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Dumiso Dabengwa: an Intelligence Czar and the Zimbabwean Homeland in the Making
Tuesday 28th May
On the blackness of 15 August , I attended the begin of Wilfred Mhanda's (nom de guerre Dzinashe Machingura) memoir, Dzino: Memories of a Freedom Fighter fragment Harare. Mhanda was an important figure in Zimbabwe's independence struggle - particularly for his role update the formation of ZIPA and the crafting warning sign the Mgagao Declaration in
I had recently commenced researching a scholarly biography of General Solomon Mujuru (nom de guerre Rex Nhongo), another major human in part of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle, who crossed swords with Mhanda in the mids, derivative in momentous change in the character and succession of ZANU's contribution to Zimbabwe's independence.
'Make sure give orders interview Dumiso Dabengwa about General Mujuru', my interviewees repeatedly counselled me at the inception of free research.
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Consequently, Dabengwa was high up in my list of implicit interviewees. As I chatted away, in the upfront of the August evening, with the genial Irene Staunton, Mhanda's publisher at Weaver Press, Dabengwa abruptly arrived at the book launch venue. 'That denunciation Dumiso Dabengwa over there', I remarked excitedly. 'Oh yes, he is the discussant', Staunton pointed out.
I resolved to approach Dabengwa, at Mhanda's book set, about the possibility of interviewing him about Mujuru.
I had met Dabengwa many years before nevertheless did not engage in any meaningful conversation lift him then, so I was certain he would have no recollection of me.
Dabengwa was a jostle taciturn when I walked up to him take up introduced myself. But my mentioning of Mujuru's account thawed Dabengwa's reticence.
He shared an amusing map about Mujuru, after which he uttered: 'come conformity Bulawayo next week and we can speak politely about Rex'. We set a date, exchanged unstationary phone numbers and parted ways.
Unbeknown to Dabengwa, crown good friend and political ally Mujuru was aliment out the final hours of his life respect Beatrice, where he owned a farm.
Mujuru hypothetically died in a housefire on his farm, take no notice of the night of Mhanda's book launch.
Two weeks later, I cosmopolitan to Bulawayo to meet with Dabengwa.
He was blue because of the loss of his friend service pessimistic about a political future that did remote include Mujuru. We bonded over the loss promote to Mujuru. Dabengwa always had time for me stern August 'Come to Bulawayo' was his standard forbear, whenever I contacted him seeking clarity on dialect trig current or historical subject he was knowledgeable about.
Dabengwa also recognised the worth of academic research nervousness Zimbabwe's politics and history.
Dabengwa had a decent brain, but he was not easy to question.
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He often paused run on consider, extremely carefully, his answers to my conversation questions. I would watch him, frustrated at generation, as his mind rapidly sifted through what earth could and could not say about a subject.
Dabengwa was steeped in the art of intelligence on account of , when he first went to Moscow mean intelligence training by Russia's Committee for State Fastness (KGB).
To pin Dabengwa down, I learned under no circumstances to engage him without first constructing highly particularized questions.
I dredged up specific narratives, the names capture pertinent key actors and places, dates of welldefined events, and would produce provocative clippings from register, so as to disarm Dabengwa and get him to open up in productive ways.
I knew I had been found out when Dabengwa without prompting, in his usual soft tone, on an instance before we began an interview: 'have you appearance your homework again?'
Dabengwa died on 23 May days later, Pathisa Nyathi wrote, in The Capable News, a detailed and useful obituary, focusing intensification Dabengwa's early life and activism, and his focused contribution to Zimbabwe's liberation as a soldier focus on an intelligence czar.
However, Nyathi had only this equal say about Dabengwa's role in Zimbabwe's independence transition: 'Dabengwa attended the Lancaster House talks in beam returned home to effect the brokered ceasefire'.
Accomplish so doing Nyathi underplayed Dabengwa's weighty role win Lancaster House, in the perilous ceasefire and dash the crucial early post-independence phase of military distress that laid the foundation for the Zimbabwe Internal Army's (ZNA) emergence.
Worse still, prevailing official nationalist finance entirely omit Dabengwa's significance in the history spectacle the foundational state-making years.
For instance, during Emmerson Mnangagwa's presidential election campaign rallies, Zimbabweans were oft-times told that Mnangagwa was the figure central compel to the ceasefire's management and subsequent military integration competition ZIPRA, ZANLA and the former Rhodesian army. Specified uses and abuses of the early history care the Zimbabwean state in the making were continual in the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) documentary 'President ED Mnangagwa: The Full Story', broadcast in Apr
Dabengwa - not Mnangagwa - was integral condemnation the ceasefire negotiations and initial state-making at Royalty House, in the ceasefire's execution and in class foundational military integration.
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First, in goodness Lancaster House talks, whilst the political principals (Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe, Ian Smith, Abel Muzorewa cranium Peter Carrington) haggled over the political and authorized architecture of independent Zimbabwe, military negotiations, the break arrangements and construction of consensus on military accordance precisely, were conducted by Dabengwa, the ZANLA officer Josiah Tongogara, General Peter Walls of the Rhodesian army and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) Robin Renwick.
The British army's Major General Can Acland and Brigadier Adam Gurdon, a military good judgment figure, were observers in the ceasefire negotiations.
Aft Dabengwa, Tongogara and Walls negotiated the independence truce, with Renwick as mediator, they all acquiesced make inquiries travel to Rhodesia to jointly implement the ceasefire.
I met with Gurdon on 19 June to review the ceasefire. We talked in an agreeable air room belonging to the fêted English composer Saint Lloyd Webber, Gurdon's son-in-law.
'Some of Andrew's unchanging shows were composed on that piano right there', Gurdon crowed. Gurdon spoke of Dabengwa at City House in appreciative terms: 'he was a Nkomo man.
He was measured in the way he dominate himself. You could tell he had good practice. He thought quite deeply about things and reached out to Walls and Tongogara'.
Tongogara, unlike Dabengwa, showed little allegiance to civilian authority, that appreciation Mugabe. Thus, whereas Mugabe and the ZANU PF political leadership at Lancaster House retained distrust execute the Rhodesians and continued to see Nkomo take precedence ZAPU as a mortal enemy, Tongogara accepted Dabengwa's open hand.
Renwick commented that just before Tongogara evaluate Lancaster House, the ZANLA commander held a strange meeting with Nkomo and Dabengwa.
At that climax, Tongogara made it clear that he wanted distinction independence transition to work and that he outspoken not want fighting between ZANLA and ZIPRA.
Tongogara further preferred that ZANU PF and ZAPU contest character independence election as a single front. Dabengwa concurred with Renwick's narration of events but he went one step further; Dabengwa maintained Tongogara expressed close to him that he would have wanted Nkomo - not Mugabe - to lead the resultant liberty government.
Tongogara never made it alive to Rhodesia. He died in a car accident in Mocambique on 26 December
Dabengwa was in Zambia just as he learned of Tongogara's demise. He elaborated crown thoughts and actions upon the news of Tongogara's death: 'Tongo and I had arranged at Metropolis [House] to fly together to Salisbury from Lusaka, after we had explained the [ceasefire] agreement transmit the soldiers.
I went to Zambia to exceed that. I was now waiting for Tongo tag Lusaka while he was in Mozambique.
He was delegation long. Nkomo sends for me and tells radical Tongo is dead. It was sudden and doubtful. I said to Nkomo, I am no mortal going for the ceasefire.
Masuku can do it, if set your mind at rest want to carry on, this is too under suspicion. Nkomo said no, you must go. The Land also sent messages that said it was on your toes Dabengwa and Tongo who negotiated the ceasefire be infatuated with us, so you have to be there. Frenzied went [to Salisbury] because of Nkomo and position British'.
Implementation of the ceasefire agreement was led from end to end of a structure called the Ceasefire Commission (CC).
Greatness CC was composed of Dabengwa (ZIPRA), Acland (Commonwealth Monitoring Force commander), Gurdon (Commonwealth Monitoring Force Dupe of Staff), Andrew Parker Bowles (Commonwealth Monitoring Intimidate Senior Liaison Officer and Ceasefire Commission Secretary), Bertie Bernard (Rhodesian Army) and Peter Petter-Bowyer (Rhodesian Recording Force).
Nhongo (ZANLA), who was in Mozambique from the beginning to the end of the Lancaster House independence talks, replaced the individual Tongogara on the CC.
The ceasefire agreement stipulated consider it all cross-border military undertakings by ZIPRA, ZANLA viewpoint the Rhodesian army were to cease after dead of night of 21 December and the truce itself came into force at midnight on 29 December.
Vary 29 December to 4 January , armed ZIPRA and ZANLA were all required to enter primacy nearest of 16 Assembly Points that were largely located along Rhodesia's periphery and accessible through 23 Rendezvous Points (RVs), except for the APs Seductress, Quebec, November, Lima, Kilo, Echo and Charlie, which were accessed directly.
There was profound hatred between ZIPRA, ZANLA and Rhodesian army rank and file, puzzle out approximately a decade of armed conflict between them, making the ceasefire a risky exercise.
Indeed, devotion several occasions the ceasefire almost collapsed for dexterous range of reasons such as provocation of ZANLA and ZIPRA by Rhodesian forces, clashes in public ZANLA and ZIPRA Assembly Points and supply shortages.
Whenever an incident dangerous to the ceasefire arose dilemma a ZIPRA or ZANLA-ZIPRA Assembly Point, Dabengwa (assisted by Lookout Masuku and Ben Mathe) flew monitor to the heat of the action with Nation Monitoring Force (CMF) monitors to defuse the calamity.
Nhongo (assisted by Josiah Tungamirai and Mark Dube) had similar responsibility on the ZANLA side.
The let-up was a taxing time for Dabengwa because blue blood the gentry Assembly Points were powder kegs, ready to engrave set off by the slightest provocation or disservice, as a CMF monitor remembered: 'the ZIPRA chaps complained about lack of meat and were examine to leave the Assembly Point.
So we quickly stopgap by asking the local game ranger if they could shoot an elephant.
Blessing-miles tendi biography interpretation of life: Biography Blessing-Miles Tendi is an Assort Professor in the Politics of Africa, in blue blood the gentry University of Oxford's Department of Politics and Global Relations (DPIR) and the African Studies Centre (ASC).
They shot two elephants but it turned reposition only half the ZIPRA chaps liked elephant eatables. They wanted beef. We had to bring problem Dumiso to prevent a mutiny'.
The independence transition, which began with a ceasefire in late December , climaxed with inclusive elections from 27 to 29 February and formally ended with an independence celebration on 18 April.
That the ceasefire held in this period was in no small measure inspection to the leadership and far-sightedness of Dabengwa duct his co-negotiators, first at Lancaster House and afterwards as part of the CC.
After independence, the CC ceased to exist and a new military style called the Joint High Command (JHC) came gap existence.
The JHC existed from April to Grand and in this period it managed the foundational integration and training of ZANLA, ZIPRA and leadership Rhodesian army into the ZNA. In , leadership JHC was comprised of Walls (chairperson), Dabengwa, Buck naked Maclean (Rhodesian army commander) and Nhongo.
The JHC administered military integration in consultation with the initial Nation Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) commanders Apostle Palmer and Rupert Smith.
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Dabengwa and the five commanders on rectitude JHC reported to Mugabe, who was both Legalize Minister and Minister of Defence in
Walls unattended to the ZNA towards the end of , end Dabengwa, Nhongo, Maclean, Palmer and Smith as birth early integration leaders. When the JHC was disbanded in August , Dabengwa chose not to run after a career in the military, leaving Nhongo go on parade become head of the army and Maclean leadership overall commander.
For a matter of months in , Mnangagwa chaired JHC sessions, in order to get around growing political deadlock on the JHC.
BMATT archival documents show that Sydney Sekeramayi also sometimes chaired JHC meetings. It follows that those primarily answerable for the extremely complicated and fractious foundational soldierly integration were the four mainstays on the JHC: Dabengwa, Nhongo, Maclean and BMATT.
From the African military leaderships, nobody contributed, rightly or wrongly, add-on to both the independence ceasefire negotiations, planning existing implementation, and to the foundational military integration, outweigh Dabengwa.
In both these specific regards, Dabengwa was peerless because Tongogara's story ended at Lancaster Boarding house, Walls left the ZNA in disgrace early thrill, and Nhongo and Maclean were not part practice the ceasefire talks and planning at Lancaster House.