The Sunday News
VETERAN nationalist and Zapu Vice-President Jason Ziyapapa Moyo died exactly 40 years ago, that is on 22 January 1977 when a letter bomb exploded on his hands. Forty years later his death is still shrouded in mystery as people continue to ask questions on who really killed the maverick nationalist. In tribute to Cde Moyo former Zapu director for information and publicity Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu wrote articles on the death of Cde Moyo.
The first instalment was published last week and today we carry the second and last. Below is Ndlovu’s piece:
THE parcel indeed came and was taken from the post office by the PF– Zapu’s office orderly, Carlos, while JZ and Joseph Msika (late Vice-President) were still in Mozambique. Carlos gave the parcel to Jack Ngwenya.
Msika and JZ returned on a Friday and were duly met at the Lusaka International Airport by a team of journalists organised by the author of this article.
Ngwenya forgot to give the parcel to JZ until the following day at about 9am. On handing over the parcel, Ngwenya said:
“Nansi i-parcel leyana, ngikhohliwe ukukunika yona izolo.” (Here is that parcel, I forgot to give it you yesterday).
One or two people who were within earshot of Ngwenya and JZ later said JZ remarked as he opened the package: “Kungasi amabhombu enu wonala nje Jack?” and the parcel violently exploded on his lap into his face, ripping open his abdomen, and a missile of some type hitting him right between the eyes and boring into his brain.
A fire started immediately in the office, indicating that that bomb, (for that is what it was and not a gift from “Masibhikiri”) was made of highly inflammable substance or substances.
Present in that office were Jane Ngwenya, John Landa Nkomo, Sikhwili Khohli Moyo, Dumiso Dabengwa, Desire Khupe, and of course Amos “Jack” Ngwenya who was sitting across the same table as JZ, that is viz-a-viz JZ.
Dabengwa and John Landa Nkomo received slight injuries, especially burns as they fought the fire, and succeeded to put it out.
The Zambian Government with the assistance of Botswana and the active participation of PF–Zapu launched an investigation but drew a blank. A layman’s look at the possible origin of the bomb shows the following:
The Frolizi elements could be suspected as the crisis within Zapu had generated a great deal of tension between Chikerema on one side and JZ on the other;
The hostile criticism by JZ of Joshua Nkomo’s meetings with Ian Smith could have resulted in his assassination but not necessarily by Joshua Nkomo who was (according to the writer of this article) a very, very large-hearted personality. But other evil-minded people could have taken advantage of the unhealthy relationship between the two to get rid of JZ with the belief that some people would suspect Joshua Nkomo. It is also possible that some staunch Nkomo supporters could have decided to get rid of JZ because of his criticism of Nkomo’s accommodating political approach;
The Smith regime could have been responsible for obvious reasons, but especially because JZ was actually responsible for getting Zapu closer and closer to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact bloc countries, all of which were communist countries, and it was at the height of the cold war. JZ had much earlier applied to join the South African Communist Party;
The Zapu military strategy was attributed to JZ whose admiration of the North Vietnamese military strategies was well known. The Rhodesians and their South African Boer allies had reason to wish JZ out of the way;
The Botswana woman, “uMasibhikiri” could have been working with the Rhodesian regime’s agents for monetary gains.
That is most likely in view of the fact that the Smith regime was offering not less than $5 000 for information leading to the arrest or the killing of any senior Zapu or Zanu leader. Ethan Dube had been captured and taken away by Selous Scouts from a girlfriend’s house in 1974;
The British government could have had an interest in getting rid of JZ if we take into consideration the interview the two UK spies had with him in Geneva the previous year in which they accused him of being responsible for the rejection of their constitutional proposals.
The proposals in question were those that resulted in the creation of the short lived Rhodesia-Zimbabwe regime nominally headed by Reverend Muzorewa.
It is important to point out that that discredited regime at some stage decided to request Joshua Nkomo to return home to lead it. Ian Smith was duly sent to Zambia to persuade Nkomo to return home for that purpose.
Smith met Nkomo, President Kaunda and the Nigerian Foreign Minister who was Brigadier Joseph Garba at that time. The historic meeting was at a guest house in Zambia’s Eastern Province.
Joshua Nkomo firmly told the meeting that he would very willingly return only if he was with President Robert Mugabe, and the two returning to lead Zimbabwe’s Government as Patriotic Front co-leaders.
The Nigerian Foreign minister (Brigadier Garba) then offered to fly to Maputo in Mozambique to talk to Comrade Robert Mugabe about the matter.
He did, and a few days later, President Kaunda received a telephone call from President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania asking him why he and Ian Smith were favouring Joshua Nkomo.
That was the end of that proposal. What followed a year or so later was the Malta constitutional attempt in January 1978. It was also aborted.
Meanwhile, Nkomo announced that the armed struggle had reached “a turning point”. That simply meant that the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) would from that time onwards go out the whole hog with the objective of not just making the country ungovernable but actually liberating and seizing various regions.
There were many such areas in various districts when the Lancaster House Conference was convened in November 1979. That conference actually pre-emptied the liberation armed struggle whose inevitable victory was by then quite obvious.
Whoever was responsible for JZ’s death, what shocked the author of this article was that a senior Zapu official gave a post office -delivered parcel to a nationalist leader without first thoroughly screening it.
That should not have been done, whatever else to the contrary in view of the number of parcel bomb deaths of prominent African leaders earlier. Frelimo’s Eduardo Mondlane was killed by a letter bomb in Dar es Salaam a couple of years before JZ.
Could we not have learnt a lesson from these deadly incidents? Why not? JZ’s death was one of those completely unnecessary tragedies that could have been avoided had a little bit more caution been used to handle that parcel.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email. [email protected]
