The Sunday Mail
Tendai H Manzvanzvike
Head, Zimpapers Knowledge Centre
IT’S been 46 years since veteran nationalist and academic, Dr Edson Furatidzayi Chisingaitwi Sithole, and his personal assistant disappeared without a trace outside a Harare hotel on October 15, 1975. He would have celebrated his 87th birthday in June this year.
So much happened in 1975 as the Rhodesians tried to stall the war of liberation.
On March 18, they had assassinated ZANU chairman Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
The following month, Cdes Robert Mugabe and Edgar Tekere, who had just been released from 11 years in detention, crossed into Mozambique, assisted by Chief Rekayi Tangwena.
Then the Mgagao Declaration by ZANLA militants stationed at Mgagao Training Camp in Tanzania reconfigured the armed struggled.
Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, leader of one of the Patriotic Front wings was booted out, and Cde Mugabe assumed leadership of ZANU.
What the Rhodesians had expected did not happen, as the liberation struggle became fully entrenched.
It was thus a year of sorts, full of tragedy and drama.
But the question remains on what happened to Dr Sithole and his PA.
The answers might not be definitive, but they can lead us to the truth.
The Rhodesians and their intelligence apparatus have provided hints, and it is this writer’s hope that all documents from Rhodesian times be made available to researchers so that they can connect all the dots.
In his 1987 memoirs, “Serving Secretly”, the last Rhodesia Central Intelligence Organisation supremo Ken Flower, gives the following narrative on Chitepo’s death: “… In October 1975, he and his girlfriend were bundled into a vehicle outside the Ambassador Hotel in Salisbury and were not seen again. An eye-witness, Brother Arthur of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, said the deed had been perpetrated by Special Branch. The subsequent investigation was inconclusive, leading to widespread speculation that the bodies had been disposed of in a disused mine shaft.” (page 150)
Flower’s claims are corroborated by two other intelligence officers, Henrik Ellert and Dennis Anderson in their 2020 publication: “A Brutal State of Affairs: The Rise and Fall of Rhodesia”, published by Weaver Press.
They also present new evidence that was previously unknown about issues surrounding the disappearance of Dr Sithole.
They write from pages 213-215: “On the evening of 15 October 1975, Dr Edson Sithole, the Publicity Secretary of Muzorewa’s African National Council, and his secretary, Miss Miriam Mhlanga, were kidnapped outside the Ambassador Hotel in central Salisbury. Sithole was a veteran nationalist and a prominent critic of the RF government’s plans to reach a political settlement with moderate black nationalists, and it was believed that his true allegiance lay with ZANU and that the liberation war was the only option.
“Special Branch HQ recommended that Sithole be detained for questioning on his political orientation, but (Michael Mac) McGuinness proposed that he be ‘snatched and turned’ in much the same manner as captured guerrillas were turned. That plan was endorsed by several senior Special Branch officers, who agreed that Sithole would indeed prove a valuable source of intelligence if the right inducement were offered.
“Approximately two weeks before 15 October, a member of the Special Branch attached to the (Selous) Scouts visited the Quill Club, a popular meeting place for journalists, nationalists and media people, at the Ambassador Hotel. Sithole was a known habitué of the club and his movements were closely monitored for about two weeks. The Special Branch officer responsible for this reconnaissance was unknown to the local press corps, so his visits passed without notice”.
Ellert and Anderson continue, “At around 7:00 pm on 15 October, Sithole accompanied by Miriam Mhlanga, arrived in a BMW motor car. Sithole parked the car just outside the Ambassador Hotel and, as he and his girlfriend alighted, they were approached by two white members of the Scouts, who identified themselves as members of Special Branch.
“Sithole was used to contact with the police and did not register any undue suspicion. Both he and Miss Mhlanga were escorted to a VW Kombi van parked close by. Several days later, the BMW vehicle was found by police in the eastern border town of Umtali. The car had been abandoned to give the impression that Sithole had travelled to Umtali and had crossed into Mozambique on foot.
“(Meanwhile), Sithole was taken to the Fort of Inkomo Barracks near Harare and later transferred to Bindura for interrogation and possible turning. The plan was to reintroduce him into society as quickly as possible, but unfortunately for both Sithole and the Scouts, the kidnapping had been witnessed by an outspoken and fearless critic of the Rhodesian government, Br Arthur Dupuis, Organising Secretary of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia (CCJP).
“The Selous Scouts were never able to determine exactly how Br Arthur came to be outside the Ambassador Hotel that night. They would not believe that it was pure coincidence and suspected that someone senior in Special Branch or the CIO had tipped off a contact in the Catholic Church. Selous Scouts operators even suspected that the Commissioner of Police, Peter Allum, a devout Catholic, known within the fraternity as ‘the Bishop of Montagu Avenue’ (the site of PGHQ), had arranged Br Arthur’s presence that night.
“Whatever the facts, Br Arthur was present and immediately reported the incident to journalists, who filed reports that the Special Branch had arrested Sithole. The sudden glare of publicity may well have disturbed the plans for Sithole because he was never seen again.
“The CCJP hired a private investigator to track down Sithole’s whereabouts. An RAR (Rhodesian African Rifles) corporal, Amos Muradzike, signed a declaration of facts, claiming that he had seen Sithole inside the fort at Inkomo. This was dangerous knowledge, and the CCJP flew Corporal Muradzike to Malawi, hoping that he would be safe there. News of this development reached the Scouts and McGuinness contacted the friendly Malawian Special Branch, who arrested him as an illegal immigrant.
Muradzike was never seen alive again, and the investigator who had accompanied the corporal was involved in a motor vehicle accident, resulting in his hospitalisation at the Queen Elizabeth Infirmary in Blantyre.
“The Rhodesian investigator’s car was deliberately rammed at high speed by a vehicle that was never identified. The circumstances surrounding this accident also point to official collaboration between the Malawian Special Branch and the Selous Scouts, though it was mainly through McGuinness’s personal liaison.
“Meanwhile, the CCJP instructed the law firm Scanlen and Holderness to apply for a writ habeas corpus. Anthony Eastwood, their lawyer produced a memorandum before a High Court that claimed that Special Branch or the Selous Scouts were holding Sithole in custody… Two years later, Josiah Chinamano, Joshua Nkomo’s deputy in the ANC, accused the Scouts of political kidnapping and murder…”
There are a number of questions that arise from this narrative.
How far removed are the authors from the events they write about?
Was it just a product of research since they had access to so much intelligence information?
Why did it take them four decades to reveal this information, considering the questions over the years, and notwithstanding the trauma the Sithole and Mhlanga families have endured since 1975?
Writers have also tried to piece together the little they found, but the unresolved question remains: was the relationship between Dr Sithole and Mhlanga more important than their disappearance?
Notwithstanding, the Selous Scouts and the Special Branch played dirty, and they dealt viciously with whatever was in their way.
But as we embark on the journey towards our 42nd Independence anniversary through reflecting on one of the luminaries that helped birth a new Zimbabwe, we salute Dr Sithole for being the first black person to obtain a PhD in law.
For that, the University of South Africa (Unisa) honoured him a few years ago for his contribution to the legal fraternity and the nationalist movement.
A Unisa official, Nontyatyambo Dastille, said the celebrations to honour him and another pioneering black legal practitioner was meant to celebrate “black excellence, reflect on how far we have come and where we are going.”
“What links them is the fact that they were Unisa’s first black Doctor of Laws (LLD) graduates, an achievement made even more remarkable in that it occurred during the dark days of the seventies and eighties,” said Dastille.
Dr Sithole was 39 when he obtained his Doctor of Laws degree.
Major Source: Henrik Ellert and Dennis Anderson. — “A Brutal State of Affairs: The Rise and Fall of Rhodesia”. —Weaver Press, 2020.
