The Sunday Mail
Phyllis Johnson
On 22 January 1977, Zimbabwe lost an icon of freedom, an architect of the liberation war, and an active proponent of unity when Jason Ziyaphapha (JZ) Moyo was assassinated by a parcel bomb delivered to his office in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
He was a practical person who worked hard to coordinate the political and military objectives of the armed struggle, and he was a determined advocate of unity in the liberation movement and of the liberation armies, ZANLA and ZIPRA.
Born in 1927 in Kezi, JZ played an active role in the trade union movement in Bulawayo and later as a national political leader from 1957.
He was chairman and leader of the external administration of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the revolutionary council from 1971 until his untimely death in 1977.
As Second Vice-President of ZAPU, he worked with his President, Joshua Nkomo, and with Robert Mugabe, President of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZANU) to create the Patriotic Front that brought them together in a joint front for all negotiations from the Geneva conference in 1976 until Lancaster House, leading to independence of Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980.
On 22 January 1977, just a few weeks after he returned from the Geneva conference, he opened a parcel in his Lusaka office that he had been expecting.
The parcel was addressed to him in handwriting that he recognised and sent from someone he knew in Botswana.
The parcel blew up in his face, killing him and injuring several officials, and another dedicated leader was lost.
Members of the Rhodesian Special Branch later admitted that they had listened in on a phone call about the package and had intercepted it in the post to insert an explosive device.”
JZ Moyo was buried at Leopards Hill Memorial Park in Lusaka and, after Independence he was reburied in Zimbabwe as a National Hero, on 11 August 1981.
At the funeral in Lusaka, his comrade and friend, R.G. Mugabe, spoke about JZ Moyo, who had been best man at his wedding to Sally Hayfron.
“His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia and all comrades assembled here to mourn our dear, departed friend, Jason Moyo.
“We stand here summoned by our friend, nay our fellow freedom fighter’s call to lay him to rest.
“Comrade JZ Moyo is no more. The vicious hand of the enemy has cut him down.
“We grieve for him, we grieve for him. Although JZ has suffered this untimely, sad death, he leaves behind an immortal light for all of us, indeed for all posterity to follow.
“First, as a gallant revolutionary, struck in the process of moulding revolutionary history, he proudly shares the rare company of such fallen heroes as Eduardo Mondlane, the President of Frelimo; Amilcar Cabral, the first President of the PAIGC; and Herbert Chitepo, former Chairman of ZANU.
“Secondly, as a friend of many including those he politically disagreed with, he lived out the rare virtue of objectivity, as a guiding principle for any political relationship that may subsist, or indeed fail to subsist, between persons with the same revolutionary objectives.
“Let me say a little more concretely what I discovered to be the qualities of JZ over the years that I have known him.
“Both my wife and I have always held him dear as a close friend of the family.
“But it is in his political career that I found my admiration for him growing by the day.
“Who here amongst the forerunners of our revolutionaries does not know that the real revolutionary makings of JZ, apart from those which Cde TG Silundika has narrated, are to be found in his early activities in the trade union movement and the African Local Advisory Board of the Bulawayo Municipality.
“From this springboard, he raised himself to the level of national politics, and he joined the African National Congress on its reformation in 1957.
“From there on, he became destined to perform a very important role in the national struggle for the liberation of Zimbabwe.
“And when the National Democratic Party succeeded the ANC, and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, ZAPU, succeeded the NDP, JZ Moyo became the automatic choice as one of the leaders.
“Throughout, JZ displayed the following qualities – courage and determination that defied any threats of arrest by the settler racist regime; and an absolute sense of dedication to the cause of freedom that was characterised by sacrifice and selflessness.
“He had an undoubted clarity of mind that stood him well in the arguments he made as a useful contribution to the debates of the national executive; a critical mind that, guided by a sense of objectivity, matched anyone he believed to be in the wrong, and equally saw merit where it lay.
“He had a simplicity of nature that endeared him to the masses. He had an honesty of purpose that must have helped him in attaining the resolute nature which characterised him.
“He had an enviable obedience to principle that shunned expediency and opportunism, and which lay at the base of his honest character.
“These are only a few of the many qualities that JZ Moyo had.
“When in September last year (1976), it became his task to lead a ZAPU team to Maputo to confer with our ZANU team on how best to unite our organisations on the basis of the armed struggle, I was in no doubt that I was dealing with a man whose word was absolutely reliable.
He warned us all that we should not pretend to each other, rather that we should honestly recognise the difficulties in our way and the differences which could not be solved immediately.”
The President of his party, Joshua Nkomo also spoke at the funeral of JZ Moyo in Lusaka.
“A lot has been said on JZ Moyo. It is a pride for me because I saw this young man grow, I taught him, as a teacher, a simple teacher.
“I never knew that we were going to have a leader of his stature.
“In the trade union movement, we were together. In politics, we have been together.
“In the liberation movement, we have been together. And indeed, when I was in prison, for the last 11 years, I knew that the struggle was in safe hands, in the hands of JZ Moyo.
“When I was released from formal prison, and I joined my friend and colleague JZ, I did what I could, but all the time knowing that the struggle was in safe hands.
“I moved from place to place, I passed through Zambia, but I knew that whatever I did, I would submit to my friend, my colleague, my staunchest fighter JZ.
“Today he is no more. But TG Silundika here, and Robert Mugabe, have said quite a lot about the life of JZ Moyo. In particular, they emphasised his role as a freedom fighter, his role as a lover of people, his role as a uniting factor.
“He indeed was a uniting factor. He lived and struggled for unity, not only in Zimbabwe but unity of the peoples of Africa and the unity of the peoples of the entire world.
“We have among us here, the leaders, the top leaders of Africa that have come to solve the problems of Zimbabwe with JZ Moyo. JZ said no, I have talked enough, comrades of the OAU Liberation Committee.
“I have had lengthy discussions with you, I am not going to talk.
“I am going to lie before you to show you the problems that I have been telling you. Here is the problem before you, my brother JZ Moyo is dead. He died at the hands of an assassin, an assassin who knew the role that JZ played while he was alive with you.”
Sources The Struggle for Zimbabwe ; A Guide to Heroes Acre ; and the funeral of JZ Moyo in Zambia in 1977
