DAILY UPDATES

 


 










 

BTH investigates murder of ZEC election official

Back to Home Page

24 October 2008

Transcribed by Brilliant Pongo

Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and welcome to Behind the Headlines my name is Lance Guma. The body of a senior Zimbabwe Election Commission official who disappeared in June this year, turned up at a hospital mortuary in Norton on Thursday last week. According to the Zimbabwe Times website the body of Ignatius Mushangwe, the ZEC director of training and development, was found murdered and his partially burnt body dumped in the bush.

Now Mushangwe courted the ire of Mugabe’s regime by leaking information on how the government had printed 9 million ballot papers when there was less than 6 million registered voters. He also exposed how ZEC ordered 600 000 postal ballots to be used by just a few thousand police and soldiers. This week on Behind the Headlines we have decided to investigate, who killed Mushangwe and why?

To help us answer some of these questions we have former civil servant Liberty Mupakati. Thank you for joining us Mr Mupakati.

Mupakati: Thank…you are welcome.

Guma: Now clearly something happened here which is not right Liberty and first of all who was Mushangwe and apparently you knew him?

Mupakati: I knew him because I actually worked with him for a while in Marondera. I know from the mid-nineties he was the District Registra for Marondera District. The Registra Generals’ Department is a department in the Ministry of Home Affairs and he was like responsible for Marondera District there.

Guma: OK and clearly this new position (in ZEC) Director of Training and Development, that was a promotion I take it.

Mupakati: Ya it was a promotion. After he left Marondera he was actually promoted to go to be the provincial head in Masvingo. And then from Masvingo that’s when he was head-hunted to go to ZEC as a Director of Logistics…..Polling and Logistics.

Guma: Where are these guys gotten from in terms of recruitment? Are they picked up from the army, the prison service or just in general anywhere? Where do these guys get picked up from?

Mupakati: ZEC I think there are only like 2 people who came from the Registra General’s department, I think its 3. Sekuramayi who is the Deputy Chief Elections Officer. He was formerly a deputy to Tobaiwa Mudede. And then you also have the other 2. You have Mushangwe and Murenje. There were actually with the Registra General’s Department.

But the others (Utolile) Silaigwana was in the army, he was a former teacher in the army before his promotion. Then you have Dominic Chidakuza who is the secretary for ZEC. He was a law officer in the Attorney General’s office. And then he was transferred over to ZEC when ZEC was incepted.

And then you also have the others who are soldiers like your (George) Chiweshe formerly a soldier and then later a judge. There should be about 2 more soldiers in there. Nyikayaramba has since moved on but he is still like part of ZEC anyway. Most of them are from the army, intelligence services, from the police force and the rank and file civil service.

Guma: Now the Mushangwe scandal if I may call it in terms of the fact that they did kill him, was he the only person targeted. I remember from the pre-interview discussion you mentioned another official.

Mupakati: Obviously, at the height of the problems in ZEC, at the height of the election dispute, soon after the March election when Tsvangirai won and they had to do things, so that he could not get an outright majority.

Obviously there were people within ZEC who were giving out information to other people and my understanding then talking from people within ZEC and other people who worked outside ZEC who had an interest in the outcome of the elections, they thought either Mushangwe or Murenje who is the Director of Training, where out for the taking, which meant one of them could actually be killed for divulging too much information to people who were not necessarily supposed to be knowing what was going on.

Guma: MDC official Morgan Komichi told the Zimbabwe Times that during a Political Parties Liaison Committee meeting, Mushangwe ‘stood his ground in saying that ballot papers should only be issued to police details on duty and not to all and sundry. Is that the reason why you think they lynched him?

Mupakati: Ya obviously it was a culmination of numerous events. As you will recall, soon after the elections, the results were known by, I think it was a Sunday. Just after the results…actually the people who were leaking that information, unfortunately one of them is assumed to be the late Mushangwe.

As you might be aware after the first elections at the end of March, a decision was then taken to get all the soldiers and all the police force and all the prison services staff to actually vote in front of their superiors. The fact that Mushangwe tried to put a spanner in that, tried to actually stand his ground, that obviously what they were planning was illegal, might actually, probably, brought his fate probably much faster than it was planned.

Guma: I see here police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka at the time is said to have complained about Mushangwe. The police then claimed they were looking for him on allegations of ‘failing to distribute postal ballots to the collections centre’ and ‘destroying spoilt ballot papers without authority. Immediately after these threats Mushangwe disappeared. Who can we blame for his death, I mean who would normally carry out such an act, killing a ZEC official?

Mupakati: Ah…I would say there are a number of probabilities. You are looking at maybe people….then Zimbabwe was lawless, all it required was for Mandipaka, probably acting with the blessing of his boss Wayne Bvudzijena to just leak word probably to the Police Internal Security Services (PISI), or probably to Musara Mushana Mabhunda at Law and Order.

If he thought that could be easily traced back to him, he could have leaked word to the war veterans who were by then unto a force unto themselves. Probably he could have gone through the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) or maybe the army itself. Like I said ZEC is like a collection of who is who from the different agencies who are all capable of killing. I would like to think Mandipaka obviously knows, what, who might actually have killed. I’m thinking he actually ordered the hit after consulting with other powers that be.

Guma: And during this time a lot of things were put on the doorstep of the Joint Operations Command. Do you think they might have run this operation past that particular group.

Mupakati: Like I said, ZEC obviously, ZEC even up to now is just a mere appendage of the all powerful JOC. Obviously for Mandipaka by himself he wouldn’t have authorized such. I think by Zimbabwean standards Mushangwe is quite a fairly senior officer of the state and for him to be killed just like that, required maybe the acquiescence of more senior people. So obviously for Mandipaka or people to decide that maybe they wanted to expend of Mushangwe from the scene, then it would have required the powers that be to sanctify the operation.

Guma: Preliminary post mortem results show that he was strangled before his body was set on fire. Now why would they set his body on fire, what’s the strategy there.

Mupakati: I think probably it could be two-fold. Obviously the body was partially burnt, they didn’t want to burn it completely, because they wanted him to be like, identified. So part of it could be burning as in maybe doing away with evidence, maybe if they wanted DNA traces they wouldn’t do that. So maybe it could have been to wipe off the evidence. And also the burning aspect could be used to instill fear to his other colleagues who are still remain in ZEC, that obviously if you cross our line, this is what we are capable of doing, and we can do it with impunity.

Guma: The discovery of the charred body in a public place is the talk of the whole town in Norton. But like I asked you last time when we did this story for news, where was his body? He disappeared quite some time in June and the body was only discovered now, what could have happened here?

Mupakati: There are a lot of, I wouldn’t say hiding places, but there are a lot places where bodies can actually be kept, so that they are not discovered. If they wanted to like permanently dispose of it, they could have done so without people knowing where he was anyway. I would answer that, maybe the military hospital is one good hiding place, the one close to the airport.

They could have just like have taken him, put him there and kept him forever and people then wont say anything, if they are asked to talk. It could be that maybe the body was at the hospital depending on who ordered the hit. And it might actually..it wont be suprising that maybe in any one of the mortuaries in Harare or maybe in hospitals outside Harare.

All they need, all the people in the mortuaries need, is just the word to say, you arent supposed to say anything about this. If you talk we know who obviously works in this hospital, who actually has records of the bodies. So it could have been anywhere. That they decided to dispose of it and dump it at Norton town centre, obviously it was just their way of saying, they wanted his body to be found.

Because when he disappeared obviously part of the state machinery actually leaked that he had fled the country becuase of what he had done. He was involved in ‘election fraud’. So obviously if they wanted to pursue that line, if they wanted people to believe that line, they could still have maintained that, but someone somewhere thought maybe lets bring closure to the family and get them to know that their loved one is dead. Thats why they dumped their body in Norton.

Guma: It is kind of tragic that with a case like this. After all is said and done, it is kind of obvious who killed him, isn’t it?

Mupakati: Ya it is, obviously. I think everyone knows he was killed at the behest of the state anyway, Zanu PF to be honest, I think we can narrow that down and hold Mandipaka responsible. And I think if there was any sort of justice. If the justice system was anything to go by in Zimbabwe then Mandipaka would be the prime suspect because of obviously the heated argument they had in the past and also his statements after they knew they had killed the guy. He was seen then trying to give out these statements that there was a warrant of arrest, when they knew that the guy was dead.

Guma: Now obviously the guys in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission know a lot. They know too much in fact. How does the state deal with them. How do they know they will not get another Mushangwe who will leak information.

Mupakati: I would think maybe probably the way they have handled this case maybe in terms of how they disposed his body is actually meant to instill fear in the officers who are still there, that maybe if they decide to go against what they are told, then maybe they might suffer the Mushangwe fate and at the same time there is the twin side where these people are actually pampered as it were.

They are given, all them have got like 3 or 4 cars and I know from what I hear from the people who are working there that they drive, like, the latest 4x4’s. And even people who are cleaners in ZEC have access to these cars. So its a way of buying their loyalty, but if that doesnt work, then they can go to the other extreme which is like kill. They can kill you and maybe bury your body like what they did with Ignatius’ body and just dump it without nothing happening to them.

Guma: that was Liberty Mupakati former civil servant in Zimbabwe. He is now exiled in the United Kingdom. Mr Mupakati thank you for joining us and helping to answer some of the questions on this case.

Mupakati: You are welcome Lance. Thank you so much.

You have been listening to Behind the Headlines a programme that looks into the issues and individuals dominating the news, where others have scratched the surface, we dig deeper to bring you the full story. If you would like to participate in the programme or have comments or suggestions please e-mail lance@swradioafrica.com or call 0912-643-871 in Zimbabwe or 0044-777-855-7615 in the United Kingdom, so from me Lance Guma, until next Thursday, dont be making any headlines of your own.

Previous interviews on Behind the Headlines

Brian Kagoro on BTH

Morgan Tsvangirai on BTH

Nelson Chamisa & Daniel Molokela on BTH

Lovemore Madhuku on BTH

Courtesy of SW Radio Africa.

Join our main forums to debate this and many other articles

Back to Home Page

  • Comment on this article

  • Custom Search

Elsewhere on this site

Recent programmes on Nehanda Radio