Tekere was no credible Mugabe-challenger: report
24 June 2011
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London(ZimEye)The late war hero Edgar Tekere was not a credible presidential challenger to dictator Robert Mugabe a report made by renowned Zimbabwean historian and author of the country’s famous Who’s Who of African Nationalist leaders in Zimbabwe, Diana Mitchel attempts to reveal.
The late Cde Edgar Tekere even refused to be a minister and wanted to be a mere member of parliament, Zimbabwe’s most prominent liberation war historian said.
Tekere reportedly told Robert Mugabe just after independence (1980) that he did not want to be a government minister but wanted to serve as a mere member of parliament and this was so that he could sustain himself, Diana Mitchel who was a personal friend of Tekere said.
Speaking excusively to ZimEye, Mitchel said Tekere experienced a lot of stress during the war which he could not handle years afterwards:

tekere-edgar-eary-years
In his early years...Edgar Tekere

‘He couldn’t handle the stress when he came back(from the war). And when I interviewed him in the early 80s… I saw how stressed he was. He was still taking drugs just to handle himself and …apparently he was an alcoholic;
“…and because of that I would have voted for him in that presidential election, but I knew that he was too sick, too sick to handle it at that point. And all that was brought on of course by the stress of the war and looking after all those young people. He was like a kind of father to so many of the young fighters. He looked after them when they went over the border and left their parents. He was the one who kind of made them feel safe with him; He really was wonderful chap; and they all loved him dearly.
“But I always sympathised with what had happened to him because he was a victim. First he fought for the country and then he was victimised by that man who was supposed to be his friend. …I knew him as a friend, so he told me when I was interviewing him; and he told me that he had begged Mugabe. He said ‘I begged Mugabe to give me just a parliamentary seat cause I needed money’, because if you didn’t have a job you didn’t have any money. So he said ‘I begged him to give me just an MP seat, but he has made me a minister,’ Mitchel reports of Tekere.
She continued:
“… And he said: ‘And how was I going to change the country from a war footing … And suddenly you’ve got to start being on local government in a peak time situation sorting out local government and education, God knows what. The burden was too great.’
“And that’s when he went out and shot this white farmer. And I reckon he was hallucinating there’s no doubt about it, that’s why he got off the hanging thing…”, Mitchel concluded.
Diana Mitchel’s two thick Who’s Who books are on high demand and were out of stock in many book shops at the time of writing. In 1977, she was the first white Zimbabwean to canonise and make popular the leaders of the liberation struggle calling them African Nationalists at a time when they were regarded as terrorists in the country. (ZimEye, Zimbabwe)
1997 – African Nationalist Leaders in Rhodesia Who’s Who
Who’s Who, 1981-82 by Diana Mitchell (1982, Paperback, Illustrated): Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe
(Paperback, 1982)

5 Replies to “Tekere was no credible Mugabe-challenger: report”

  1. Ah, izvi zviri pachenaka izvi, for you cant compare nyama nekabichi kuti chinonaka ndechipi. VaTekere vakaita zvakanaka asi havana kuzozadzisa zvinangwa zvemusangano. And if he was good enough, you should have voted him and his party many years ago kwete zvekutanga kumuda nekuti afa zvamave kuita izvi. If he was that good, why asina kutora Tsvangirai muhondo paakatiza? Indava kani imi mabharanzi

  2. Iwe Cde Bofu. Ini ndakangwara nokuti chakachinja pandiri kuramba kutevera Mugabe akarasa gwara chairo nema values atakarwira.Vakarwa hondo chaivo vakazopondwa vana General Tongogara vaisambo bvumidza marara atavakuona mu Zanu PF nhasi.
    Cde Tekere remained committed to the very end no corruption no mass murders.

  3. ah iwe cde kazita kako ako, mutororo chaiye haachinji unless mupuruvheya or mdzakutsaku. uri weyi iwe, kana waiva nesu till 1979 then wakapanduka ka-one. we r still on the move ndodha uyathengisa istruggle u need a bullet right btwn ur eyes mudidi. you sound playful and never bn on the march.
    TEKERE wldnt need ur type’s sympathy even beyond his grave, he never changed, he argued objectively mfanami. he was a man of his own making and calibre, unique and incomparable character, one needed in those days of struggle. he initiated his opposition party without any foreighn influence, brought multi-partism to the ZIM p[olitical sphere. wat a son of the soil with the spine to objectively oppose his former comrades and bringing sense to AFRICAN politics post colonial epochs.
    iwe woti heh ndini ndakachinja heh ndini ndinonzi mutororo, wepi wembwa kani. matororo haachinji, ndikakuwona ndinoda kukurova chete.
    PASI NEVATENGESI, PASI NAVO!!!!

  4. OH WHAT A TRUE HUMBLE HERO OF THE STRUGGLE TEKERE WAS.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national wicth and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.
    Kwete Mugabe a national witch and murderer-nyoka.

  5. Vana Wasu mese, ngimi ka munoda kutonga isu tichiri vapenyu, mazvinzwira mega ka izvi, kikikikikikikiki!

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