By a special correspondent
On the 15th of August 2011 the nation state of Zimbabwe woke up to the sad news of the death Solomon Mujuru aka Rex Nhongo. Mujuru, a decorated military expert died in a mysterious fire that gutted his Beatrice farm house.
An accident some have called it, whilst others have labelled it an assassination and to this date the case remains an unsolved mystery. Mujuru was the latest in a line up of high profile Zimbabwean political leaders to perish under mysterious circumstances.
Chief among them of course was liberation war commander Josiah Tongogara. However, a source close to the late Mujuru has revealed that the late general was fore told of his imminent death but he refused to take heed of the warning.
An impeccable source in the army has exclusively revealed that sometime in 2011 a group of top ZANU-PF officials including Mujuru, Governor Ray Kaukonde and Saviour Kasukuwere and others visited a spirit medium (name supplied) in Njelele, Matobo for what was dubbed a traditional cleansing ceremony.
It was during this process that the spirit medium told Mujuru to call all of Josiah Tongogara’s children and close family members and tell them what exactly happened to the late Tongogara. The sprit medium further instructed Mujuru to return of all of Tongogara’s possessions stolen immediately after his death.
Mujuru was also told that failure to fulfil the instructions he would meet his end in an equally mysterious and barbaric fashion as did Tongogara and nothing would come out to explain the death even to the defiance of reason and logic.
Tongogara the gallant fighter died in a mysterious accident officially on the 26th of December 1979 in Mozambique. He was the leader of the ZANLA Dare reChimurenga the ZANU military wing. He was the chief military strategists commanding the loyalty of almost all in ZANU and its ZANLA forces.
Tongogara was pivotal in the Lancaster House talks earning command of the majority in both the military wings of ZAPU and ZANU and as such he was tipped to lead the new nation state of Zimbabwe ahead of the civilian leadership.
Unlike some of his comrades in the military as well as the civilian political leadership he believed that the two parties and their armies should come together not under one party establishment but in unity of purpose, the purpose of building a better Zimbabwe.
A dream that was never to be as the man who led the struggle against an enemy who was more sophisticated in resources and capacity than him, but he out witted and defeated him, a man who survived the perfidious venom of a vile inside foe, yet he survived all those only to be killed in a car accident, just a few days after concluding the peace talks, a few days before returning home, to Zimbabwe.
Bizarre as it may sound especially to those not familiar with the role the spirit mediums played during the war, the Mujuru incident is a pointer towards a number of things. The reason why he (that is Mujuru) and not any one else was given that such a task of calling Tongogara’s children begs the questions ;what he knew about what in fact happened on that ill fated day ) what he didn’t know about those responsible for events leading to the death of Josiah Tongogara.
In Shona a cleansing process is done to clean one of the haunting by an evil deed committed by him or those significantly related to him, in one sense it is an attempt to appease a wronged spirit. Why would one go for cleansing if they are purportedly clean and why the same would then be tasked with such a role?
A number of sources close to history have dismissed the official story behind General Tongogara’s death as mere smokescreen. Even enemies such as Ian Smith maintained that he was killed by his own people. And reliable sources say he did not even die on the 26th but on the 23rd of December 1979 not in accidents as the surrogates of empty propaganda would want us to believe but was ambushed by some of his own.
They say if you play by the sword you die by the sword. True it is, but the most puzzling element is who stands next on the death list and whose death list.