HARARE – The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary general, Tendai Biti, has publicly repeated the allegation that that his party’s late spokesperson, Learnmore Jongwe, was killed by President Robert Mugabe’s government in 2002.
Biti said Jongwe was assassinated while in remand in the Harare Remand Prison. He said this while addressing journalists, civic society members, friends of the late politician and politicians at an event held in the Quill Club on Friday night to launch a trust fund named after him.
The Jongwe Foundation was launched to uphold the beliefs and legacy of Jongwe.
“The state has tried to propagate the theory that Jongwe committed suicide but it is impossible to smuggle anything into prison,” Biti said. “It’s not possible, so if anything is smuggled in there, they would have allowed you to smuggle it.
“So even assuming for one crazy moment that he swallowed the malaria drugs, the fact of the matter is that they would have allowed him. But since we are not making that assumption the only safe assumption is that the state killed Learnmore Jongwe and that assumption is correct until disapproved.
“So we wait for the professors of Zanu-PF to dispose that contention and they are many of them who are trying to revive cadavers.”
Biti said the last days of Jongwe had been tragic and traumatizing.
“The last days of Jongwe were tragic. Jongwe’s death was a shock. It was a tragedy and when I got incarcerated I met some people that had stayed with him in that Block C Cell at Harare Remand Prison. Those of you who have stayed as residents and guests of the remand prison will know the cell. Its an open cell. He never went into the private cells upstairs.”
Biti said once the MDC gets an opportunity to govern on its own, Jongwe, will be among the first people to be interred at its heroes monument.
“One day as a movement when we have the opportunity of properly remembering or building a monument for our dearly departed ones I think Learnmore Jongwe’s name together with those of Talent Mabika, Tichaona Chiminya and Isaac Matongo will be very high on the list,” said Biti.
The results of an independent autopsy carried out on Jongwe by a South African pathologist hired by his family confirmed that the young MDC legislator had died of excessive chloroquine poisoning. This was the same finding as that of the official government pathologist.
Releasing the results of the second autopsy in December 2002 a Jongwe family spokesman said the family was demanding a full inquiry into how the excessive amounts of chloroquine had entered Jongwe’s body.
“The Jongwe family has since received results of the autopsy conducted on the body of Learnmore Jongwe by a South African pathologist,” the family spokesman said. “The results are essentially similar to the findings by the government-hired pathologist in that they state Jongwe died from chloroquine poisoning.
“The family and all the people of Zimbabwe want to know from this regime the circumstances that led to the introduction of excessive amounts of chloroquine into the body of Learnmore Jongwe.”
Jongwe suddenly died in his prison cell on October 2, 2002, while awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his wife, Rutendo. There was a public outcry following the young politician’s death as his family and MDC supporters accused government of being responsible for the tragedy.
Ernest Mudzengi, a friend of Jongwe and National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) national director, told the gathering at the Quill Club on Friday that the Jongwe Trust would look after Jongwe’s daughter Tawananyasha, 8, who is a Grade 2 pupil at Victoria Junior Primary School in Masvingo.
The trust will also look at raising funds to look after Jongwe’s mother and to pay for the education of under-privileged children.
* Zimbabwe Times
