Emmerson Mnangagwa

The Right Honourable Emmerson Mnangagwa MP
Minister of Defence of Zimbabwe
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 February 2009
Prime Minister	Morgan Tsvangirai
Preceded by	Sydney Sekeramayi
Minister of Rural Housing and Social Amenities of Zimbabwe
In office April 2005 – 13 February 2009
President	Robert Mugabe
Deputy	Biggie Matiza
Succeeded by	Fidelis Mhashu
Speaker of Parliament of Zimbabwe
In office July 2000 – April 2005
Preceded by	Cyril Ndebele
Succeeded by	John Nkomo
Minister of Finance of Zimbabwe Acting
In office 1995–1996
President	Robert Mugabe
Preceded by	Bernard Chidzero
Succeeded by	Herbert Murerwa
Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs of Zimbabwe
In office 1989–2000
President	Robert Mugabe
Minister of State Security of Zimbabwe
In office 1982–1988
President	Canaan Banana Robert Mugabe
Personal details
Born	15 September 1946 (1946-09-15) Southern Rhodesia
Political party	Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
Alma mater	University of London

Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa (born 15 September 1946) is a Zimbabwean politician who has been Minister of Defense since February 2009. He was previously Minister of State Security from 1982 to 1988, then Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs until 2000; he was Speaker of Parliament from July 2000 to 2005 and Minister of Rural Housing and Social Amenities from April 2005 to February 2009.

Mnangagwa is considered one of the most powerful figures in the ruling ZANU-PF party, head of the Joint Operations Command and a leading candidate to succeed President Robert Mugabe. He was ZANU-PF's Secretary of Administration from July 2000 to December 2004 and has been its Secretary for Legal Affairs since December 2004.

Education and training

He did his early education up to Standard 4 at Lundi Primary School in Mnangagwa Village, Zvishavane. The repressive political situation forced his family to relocate to Northern Rhodesia in 1955 where he completed Standard 4.

He successfully completed his standard 5 and 6 at Mumbwa Boarding School from 1956–1957 and enrolled at Kafue Trade School for a Building course. Although it was a three year course, he was selected to enter Hodgson Technical College. Since the college only accepted applicants with "O" Levels, he sat for an entry examination and came out with a first class. This enabled him to enroll for a four year City and Guilds Industrial Building Course. He and other members were subsequently expelled from college in 1960 for political activism which led to the burning of some property. He had joined the UNIP student movement at the college and had already been elected into the executive.

He completed his 'O' and 'A' levels while in prison through correspondence following which he enrolled for a law degree. He wanted to register for a BSc Economics degree but was instead, allowed to do the Law degree. He successfully completed Part One of the Intermediate Exams at Khami prison and passed at his first seating. He sat for the final exams and passed again. In 1972 he sat for his final LLB examinations with the University of London.

After his release from prison and subsequent deportation to Zambia, the Party resolved that he should complete his Law Degree first and so he enrolled at the University of Zambia where he remained from 1973 to 1974. In 1975, he did his post-graduate LLB degree and another post programme in Advocacy. After successfully completing his law studies, he was admitted to the Bar of the High Court of Zambia in 1976.

Regarded as the wealthiest individual in Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa has close business links with Col.Lionel Dyck,[1] a white officer from the old Rhodesian Army who founded Mine Tech [2], a landmine clearance company that secured lucrative contracts from the Zimbabwe government to clear landmines in Zimbabwe border areas after the war. Through Dyck, he has direct links with the heart of the British establishment as Mine Tech is now owned by the British company Exploration Logistics [3] whose Chairman is Alastair Morrison OBE, MC. Morrison is a former equerry of HRH The Duke of Gloucester and a former 2ic. of 22 SAS. Mine Tech now has substantial UN and UK/EU contracts as well as its on-going Zimbabwe operations.

Political career

In 1960, he was expelled from Hodgson Technical College for political activism which had resulted in the burning of some property. Following this incident, he joined hands with three others and started a construction company at Nampala which lasted for 3 months. He was asked by UNIP to help organize the party at Chililabombwe (Bancroft) until the end of 1961. Following this, he returned to Lusaka where he became Secretary for the UNIP Youth League while working for a private company.

In 1962 he was recruited into ZAPU by Willie Musarurwa. After joining ZAPU, he left for Tanzania and stayed in Mbeya for quite some time with the likes of James Chikerema, Clement Muchachi and Danha. They then opened a camp for ZAPU up to March 1963.

He then left for Dar es Salaam in April 1963 and, together with 12 other cadres, proceeded to Egypt for military training at the Heliopolis Training School.

In August 1963 he and 10 of the 13 cadres decided to join ZANU which had just been formed at home. This led to their detention by Egyptian authorities who recognized ZAPU.

During the detention period, he communicated with Mugabe who was in Tanzania at the time and told him that 11 students had broken away from ZAPU, stopped training and were now detained. Mugabe sent Trynos Makombe who was traveling from China to come to Egypt to secure their release. After getting released, they were given tickets to fly to Tanganyika.

On arrival in Tanganyika, six of the eleven came back to Rhodesia while the remaining 5 including Mnangagwa joined the first Frelimo Camp at Bagamoyo in late August 1963. He then proceeded to China leading a group of five ZANLA cadres where they spent the first two months at the School of Ideology in Beijing. They then underwent infantry training for 3 months in Nanking and then attended another school for military engineering for the next 2 months. The group consisted of Felix Santana, Robert Garachani, Lloyd Gundu, Phebion Shonhiwa, and John Chigaba. After completing military training in May 1964, they went back to Tanganyika, where they found that John Mataure and Noel Mukono who were responsible for defence at the time, had not organized any weapons for them to operate in the then Southern Rhodesia.

The group was rushing to attend the ZANU Congress in Mkoba, Gweru, sometime in May 1964 and so they traveled via Northern Rhodesia to Southern Rhodesia. They arrived a day before the Congress. The results of the election were as follows:

• Rev Ndabaningi Sithole– President
• Leopold Takawira -Vice President
• Herbert Chitepo– National Chairman
• Robert Mugabe– Secretary General

Following the ZANU Congress, three of his colleagues, i.e. Shoniwa, Jameson Mudavanhu and Edison Shirihuru were captured and arrested. He sent Lawrence Svosve to go back to Lusaka with some messages but never saw him again.

In spite of this setback, he remained in operation and joined up with Matthew Malowa who had trained in Egypt and had joined ZANU. They carried out daring operations in the country. Their major task was to recruit people from Harare, Masvingo (then Fort Victoria), Mberengwa and Macheke and walk them through to the Mutoko border so that they could go to Tanzania through Malawi.

It was during these operations that he and Malowa blew up a locomotive train in Fort Victoria. The leadership at Sikombela had sent the duo a message exhorting them to take some action so that the papers would report that it was the ZANU Military High Command which had done it. The cuttings would then be shown to the OAU Liberation Committee which was meeting in Dar es Salaam so that it would know that ZANU was actually active in the country. The blowing up of the locomotive enabled Chitepo and those outside to show that it was not only ZAPU which was active but ZANU as well.

The operations also involved traversing the country on foot from Mberengwa to Mutoko. It was at this stage that William Ndangana came from Lusaka for a meeting at Rev Ndabaningi Sithole's house in Highfield. It organized a group which included himself, William Ndangana, Victor Mlambo, James Dhlamini and Master Tresha to mount some roadblocks. The group, which is often referred to as the 'Crocodile Gang', killed a white farmer known as Peter Obeholzar at Nyanyadzi in Chimanimani. The incident resulted in the capture and subsequent hanging of James Dhlamini and Victor Mlambo. Ndangana was able to escape to Zambia while the young man was captured but was sentenced to life imprisonment because he was under age.

In January 1965, Mnangagwa was captured by Police Inspector Beans, Bradshaw and Smith while at Michael Mawema's house in Highfield after being sent on a mission. It later turned out that Micheal Mawema himself had sold him out. In fact, one of Mnangagwa's comrades, John Chigaba, was later arrested by police after attempting to stab Mawema with a knife, in revenge for Mnangagwa's arrest. He was then brought to Harare Central Police Station where he was tortured severely resulting in him losing his sense of hearing in one ear. Part of the torture techniques involved being hanged with his feet on the ceiling and the head down. The severity of the torture made him unconscious for days.

He was forced to confess that he had blown up the locomotive in Masvingo and was convicted under the Law and Order Maintenance Act. He was defended by J. J. Horn of Scanlen and Holderness who pleaded that he was under age and could not be executed. Following this, he was taken to hospital where doctors confirmed that he was under 21 and as a result, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He served the first year at Harare Prison and then went to Grey Prison following which he was sent to Khami Prison where he spent 6 years and 8 months.

After serving his 10 year sentence, he was further detained at Khami and then at Harare Prison together with other Nationalists like Robert Mugabe, Enos Nkala, Maurice Nyagumbo, Edgar Tekere and Didymus Mutasa. He was then deported to Zambia where his parents were.

Mnangagwa was received by the Party at the Livingstone Border post and handed over to the Zambian police. A ZANLA representative, Baya, came to receive him at the Victoria Falls Bridge and proceeded with him to Lusaka. Josiah Tongogara was Commander of ZANLA.

After completing his studies at the University of Zambia, he practiced law with Enoch Dumbutshena and doubled up as Secretary for ZANU for the Zambia Division in Lusaka. He was also in the student board for politics at the University of Zambia.

At the Chimoio Congress in 1977, he was elected Special Assistant to the President and member of the National Executive for ZANU. He then left practice and joined the President around October 1977 in Chimoio. The post of Special Assistant meant that he was head of both the civil and military divisions of the Party. His number 2 was Gava (now Retired General Zvinavashe) who was Head of Security in the Military High Command but was his deputy in the Central Committee in the Department of Security.

He participated in the Lancaster House Conference and in January 1980, led the first group of civilian leaders which included Didymus Mutasa and Eddison Zvobgo from Maputo to Zimbabwe. Rex Nhongo (now Retired General Mujuru) also led the first group of commanders numbering 28 from Maputo to the ceasefire.

Parliamentary and ministerial career

He became the first Minister of National Security from 1980 to 1988, and after General Peter Walls left the country under dubious circumstances related to making plans for a coup, he took over as Chairman of the Joint High Command. The task involved responsibility for the integration of ZANLA, ZIPRA and Rhodesian Army. From 1988 to 2000, he was Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Leader of the House. This was the period following the Unity Accord. He was appointed Acting Minister of Finance for 15 months from 1995 to 1996 and was also Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs for a short period. His tenure as Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs saw him setting up the Judicial College and the Small Claims Court to address the critical shortage of magistrates, prosecutors and other judicial officers in the country. He also introduced several amendments to various Acts and the Constitution.

Mnangagwa was defeated in the 2000 parliamentary election by Blessing Chebundo of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Kwekwe constituency, but Mugabe appointed him to one of the unelected seats in Parliament. Following the election, he was elected as Speaker of Parliament on July 18, 2000. It was during his time as Speaker of Parliament that the UN investigation into illegal exploitation of natural resources from the Congo recommended a travel ban and financial restrictions upon him for his involvement in making Harare a significant illicit diamond trading centre. In the March 2005 parliamentary election, he was again defeated by Chebundo in Kwekwe, and Mugabe again appointed him to an unelected seat. His campaign manager blamed this defeat on the Mujuru faction, saying that it had "manipulated the situation" so that the MDC could win the seat and thereby undermine Mnangagwa. In the March 2008 parliamentary election, he stood as ZANU-PF's candidate in the new Chirumanzi–Zibagwe rural constituency and won by an overwhelming margin, receiving 9,645 votes against two MDC candidates, Mudavanhu Masendeke and Thomas Michael Dzingisai, who respectively received 1,548 and 894 votes.

Mnangagwa was Mugabe's chief election agent during the 2008 presidential election, and it was reported that he headed Mugabe's campaign behind the scenes. When a national unity government was sworn in on February 13, 2009, Mnangagwa became Minister of Defense.

Presidential ambitions

It has been an open secret in Zimbabwe for many years that Emmerson Mnangagwa would like to succeed Robert Mugabe as president.

His rise to power began as a young man, when he helped direct Zimbabwe's 1970s war of independence and later became the country's spy-master during the 1980s civil conflict. He worked closely with Dan Stannard [4], who was one of the few whites who remained in the Zimbabwean secret service, CIO, after the departure of Ken Flower.

On December 17, 2004, he lost his post as Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration and was instead named Secretary for Legal Affairs, in what was considered a demotion. As Secretary for Administration he had been able to place his supporters in key party positions. The move followed reports that Mnangagwa had been campaigning too hard for the post of vice-president, backed by his close ally, former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo. Mugabe sacked Moyo from both his party and government posts. The President has instead reportedly become alarmed at the activities of Joyce Mujuru, who got the vice-president's job, and her powerful husband, former army chief Solomon Mujuru.

2007 Zimbabwean coup d'état attempt

The Zimbabwean government foiled an alleged coup d'état attempt involving almost 400 soldiers and high-ranking members of the military that would have occurred on June 2 or June 15, 2007. The alleged leaders of the coup, all of whom have been arrested and charged with treason, are retired army Captain Albert Matapo, spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Army Ben Ncube, Major General Engelbert Rugeje, and Air Vice Marshal Elson Moyo.

According to the government the soldiers planned on forcibly removing President Robert Mugabe from office and asking Rural Housing Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to form a government with the heads of the armed forces. The government first heard of the plot when a former army officer who opposed the coup contacted the police in Paris, France, giving them a map and a list of those involved. Mnangagwa and State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa both said they did not know about the plot, Mnangagwa calling it "stupid."

Some analysts have speculated that rival successors to Mugabe, such as former Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army leader Solomon Mujuru, may be trying to discredit Mnangagwa.