Josiah Tongogara

Josiah Tongogara is a fallen hero of the Zimbabwe revolutionary war, and streets are named after him in almost every town in the country.

Commander of the guerrilla army Zanla, he was at the Lancaster House conference that led to Zimbabwe's independence and the end of white minority rule. Many expected him to be the first president of the free Zimbabwe, with Robert Mugabe, head of Zanla's political wing, ZANU, as prime minister.

Tongogara and his parents lived on the farm owned by the parents of Ian Smith, Rhodesia's last prime minister.

At the Lancaster House agreement, Tongogara was a crucial "moderating" force, according to Lord Carrington, the then British foreign secretary, who chaired the talks.

By then, Tongogara was openly favouring unity between ZANU and Zimbabwe's other nationalist movement, Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU. "Robert Mugabe referred to unity with Zapu as sharing the spoils with those who had not shouldered the burden of fighting," says Mhanda. As Lancaster House concluded, Tongogara returned to Mozambique, where Zanla was based, to inform his soldiers of the ceasefire.

But six days after the Lancaster House agreement was signed, Robert Mugabe, on the Voice of Zimbabwe radio station, conveyed "an extremely sad message" to "all the fighting people of Zimbabwe": the 41-year-old Tongogara was dead, killed in a car accident in Mozambique on Christmas Day 1979.

Margaret Dongo was among them. At 15, she had crossed into Mozambique to join the guerrillas, adopting the chimurenga (liberation war) name of Tichaona Muhondo ("prepared to face trouble"). Once a ruling Zanu-PF MP, she later became disillusioned with the party. Now she is president of the small opposition Zimbabwe Union of Democrats.

Dongo was one of the last people to see him alive. "We were 18 girls who were having a function and he came to say a few words to bless the occasion."

Zanu released an undertaker's statement saying his injuries were consistent with a road accident, but no autopsy results or pictures have been released.

A CIA intelligence briefing of 28 December 1979 said Tongogara was a potential political rival to Mugabe because of his .. ambition, popularity and decisive style. On the same day, the US embassy in Zambia reported: "Almost no one in Lusaka accepts Mugabe's assurance that Tongogara died accidentally. When the ambassador told the Soviet ambassador the news, the surprised Soviet immediately charged 'inside job'.

Ian Smith, admittedly hardly an impartial source, also insisted in his memoirs that Tongogara's "own people" killed him, and that he had disclosed at Lancaster House that Tongogara was under threat. "I made a point of discussing his death with our police commissioner and head of special branch, and both assured me that Tongogara had been assassinated," Smith wrote.

Tongogara is a symbol for both sides in Zimbabwe's struggle. "We got hold of political power," says Mhanda. "But we failed to transform the instruments of power to serve the people rather than the elite."

Much information in this article first appeared in the New Statesman.