. After completing primary and secondary education in Bulawayo and Botswana respectively, he joined the liberation struggle in 1963.
He went to Zambia and then the Soviet Union for military training and also enrolled in medical school. He completed his studies in 1969 and was three years later deployed by Zapu as its East African representative based in Uganda where he remained until independence in 1980.
At independence, he was part of an advance team that co-ordinated the demobilisation of Zipra and Zanla combatants. He was then attested into the Zimbabwe National Army in the Medical Corps as a captain and rose through the ranks to retire as a full Colonel in 1986. In 2000, Col Sakupwanya ran a private practice, which focused on improving the healthcare of rural folk. He was also Nyanga South Senator.
