Jason Ziyapapa Moyo exiled

• Continued from last week

JASON Ziyapapa Moyo (JZ) ended up leading the armed liberation struggle from Zambia from 1964 till his death in January 1977. It is necessary to give some explanation why it became necessary for Zapu cadres to go into exile. The first national political organisation to be formed in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) which was established on 12 September 1957 at the Mai Musodzi Hall (Mbare) in Harare. The Joshua Nkomo-led party was proscribed in February 1959 under the Emergency Regulations imposed by Premier Edgar Whitehead. The National Democratic Party (NDP) was formed on 1 January 1960 and by December 1961 it too was banned. It was succeeded by the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) on 17 December of the same year.

The emerging pattern was clear; each political party that came into existence was being banned and in the process party property was lost. A meeting was convened at Edward Pswarayi’s house in the Beatrice Cottages in Harare in January 1963 to map out responses to the repeated proscriptions. The meeting came after the end of the three-month long restriction period slapped on Zapu leaders including JZ. A decision was taken that if Zapu met with a similar fate no other party was going to be formed. Instead, Zapu would go underground. It would be clear that the only route available was the armed liberation struggle.

The envisaged armed struggle would follow the Algerian model where the cadres were based in Tunisia and Egypt and waged the armed liberation struggle against France, the colonial power.

Further, Joshua Nkomo, who was based in Egypt following the banning of the SRANC, visited Libya and Tunisia and met with the leaders of the two countries. Nkomo also met the guerrillas who were waging the struggle from neighbouring countries.

In pursuance of the decision to prosecute the armed liberation struggle, a sub-committee comprising JZ and President Robert Mugabe was created. As fate would have it, ZAPU faced a split which saw JZ largely working alone with President Robert Mugabe having gone to the new party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). At the same time, some leaders were toying around with the formation of a government in exile. This was to be the option if the Rhodesian Front (RF) government declared unilateral independence. Even if the Rhodesian Front did not proceed with UDI, a government in exile was going to be set up in order for it to represent the country in an official capacity at international conferences as well as the United Nations (UN).

The idea was not unprecedented as such a government had been formed by the Angolans where what was called the Government Revolutionary Angola in Exile(GRAE) headed by Holden Roberto who was based in Morocco. However, JZ was against the idea and viewed the project as impractical in view of the considerable distances involved. Nkomo on the other hand was for the idea and hoped that the existence of a government in exile was going to arm twist the British government into surrendering Southern Rhodesia to the black majority, in the process replacing the 1961 Constitution that made majority rule unattainable in the foreseeable future.

Nkomo’s stance was probably as a result of him having stayed in exile following the ban on the SRANC. He had attended the All-African Convention in Ghana and chose not to return to Rhodesia. Instead, he went to live in Cairo for a while before going to London where he stayed till October 1960 when he returned to take the leadership of the NDP from Michael Mawema. Meanwhile, JZ proceeded to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanganyika (now Tanzania).

Meanwhile, there were elements from outside of Matabeleland who began to denounce Nkomo, accusing him of being a leader who was not ‘dynamic enough’, who had no ideas about how to mount a revolution to free the country. Some amongst them were not for the idea that Zimbabwe should become independent under the leadership of an Ndebele-speaking person. The role of the Special Branch in the split cannot be dismissed in this school of thought as ZAPU had become too powerful at a time when the settler regime was not countenancing the inception of black majority rule. The white strategists knew that if they were going to cause a rift they only needed to whip up ethnic identities and their attendant emotions.

Following the meeting at Cold Comfort Farm outside Salisbury (now Harare) some ZAPU leaders started moving out of the country. JZ left for the United Kingdom where he ran the ZAPU office till his return to Lusaka after which the office was run by Chitsiga. James Chikerema also left for Dar-es-Salaam via Lusaka. At that time there were quite many ZAPU cadres who were staying in Tanganyika where Benjamin Madlela was the Party Representative. Amongst the cadres there were the following: Sikhwili Khohli Moyo, Mbhejelwa Moyo, Gordon Butshe, Ishmael Chigudu, Jabulani Ncube, Wilfred Pasipanodya, Tewe, Zengeni, Ngozi Danger Sibanda, Mjawunda Maphosa, Willibisi (Pulapula) Sibanda and David Mongwa Moyo (Sharpshoot). Some of them had run away from Southern Rhodesia to avoid arrest following their role in the petrol bombing of houses belonging to supporters of ZANU.

Cadres Dumiso Dabengwa and Akim Ndlovu who were active and leading the Sabotage Campaign left for Tanzania in the same year after Ndebele inadvertently exploded a bomb at a Canaan house in Highfield where Kotsho Dube lived with Enock Ngwenya and Ethel, the latter’s wife. Close to the house rented by Kotsho Dube were the houses belonging to President Robert Mugabe and Enos Nkala. Ngwenya who worked for Lever Brothers at the time was away attending the Outward Bound School and his wife had gone to Bulawayo to deliver a new baby. Kotsho Dube had just left the house where the bomb killed Lakatshona Ndebele’s son who had brought the bomb from Bulawayo where Akim Ndlovu and Dumiso Dabengwa were involved in the plot.

The two boarded a train to Lusaka hoping to get the news of the destruction of the Salisbury Post Office when they were safely outside the country. Ethan Dube, Josiah Ncube and Luke Mhlanga were in Livingstone. Instead it was the house belonging to Tenda George Nduna Moyo which went up in smoke. Both Ndebele and the house were reduced to smithereens. In 1964 Dabengwa, Akim and others went to the Soviet Union for military training under the Special Affairs headed by James Chikerema with JZ as his deputy. By 1965 they were back in Lusaka together with other trained guerrillas such as Robson Manyika, Report (Phelekezela) Mphoko, Ambrose Mutinhiri, Roma Nyathi, inter alia.

When the ZAPU office in Lusaka was set up some of the ZAPU leaders that had been based in Dar-es-Salaam came down. JZ also left London to live in Lusaka. The party had, with the help of Abraham Nkiwane, bought a facility, the Zimbabwe House where JZ was to live for the entire period that he was in Lusaka. At the time the ZAPU offices were opposite the Victoria Hotel Annex along Stanley Road (KoPatel). Later, the office was located further north at the corner of Stanley and Mumbwa roads.

In the final instalment we shall look especially at the purpose of the mission that JZ undertook in preparation for the initiation of the armed liberation struggle. We shall also seek a clearer understanding of the fall out between JZ and Chikerema and both the short and long term effects on the fate of ZAPU.