Zimbabwe: Mugabe's Questionable Past

We have all watched the latest moves by Mugabe and his ‘government’ and we also see how he intends to treat the two different factions of the MDC.

But how many of us realise that Mugabe has been on the scene a lot longer than the 28 years that he has been in power, and how many of us are aware that he has the same love of power for in excess of 40 years?

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Whatever his activities now, Mugabe is set in his ways and has no need, requirement or want to move from power or be divorced from power, to the point that if he does not have the control he is prepared to destroy the structure of what it is that he wants control of.

Rather like the spoiled schoolboy who, playing ball with his friends, doesn’t get his own way so he picks up the ball and goes home.

Mugabe first made his name in the worldwide political stage as the Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe African National Union - the party which he now leads as ZANU PF (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front).

Mugabe was held as a prisoner by the white Rhodesian government for a decade, and during that time, he wrote various examinations and became a very well qualified individual.

Mugabe left Rhodesia in 1976 and became in director in terrorist operations in Rhodesia choosing to maintain control from Mozambique.

Two names spring to mind when I think of Mugabe and ZANU in the early years.

1. Herbert Chitepo

Chitepo was, until his brutal death in a car bomb in Lusaka in March 1975, the leader of ZANU. His death, it is believed was engineered by the second name, Josiah Tongogara.

Chitepo died on March 18, 1975 in Lusaka, Zambia when a car bomb exploded. The Rhodesian security forces were initially blamed, but as more and more evidence was discovered, the idea that Chitepo had been taken out by his own people began to surface.

Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda commissioned an inquiry into Chitepo's death. Documents released in October, 2001, placed the blame on ZANU infighting.

Names that were put forward were:

Josiah Tongogara

Rugare Gumbo

Henry Hamadziripi

Kumbirai Kangai

Mukudzei Mudzi

The one name blatantly missing from the list is that of Mugabe. One of the people that represented a threat and a risk to Mugabe, was Tongogara - and within a few days of the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, Togogara was despatched to another world.

2. Josiah Tonogara

On December 26, 1979 it was reported on the radio that Tongogara had been tragically killed in a road traffic accident in Mozambique.

“Josiah Tungamirai, the ZANLA High Command's (ZANLA was ZANU’s military wing) political commissar relates that on the night of the fatality, he and Tongogara had been travelling with others in two vehicles from Maputo to Chimoio. Tungamirai said he was in the front vehicle. It was dark and the roads were bad. Tungamirai's car passed a military vehicle that had been carelessly abandoned, with no warning signs at the side of the road. After that, he could no longer see the headlights of the following car in his rear view mirror. Eventually he turned back, and, as he had feared, they found Tongogara's car had struck the abandoned vehicle. Tongogara was sitting in the front passenger seat. Tungamirai told me that he had struggled to lift Tongogara out of the wrecked car. He said that as he was doing so, Tongogara heaved a huge sigh and died in his arms.”

Even Ian Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, alleged that Togogara was removed from the field of play by his own people.

“A former Detective in the Law and Order Section of the now defunct BSA Police (now Zimbabwe Republic Police) saw photographs of Tongogara's body, There were three wounds, consistent with gun shot wounds, to his upper torso. The undertaker's statement (described above) was not a formal autopsy report and as such was dismissed by all but the senior politburo of ZANU.”

When black majority rule was attained in 1980, the country had been at war for about 14 years and whilst many people had died, the economy of Rhodesia had survived. Mugabe was initially elected as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, taking the reins from Bishop Abel Muzorewa who had led the interim government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

Although Mugabe himself had not actively participated in the chimurenga, the people of Zimbabwe treated him as a hero of the brutal and bloody bush war.

Within a couple of years of becoming Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mugabe found himself in a bloody confrontation with members of Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. After putting down two armed uprisings in the Bulawayo suburb of Entumbane, Mugabe chose to have a North Korean-trained brigade of foreign national trained specially to take on the Matabele people.

At the time that the Peace Accord was signed between Mugabe and Nkomo in 1987, it was estimated that the Fifth Brigade has silenced as many as twenty thousand Matabele people - permanently.

(Note: During this bloody operation, known as the “Gukurahundi”, I was one of the last white policemen serving in districts in Zimbabwe, in Matabeleland province and many times I was obliged to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess. See my book “Without Honour”.)

More names spring to mind when I think of the men who rose in prominence within Mugabe’s government, and were struck down by various events, all seen as suspicious in the grand scheme of things.

Maurice Nyagumbo (suicide), Peter Pamire (road accident), Chris Ushowekunze (road accident).

With out even thinking hard…

Very simply, Mugabe doesn’t care which side of the desk you sit. If you are not on his side, then you are a legitimate target. Game to be taken out as and when he dictates.

His modus operandi may have been refined through the years, but his intention remains the same.

Power and control at any cost.

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man