---

Survivors or architects? Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa

---

-Advertisement-

OPINION - The car crash that injured Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and killed his wife, Susan, on Friday could have been a pure accident. But speculation of foul play is rampant in Zimbabwe because of the many suspicious "accidents" that have killed dozens of Zimbabwean politicians since the country's independence in 1980.

Tsvangirai has survived several assassination attempts by supporters of his arch-enemy President Robert Mugabe, including one bizarre attack in which they tried to throw him from a 10th floor window. Tsvangirai's recent political marriage to Mugabe in a unity government has been rocky from the start.

Zanu PF hardliners fiercely oppose the deal because it threatens their interests. Although feuding Zanu liberation fighters openly murdered each other during the 1970's struggle, pre-arranged accidents became the method of choice for politicians bent on eliminating each other just before and after independence in 1980.

Josiah Tongogara, the revered Zanu guerrilla fighter who led the liberation war and had sharp differences with Mugabe about the direction that the country should take after 1980, died in a mysterious car accident on the eve of independence while travelling to Harare from Mozambique.

His death is taboo in Zimbabwe, but Enos Nkala, once a loyal Mugabe ally and in whose house Zanu was formed, claims to have written a book that reveals the truth about Tongogara's death. He says he wants it published only after his own death.

Among notable political figures to have died in suspicious crashes was Sydney Malunga, the Zanu PF parliamentarian and celebrated critic of Mugabe, whose death in 1994 was blamed on his "driver trying to avoid a black dog" that had veered into the road.

Malunga's death preceded that of Chris Ushewokunze, the prominent industry and commerce minister, who was killed in a car crash in 1995.

During Ushewokunze's funeral his brother, Herbert, delivered a speech that contained a message that was apparently directed at Mugabe and read: "Now that you are killing and burying everyone, who shall be left to bury you when you die?"

Others who died in road accidents included Zanu PF politicians Moven Mahachi, Border Gezi, Witness Rukarwa, William Ndangana, Elliot Manyika, Ntandazo Ngwenya and Zororo Duri.

Eddison Zvobgo and Solomon Mujuru survived fatal car accidents.

Post independence, the first victim of suspicious road carnages was Tsitsi Munyati, a Deputy Minister who was related to Enerst Tongogara and her crime was to make efforts of reviving a probe into her auncle's death in Mozambique.

Many suspected they had been done away with because of bitter intra-party feuding. Activist Christopher Giwa also had a suspicious crash and businessman Peter Pamire's car rolled in 1997 after widespread allegations that he was conducting an affair with Mugabe's young second wife, Grace.

Winston Changara, Mugabe's long-time bodyguard, also died in a crash after allegations that he was leaking information about the private activities of the First Lady.

The mysterious consecutive deaths in 2007 of three Zimbabwean army brigadiers who were said to be planing a coup to oust Mugabe entrenched perceptions that car accidents had become the ruling party's favourite method of disposing of its enemies.

In a slight variation on the plot, Brigadier-General Armstrong Gunda, the head of the presidential guard, was officially said to have been killed by a freight train, although there was no railway line in the area where this was reported to have happened.

Gunda's wife, who placed condolence messages in newspapers, which implicitly questioned the circumstances of her husband's death, died soon after in even more mysterious circumstances.

It is this history of vehicle accidents that has claimed the lives of so many opponents of Mugabe that is fuelling speculation about the car crash that killed Susan Tsvangirai and nearly took the life of her husband, Zimbabwe's Prime Minister.

-Advertisement-