Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is asking Britain for human skulls
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe speaks at an election rally in Chitungwiza. (REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo)
An American dentist's killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe stoked anger and outrage around the world. Now Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has taken aim at something else he says was taken away by Western powers: A set of human skulls.
Speaking earlier this week, Mugabe said that Britain was in talks to return to Zimbabwe the skulls of the leaders of an African uprising against colonial British rulers in the late 19th century. The remains of these leaders, referred to as "the first chimurenga," are currently housed in London's Natural History Museum, Mugabe said.
The state-owned Herald Newspaper reported that Mugabe would only accept the remains "begrudgingly," and that they would be buried at a sacred shrine in Zimbabwe. "We are told that skulls of our people, our leaders, are being displayed in a British museum and they are inviting us to repatriate them," Mugabe was quoted as saying. "We will repatriate them, but with bitterness, questioning the rationale behind decapitating them."
In a statement released Thursday, the British Embassy in Harare confirmed that discussions over the return of Zimbabwean remains have taken place since December 2014. However, it added that "it is not yet clear whether these remains are related to the events, places or people referred to in the President’s speech this week." That sentiment was echoed in a statement fromthe Natural History Museum, which said that the museum "cares for 20,000 human remains in its collection" and that there is "a thorough process that involves establishing the correct provenance of remains based on complex historical sources."
Zimbabwe was under British colonial rule from 1888 to 1965, and subsequently under a white minority government until a Mugabe-led rebellion led to full independence in 1980. "Chimurenga" is a word from the Shona language, which means revolutionary struggle. The Zimbabwean government uses it to refer to what Western historians call the Second Matabele War, when the Ndebele-Shona people revolted against the rule of Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company's control of the territory in 1896-1897.
According to Zimbabwean reports, Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi, two spiritual leaders, were hung from trees after the revolts. Mugabe said that the Zimbabwean government strongly believed the remains of both Nehanda and Kaguvi were now in London, and he condemned their display in a museum as "among the highest form of racist moral decadence, sadism, and human insensitivity," according to Newsday newspaper.
Under Section 47 of Britain's Human Tissue Act 2004, formal requests can be made of British institutions to return human remains to their places of origin if they are less than 1,000 years old. A number of European countries have returned African human remains in recent years: In 2011, Germany returned skulls that had been used for racial experiments to Namibia as a means of gesture of reconciliation for German colonial rule.
Speaking on Monday, Mugabe had compared the killing of Cecil the Lion to the horrors of imperialism. “There are vandals who come from all over,” he said. “Be warned, some are here to regularly and illegally acquire these resources.”
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Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.
