The remains of Bob Marley, whose lyrics became the rallying cry of black liberationists in the Third World and dope-smoking students in the West, are to be reburied in Ethiopia 23 years after his death. Marley's widow, Rita, said yesterday her husband's remains would be exhumed from his grave in Jamaica and laid to rest later this year in Sheshamene, southern Ethiopia, the most sacred burial place in Rastafarianism, the religious movement he espoused. Although the singer is believed to have visited Ethiopia only once, in 1979, Mrs Marley said she was fulfilling one of his last wishes: to return to his spiritual home. "It is part of Bob's own mission," she said. "Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not about Jamaica. How can you give up a continent for an island? He has a right for his remains to be buried where he would love them to be."A month of events to mark the 60th anniversary of Marley's birth begins in February. A concert featuring three of his nine children is to be held in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on Feb 6. Marley, whose hits included No Woman, No Cry and Buffalo Soldier, brought a radicalised form of Rastafarianism to the world. A sect with its roots in Ethiopia, the creed was based on the Talmudic laws of the Old Testament, although adherents ritualistically smoked cannabis and refused to cut their hair. Marley developed skin cancer in the big toe of his right foot, but refused to have it amputated because of his beliefs.