The Sunday News
THE atmosphere is tense, causing the man at the other end of a small table to be edgy. Two British security officials have invited him ostensibly to dinner. Top business is not food but political matters of concern. The venue is a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. The year is 1976 and leaders of the recently constituted Patriotic Front (PF) are attending a constitutional conference convened to resolve the Rhodesian constitutional impasse. The man being cajoled, intimidated and threatened in a way most overt is the head of the external wing of Zapu — Jason Ziyapapa Moyo.
“We are reliably informed that were it not for your opposition, Zapu would have accepted the British proposals presented at Geneva,” one of the officials quizzed JZ as the man was affectionately known to his colleagues in the liberation movement. An upright and committed cadre, JZ eloquently and defiantly explained why he was opposed to the proposals. These were trying moments for JZ. In the previous year the internal wing of his party — Zapu engaged the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith in constitutional talks that proved to have been a waste of precious time. Zapu was engaging in negotiations at a time when the armed liberation struggle was intensifying. JZ and some of his colleagues were extremely embarrassed by the ill-advised move by Joshua Nkomo and his party.
While the conference was still in progress, having commenced in October 1976, JZ was dispatched by Nkomo to go and represent Zapu during Angola’s independence celebrations. When he came back it was clear there was a heavy load weighing him down. Asked about his experiences in Luanda he said, “The celebrations were nice, but sometimes I wonder whether I should not ask for political asylum in Angola and forget about this entire struggle where some people don’t seem to be deeply committed to the liberation of Zimbabwe.”
Though his confidante, in response, advised him that he was not in the struggle because of other people’s commitment or lack of same, that did not seem to lift the burden off JZ’s mind. Zapu engaged in the talks with Ian Smith apparently as a result of pressure from some heads of Front Line states who colluded with other international political circles such as the Commonwealth Secretariat and probably some church organisations too. However, JZ remained openly and unreservedly opposed to any form of engagement with the Rhodesian regime.
By January of 1977 the Geneva conference collapsed. The Patriotic Front delegates returned home. Discussions about consolidating the Patriotic Front were continuing between the leaders of Zapu and Zanu. Leaders of the latter were then based in Maputo, Mozambique. In the midst of political work the leaders got time off to attend to social matters, especially those of the heart. JZ had received a telephone call from a woman acquaintance in Francistown, Botswana who promised to send him a Christmas gift. JZ advised her to send the parcel by registered mail. That was at a time when telephone communication between Botswana and Zambia were channelled through Rhodesia where they were monitored by the Rhodesian intelligence who recruited many agents both in Botswana and Zambia. After all it was the Rhodesian Special Branch that assisted in the setting up of Zambian intelligence (see a book titled ‘For the President’s Eyes Only’.
Zapu had at that time secured a scanning machine as a security measure following incidents during which three members of the liberation movements were killed in Zambia and Tanzania. Frelimo leader Eduardo Mondlane was killed by a parcel bomb. George Nyandoro, in the company of Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, passed through Frelimo offices to pick up some items that they were taking with them to Lusaka. After leaving the offices in the morning, the duo picked up James Chikerema, then the leader of the external wing of Zapu. Hardly two hours later on arriving in Lusaka, they got the news from BBC that Mondlane had died. After the departure of Nyandoro and Ndlovu, the Frelimo leader went to the post office to pick his mail. It was the parcel that he had personally picked up that killed him. Later Frelimo and ANC officials met similar deaths.
It was after these mishaps that Zapu acquired a letter scanning machine. Apparently, JZ had phoned from Maputo instructing Amos Jack Ngwenya who was Zapu’s Administrative Secretary in Lusaka not to open a parcel that he was expecting from Francistown. Of course the extent and scope of operations of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) established in 1974 under the leadership of Ken Flower were not known to Amos Ngwenya. Strategic personnel in post offices in both Botswana and Zambia had been recruited as agents.
Whenever JZ returned to Lusaka from party business he, as a matter of routine, first called at the office used by the party which belonged to John Makiwa. Between Lusaka and Maputo there was a single flight per week, on Fridays. JZ and Joseph Msika went to Maputo on PF business. That meant they were going to come back the following Friday. Indeed, they returned and, as part of routine, JZ reported at the office where both Amos Ngwenya and John Nkomo were present.
JZ’s parcel from Francistown had already been collected and Ngwenya was keeping it. In fact, as Ngwenya told me during the several interviews I conducted with him, he said he sent a junior official to collect the parcel but the post office official, most likely a CIO agent, would not release the parcel into the custody of the junior official. Zapu’s postal address was 1567, Lusaka. As a result, Ngwenya personally went to collect the parcel. However, on the fateful day, a Friday, when JZ called at the office, Amos Ngwenya forgot to give the parcel to him.
The following day, a Saturday, JZ and other party officials went to the office. The office was a kind of big hall with four tables and several chairs. Dumiso Dabengwa, John Nkomo, Jane Ngwenya, Sikhwili Moyo (UMadlezibabayo), Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, John Mbedzi and Desire Khupe were present. Moyo and Khupe were playing a game of draft on one of the tables in the vast office. As if prompted by premonition JZ, who sat directly in front of Amos Ngwenya said, “Isn’t this a bomb?” Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu weighed in and said,” But Ngwenya, why do you give us unopened letters?”
“Stop being a coward Ndlovu,” responded Ngwenya nonchalantly.
Soon after that John Mbedzi said to Ndlovu, “Let’s go, Tommy Mwamlima might think we are no longer coming.” The two had an appointment with Tommy the Zambian journalist. The exit from the office used by Zapu led into a sanitary lane and then onto a service station owned by Mack Maphenduka Moyo. The two were still in the sanitary lane when they heard a mighty and deafening explosion. They rushed back only to be met by bloody and ghastly scenes. The exploded parcel bomb ripped open JZ’s stomach. His intestines littered the floor where several papers had caught fire. His forehead indicated it had received some heavy impact and an object seemed to have penetrated his head.
Many of the Zapu officials sustained injuries, some from burns sustained when they ran helter skelter in an effort to extinguish the flames that were engulfing the office. Nkomo and Dabengwa in particular were the worst injured. Jane Ngwenya too was injured. It was all over. JZ was no more. Opposition to a possible sell-out settlement had been removed. It was victory for Western-initiated détente which was calculated to apply brakes to the gathering tempo of the armed liberation struggle. A major step towards the final solution was to arrange a constitutional conference and forestall outright military victory which would have given the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact (the Communist Bloc) some upper hand in the geopolitically strategic southern Africa.
Information at hand suggests the woman acquaintance in Francistown was quizzed by the Botswana police who discovered that, after all, the parcel she posted to JZ was still in Francistown. The Rhodesian intelligence was smart; all they wanted was the woman’s handwriting, known to Zapu officials manning the Lusaka office, which they got by getting hold of the addressed envelope after removing the contents and replacing them with a bomb which they dutifully sent to Lusaka.
But who was JZ? Next week we shall look at the man’s early life and entry into trade unionism and subsequently into nationalist politics and the armed liberation struggle until his untimely death in 1977.
