The Sunday News
THE series of articles on the death of veteran nationalist Jason Ziyapapa Moyo who was killed by a parcel bomb on 22 January in 1977 and have been published by Sunday News in the past four weeks have drawn a lot of interest with a lot of feedback being relayed to this paper.
Some of the people who responded to the articles have been of the feeling that the articles were a deliberate attempt to expose the ineptidute of the Zapu/Zipra security during the armed struggle while others were of the view that it was important to record the history as it happened for the benefit of future generations.
The four articles published under this column were authored by former Zapu director of information and publicity and veteran journalist Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu who also served as the party’s representative to Algeria. Ndlovu wrote the first two.
Prominent historian Pathisa Nyathi wrote the last two. However, this week Gwakuba Ndlovu felt he needed to add another chapter to clear some issues that have been raised following the publication of the articles. Below is his piece:
Two articles I recently wrote about J Z Moyo’s death as part of The Sunday News Lest We Forget series attracted a variety of comments ranging from the critical to complimentary ones that requested the author to produce a detailed political account of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle from an exiled Zapu perspective.
The detailed account would be an aspect of the history of the struggle as observed by this author as an active political participant in the process, and should be treated as a medium term project. Meanwhile, it is important to correct some impressions that were created by some commentators on whether or not the Zapu administrative security personnel should have taken measures to scan the parcel bomb, and thus save JZ Moyo’s life.
Zapu was at the height of the armed struggle when Moyo was killed by that parcel bomb. Similar parcel or letter bombs had killed about four other freedom fighters of other sister organisations. Security awareness should have been at its highest in every liberation movement at that time.
Places where high security measures were vital were residential houses, including camps, administrative offices, storerooms used by the logistics departments, clinics and detention centres where captured enemy agents were held. Motor vehicles and motor cycles were also closely watched in case they could be sabotaged and so were foodstuffs brought to the offices by outsiders or well-wishers.
J Z Moyo was killed by a parcel bomb right inside the Zapu administrative office, the parcel having passed through the hands of the party’s administrative secretary, Amos “Jack” Ngwenya. To say that Ngwenya did not scan the parcel because he and everybody knew that it was expected, and was from a known friend or lover of J Z Moyo is to be naïve to the extreme. Why?
Because the (note the article “the” as opposed to the article “a”) basic principle of security is to suspect everybody and everything. An intelligent security person is never expected to take anyone or anything for granted. That is especially so in a war situation, and Zapu was in that situation.
Amos “Jack” Ngwenya was the last person of Zapu’s administrative security line. He should have been efficiently bold enough to put that parcel under or through a scan, or refuse to pass it on to Moyo. We were all aware that Zambian telephone calls to Botswana were monitored by the Rhodesians. We were also aware that the Smith regime had agents in Zambia.
It is the opposite of wisdom to say that because a leader is in love with some woman, he must be allowed to eat anything from her, untested or untasted by security personnel. Nor would it be wise to allow that leader’s lover’s motor vehicle free access to the camps or residences of the leader’s political organisation, particularly in a war situation.
One or two people who were near enough to JZ Moyo just before he attempted to open the deadly parcel bomb say that his last words were: “Angasi ama-bomb enu wona la nje Jack?” (Are these not your bombs Jack?) How should a person of above average intelligence have reacted to that question?
He should have said: “Ah, nxa ukhumbula ukuthi kungaba kuli-bomb, kungcono siliskane.” (If you think it may be a bomb, we had better scan it). But did Amos “Jack” Ngwenya say and do that? No, he sat right there across the table while his apprehensive leader inadvertently triggered a bomb that killed him outright.
We should understand and accept that “Jack” did not know that the parcel was, in fact, a lethal bomb. Had he known, he would not have sat an arm’s length from JZ Moyo as he (JZ Moyo) opened it.
But not knowing that the parcel was a deadly bomb did not make him less responsible for his leader’s security. He ought to have suspected that the parcel could be a bomb just as JZ Moyo himself said to him (Jack) a few seconds before the bomb killed him.
It is of interest to narrate here that shortly after the tragedy, I asked T G Silundika what he thought about Amos “Jack” Ngwenya’s behaviour in the whole affair. Silundika replied in TjiKalanga: “Jack wakafala kubi.” (Jack is very unintelligent).
Of some significance to both Silundika and me at that time was the fact that Amos “Jack” Ngwenya was a close relative of T G Silundika, (a malume, basekulu), JZ Moyo was also my maternal uncle (basekulu, umalume).
It was that usually insignificant dimension that was involved in that brief discussion between me and Silundika a couple of days before the burial.
It is, of course, rather unfair to narrate all this after the death of some of those people who were major dramatis personae in that tragedy.
That is, however, the way history is recorded; in many cases actions, opinions and characters of history — makers are analysed posthumously, leading to either positive or negative judgmental conclusions depending on the scientific and social class learning of the historian.
Incidentally, it is not true that the findings of an investigation into J Z Moyo’s death were not made public because about two months after the terrible incident, the PF-Zapu President, Dr Joshua Nkomo, told a Conference of Militants at the Freedom Camp (FC) that a team comprising Zambian, Botswana and Zapu security personnel had mounted a thorough investigation and had found that the Botswana woman (Masibhikiri) who was thought to have sent the parcel had not, in fact, sent any parcel to J Z Moyo.
There was no record anywhere in Botswana of a registered parcel or letter having been sent to J.Z Moyo in January 1977 or earlier. The parcel’s origin was unknown, so was the sender, and the parcel itself was destroyed by the fire that followed the explosion.
Some militants, including Cde Feso, asked why the parcel had not been scanned, and Nkomo said JZ had earlier instructed Amos “Jack” Ngwenya not to bother himself about that.
With that announcement, PF-Zapu leadership faced the armed struggle without the unstinting courage and tenacity of JZ Moyo, one of the three prominent black leaders of this land’s armed revolution. The others being Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo and Reuben Jamela.
The three launched the Southern Rhodesia African Trades Union Congress (SRATC) in Bulawayo in 1955, to continue a process of struggle that culminated in the 1979 Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in London.
Had J Z Moyo lived, it is most likely that Zimbabwe’s independence terms would have been dictated to Smith and Muzorewa by Patriotic Front armed forces (Zipra and Zanla) in Salisbury rather than by the British Government to the Patriotic Front (PF) and the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia regime in London.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email- [email protected]
