By Wilf Mbanga
I first met Solomon Mujuru (then known as Rex Nhongo) at the Geneva Airport when the joint delegation of Zipra and Zanla commanders who had formed ZIPA Zimbabwe People’s came to the Geneva Conference Rhodesian settlement talks in 1976.
I was there to cover the talks for the Argus Africa News Service where I was employed as a foreign correspondent. In an effort to get to know the guerrilla leaders, the BBC’s Focus on Africa correspondent in then Salisbury, Justin Nyoka, took the Zanla element of ZIPA to dinner at a posh Geneva restaurant on our expense accounts.
The group included Wilfred Mhanda, then known as Dzinashe Muchingura, Dzingai Mutumbuka (who ended up as Zimbabwe’s first minister of education, now with the World Bank) and Mujuru, then just 27 years old.
We all hit it off well and copious amounts of wine and whisky were consumed. At the end of a long evening we walked the group back to their hotel – the Royal – where we stood in the hallway in the middle of winter and chatted some more. Nobody wanted the evening to end – so they walked us back to our hotel at about 2am in the freezing cold!
At 5am the next morning my phone rang. It was The Guardian’s correspondent in Salisbury at the time, James MacManus – also in Geneva for the talks. He wanted to know if I knew anything about the fire at the Royal. I dashed there with Justin in tow, to find that there had indeed been a fire and several people had been injured by jumping from first floor windows.
Zanu immediately issued a statement accusing the Rhodesians of arson – trying to kill Mujuru. The Rhodesian minister of information, PK van de Byl, contemptuously denied this. The Swiss police said their investigations were centred on an electric stove in one of the hotel rooms.
Years later, in Harare after Independence, Mujuru and I had a good laugh about the incident and he confided that he had caused the fire. After our “happy” evening out, he had wanted a cup of coffee and turned on the little stove in his room to boil water.
But he had been so drunk that he had fallen asleep before the kettle boiled. He awoke to find his room filled with smoke and raised the alarm. How ironic that he should die, at the age of 62, in an electrical fire, presumably while asleep.
The intervening 35 years of his life have been momentous to say the least. He led the Zimbabwe National Army for much of that time, and became one of the richest men in Africa in the process.
His appetite for alcohol was prodigious. Whenever we went out for a drink he would order whisky by the bottle – never just a tot. He would then measure out for himself generous tots and add ice and water. He was commander of the ZNA at the time of Gukurahundi, and could one day have stood in the dock at The Hague.
Although he was feared by many there was a soft side to him. He had a great sense of humour, a defence mechanism that enabled him to cope with his terrible stammer. He was the only man strong enough in Zanu (PF) to talk to the MDC. This set him apart from all the others
He was publicity shy and never responded to requests for interviews. In fact he was rather contemptuous of the media – denying its power and believing only in the sword. He was eager to minimise his own role in the faction fighting within the party, despite regular reports of him being the “king-maker”.
He would phone me from time to time to set the record straight – even after I had gone into exile. One thing that set him apart from his peers was his willingness to discuss matters openly – even though he disagreed with one, he was always prepared to talk.
One could be brutally frank with him – I could tell him exactly what I thought of Zanu (PF) and he would take it on the chin. But it didn’t change anything. He was a hero once.
Wilf Mbanga is the Editor of The Zimbabwean
