The battle for Zimbabwe: Ethnicity and internal battles within Zanu
The battle for Zimbabwe: Ethnicity and the internal battles within Zimbabwe African National Union: Chitepo and Tongogara at the Centre
By Roy Muroyi
Yesterday marked exactly four decades and a year since the death of Herbert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo who died under some very unclear circumstances in Lusaka Zambia on the 18th of March 1975.
Chairman Chitepo as he was affectionately known by his legion of fans died when a car bomb exploded under his Volkswagen Beetle killing him and one of his “body guards” Silas Shamiso instantly. The official statement given by his comrades in Zanu is that Chitepo was killed by the Rhodesian forces he was fighting.
Having grown up under the regime I have followed closely the events of our country since the days of the liberation war and I have answered Cde Joshua Nkomo’s call during the burial of Lookout Mafela Masuku that young researchers should come up and retell these stories as they are.
As we remember the death of Chitepo I have taken it upon myself to pen this article reflecting on my opinions and various theories given on the death of the first Black Rhodesian lawyer as well as our dear Commander General Tongogara who died on 26 December 1979.
I have decided to look at Tongogara and Chitepo because of the roles I believe these two individuals had to play in the aftermath of the Liberation war for Zimbabwe. Both died in, mysterious circumstances and questions are still being raised as to whether the current political and economic conditions ravaging the people of Zimbabwe would have been the same had they lived to take up their places under an independent Zimbabwe.
They say power corrupts character, but could these great giants have turned villains at the taste of power like their comrades are doing now. They have decimated the economy, we have lost our basic human rights, and we have lost even the right to speak our mind. They continue to abduct us in broad day light .They keeping subverting the will of the people as they rigging elections each time we get to the ballot.
I am writing from pro-democracy standpoint and I have every right to pin point the little that I know and believe my great comrades could have done better to change our current situation. Today Mugabe symbolises an impressive command of Zimbabwe’s politics and its climate of fear, he continues to pronounce all the big English words to mean nothing.
I have always wondered who S. Mukanya is..?. Why does this character use a pseudonym name when he is actually penning historical curriculum that is leant in our schools. If someone does not have the audacity to scribe his real name on his writing can we trust such writings up to the extent of making them our school curriculum? .
In the same light I have also wondered why S.Mukanya and many other authors seem to favour propelling the legend of Robert Mugabe at the expense of those of Chairman Chitepo, General Tongogara, Joshua Nkomo, Leopold Takawira and many more who were far more decorated historical figures than Mugabe.
My answer to this question is expressed in this article. The present government seems to propel the legacy and legend of Mugabe and the Zezuru clan. The history of the Liberation war of Zimbabwe was characterised by issues of ethnicity, scheming and hatred within the Zanla and Zanu ranks.
I will in this article articulate the real issues I found to be the leading factors to the demise of Chitepo as well as his legacy. In penning this article I deliberately ignored events in the Zapu camp as I tried to concentrate on the internal battles within Zanu only.
Chitepo had worked as a lawyer from 1954 representing black nationalists such as Ndabaningi Sithole and Joshua Nkomo. When Ndabaningi was arrested by the Rhodesians Chitepo took over as leader of the war council ‘Dare Re Chimurenga” and this was done as per Ndabaningi’s recommendation. This did not go down well with the other Shona groups in Zanu as there were very serious ethnicity issues in the party during these days.
Chitepo however put Zanu on the world stage as he travelled different countries gunning support for the party as he was well connected. Having left a very lucrative job in Tanzania as Director of Public prosecution, Chitepo put his all in the struggle and gave his heart to Zanla cadres.
Fay Chung makes mention of the fact that It is a Zanu tradition to give a leader certain cadres to live with under the guise that they are protecting him and yet they will be working as spies this could have led to Chitepo’s demise as no clear job description or role is given to the cadres he was staying with and was with on the fateful day.
Ethnicity and Generational gaps
When Zanu was formed in 19963 it was formed under Enos Nkala’s roof in Highfield which was the harbour of political activism in those days. The reasons given for the formation of Zanu are a bit pooch to me but scholars like Edgar Tekere disclose that Enos Nlana (Ndebele) had a natural hatred towards Joshua Nkomo (Ndebele) Together with his Shona friend they went on to form Zanu in 1963.
Another school of thought points out to the generational gaps within the Nationalists themselves. There were three generations namely the first, second and third generation of nationalists during the war. The First generation of Nationalists comprised of leaders who started Zapu stemming their political activism from the days of Benjamin Burombo , these leaders included Joshua Nkomo, James Chikerema (Zezuru) George Silundika (Ndebele) Morton Malianga (Ndebele ) and many more.
The second generation included nationalists such as Ndabaningi Sithole, Rugare Gumbo (Karanga) Wilfred Mbanga (Karanga) Henry Hamadziripi (Karanga) Robert Mugabe (Zezuru), Edson Zvobgo Maurice Nyagumbo, Hebert Chitepo and many more. There is also a crop of Nationalists that where at school oversees such as Dydimus Mutasa and Many more who joined the war later on.
The first generation believed in negotiation while the second generation believed in absolute confrontation. This led to internal frictions in Zapu because of these two differing ideologies. Nkomo and his first nationalist generation wanted to form a government in exile which the second generation was opposed to.
Without a sound agreement Nkomo flew to Tanzania to tell Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who was one of the front line leaders that he had agreed with the rest of the Zapu leadership to form a government in exile. When Mwalimu then consulted the other leaders they disagreed. This strained relations between Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Nkomo.
This also gave Mugabe some advantage over Nkomo as Mwalimu was now prepared to work with the second generation Nationalist leaders than Nkomo. Julius Nyerere was perhaps the leading player of the three front line leaders that played a role to the liberation of Zimbabwe, so for one to be politically relevant they had to have the support of Mwalimu.
At its formation, Zanu was led by Ndabaningi Sithole (Ndau from Manicaland) as president and Leopold Takawira (Zezuru) as his deputy. There were serious ethnicity battles in Zanu as nationalists tended to side with people from their own clan to gain political mileage as well as control of the party.
Tongogara – Chitepo relations
In 1973 when Tongogara was elected to the high command, it was seen as a move by the Karanga to gain control of the party and ousting the Manyika from the supreme council structures. In 1974 Kaunda engineered peace talks which Tongogara strongly opposed. This strained relations between Kaunda and Tongo.
As I have mentioned in one of my articles The Tongogara doctrine, Chairman Chitepo and Josiah Tongogara worked together in steering the struggle going forward but these two were strongly opposed to each other in principle, especially after the Nhari and VaShambadzi rebellion when Tongogarara ordered the assassination of the rebels after Chitepo had given a punishment to the rebels.
This further strained relations between the two most decorated figures in the struggle. Tongogara felt Chitepo’s punishment was not detrimental enough as the rebels were his homeboys from Manicaland. It was clear from this moment that relations between the two had gone sour.
This, made it easy for the commission of inquiry that was set up by Kenneth Kaunda to pin point Tongogara and members of his Karanga clan described as the “karanga mafia” by James Chikerema as the culprits.
Chitepo had stayed in Zambia for some time he had developed quite a friendship with Kenneth Kaunda such that Kaunda made it his personal mandate to punish who ever had murdered Chitepo. When the commission of inquiry implicated Tongogara and members of his clan, Kaunda made sure they were brought to book and Tongogara was severely tortured in prison as he was by no means Kaunda’s favourite. It should be clarified however that the Tongogara –Chitepo feud was not a personal but a theoretical feud.
Chikerema mentions an incident at the Zambian State house where he threatened to shoot Tongo accusing his of murdering Chitepo, this shows the extent of hurt that was within the Zanu and Zanla ranks after Chitepo had been killed.
Exactly forty one years after Chitepo had died the issues of Chitepo’s murder is still doing the rounds ion the streets of Zimbabwe. Fingers have been pointed in different directions and some have also been killed for coming up with theories suggesting that so and so killed the Chairman. The Zambian government had an opportunity to clamp down on Zanu arresting its senior leaders who were out of prison.
According to Fay Chun in her book Re- living the Second Chimurenga Tongogara had always felt that the war should not be led by a civilian, he had always advocated for a military leader to lead the war. Tongo argued that the reason why guerrillas were dying in their numbers was because of the fact that the war was being led by a civilian leader. This made relations between Tongogara and Chitepo to be hostile.
At this time there were power struggles between the Karananga and the Manyika clan such that all suspicions were pointing at the Karanga as the murderers. Louise White in her book The Assassination of Chitepo clearly points out that the truth about the death of Chitepo may never be known what remains are theories and we can only deduce and make conclusions from those.
With Tongogara who was supposed to be a natural replacement of Chitepo in prison as well as the rest of the Karanga clan who constituted most of the Dare Re Chimurenga, there was a political vacuum. At this time Ndabaningi was still in prison with Mugabe, Nyagumbo, and Tekere.
According to Tekere in his book A lifetime of Struggle Ndabaningi was having secret concessions with the Rhodesians and the other jailed nationalists passed a vote of no confidence against him. Maurice Nyagumbo even wanted to kill himself expressing the great betrayal that Ndabaningi had committed.
Mugabe (Zezuru) was voted in as leader of Zanu in prison. When he was finally released he was tipped to take over as the Zanu leader. The front line leaders for some time did not approve of Mugabe’s leadership. Samora Michel of Mozambique even described Mugabe’s ascendency to power as a prison coup. Kenneth Kaunda did not even want to entertain Mugabe.
On the military wing Solomon Mujuru known by his nom de guerre Rex Nhongo (Zezuru) was leading the troops following the imprisonment of Tongogara in Zambia . Rex and Tongo had fought the war together some even described them as the Zanla twins as they wore the same regalia but Rex deputised Tongo.
There was however an unwritten law in the struggle that if a leader was imprisoned upon his return he would have to take up his position he had before going to prison so Rex knew that upon the return of Tongo, he would have to step back to occupy his position as deputy commander. When the Front line leaders finally accepted Mugabe as the Zanla leader it was certain that the Zezuru clan had gained political mileage over the other Shona clans.
Rex and Mugabe had to work hand in hand in order to consolidate both their positions in Zanu and Zanla . Mugabe was not very, much common with the guerrillas in the bush and camps but with the support of Rex everyone was forced into following Mugabe. Rex was highly feared and respected and whatever he said to the guerrillas they followed, this could be the sole reason why he was always labelled the “king maker”.
One cannot be put at fault for claiming that Joice Mujuru (Rex Nhongo’s wife)‘s ascendency to power as vice president of the republic was part of the pact made during the war. It is clear that Rex had control of the guerrillas as well as the party when Mugabe came from prison.
Rex might not have had any intentions of being president of maybe he knew he had not the capacity and eloquence that Mugabe had but surely he was the strongest force in Zanu. It’s possible that part of the deal which saw Mugabe become leader was that he would have to hand over power to Rex’s wife later after independence.
This theory might trigger a lot of questions and suspicious when it comes to the real issues leading to Rex’s death at a time when every one expected Mugabe to hand over power to Mujuru. Joice Mujuru’s ouster soon after the death of her husband also raises eyebrows to the agreements that were made during the war.
The Marange diamonds saga also points out to the nature of the relationship that existed between Rex and Mugabe. Rex’s wife is alleged to have walked out with nine billion dollars from the precious gemstones which Rex himself shipped to Dubai. Of cause Mugabe could not question his “maker “. There is no doubt that Rex died one of the richest men in Africa and yet he was just a retired army general. Perhaps the question we should ask our leaders is what made Rex so untouchable even out of government?.
In the absence of the best, Mugabe and Rex became the best. This also meant that the power ball had shifted the Karanga and the Manyika clans had lost control of the party all thanks to Kaunda and who ever murdered Chitepo.
Perhaps it was by coincidence that Mugabe was released just after Chitepo had died and there was a political vacuum within Zanu but the death of Chitepo seemed to have paved way for the Zezuru ascendency to power. In 1979 Tongogara was released from prison and he attended the Lancaster house conference it is said that his participation at the conference was a clear sign that Tongogara was not going to play second to anyone.
Besides the traditionalists prophesy mentioned by Fay Chung that a bald man was going to be the first president of Zimbabwe Tongogara played a leading role during the conference. This could have been seen as a direct threat to Zezuru power and made Tongogara a target by his comrades.
There were reports around 2001 that Mugabe was behind the death of Tongogara but Tekere who was a bitter enemy of Mugabe distanced Mugabe from these claims pointing out that Mugabe actually warned Tongo not to use the roads when going to Mozambique.
All the same Tekere’s theories on Mugabe should be taken with caution considering that after independence he would seem to oppose Zanu pf and then join it again within a short space of time when it suited him.
Edagar Tekere to my understanding had no clear stand point on Mugabe and as such his views on Mugabe should be treated. The Shona ethnic battles in Zanu might not have stopped the will of the people from prevailing but it certainly costed the people their future, their livelihoods, a free and fair election therefore losing their independence again and a better Zimbabwe.
Ethnicity power struggles led us to neo- colonialism which our fathers never imagined when they went to the bush. Zanu pf internal power struggles a total reversal of the independence gains!!!!!
Roy Muroyi is a pro-democracy promoter who also believes in youth emancipation and participation in all facets of governance. He is also the Secretary General of a youth movement called Youth Democratic Front –Zimbabwe. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on [email protected]
