Edgar Tekere

Edgar Zivanai Tekere (1 April 1937 – 7 June 2011), nicknamed "2 Boy", was a Zimbabwean politician.

He was the second and last Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) who organised the party during the Lancaster House talks and served in government before his popularity as a potential rival to Robert Mugabe caused their estrangement.

During the war, Tekere served on the ZANU high command, or Dare reChimurenga.

He was detained by the Rhodesian government at Gonakudzingwa.

Edgar Zivanai "2-Boy" (nom de guerre) Tekere was an early ally of Robert Mugabe within the Zimbabwe African National Union (of which he was a founder member in 1964) during the fight for independence and against the Rhodesian Front government of Ian Smith.

Mugabe and Tekere, having served eleven and a half years in Hwa-Hwa Penitentiary & Gonakudzingwa State Prison as political prisoners of Ian Smith's government, immediately left upon release and crossed the Eastern Highlands Border in Mutare through the mountains by foot, following the Gairezi river trail to Seguranza military camp in Mozambique, to mastermind and kickstart guerilla warfare, aided by Samora Machel, in 1975.

The Bush War or Second Chimurenga raged on.

harassment of Tekere's close family members and relatives by the platoon of Rhodesian Front Soldiers, Selous Scouts, Police Special Branch and Central Intelligence Organisation, under the auspices of Ian Smith.

During these trying times Edgar Tekere received the code name/nickname ("Mukoma") by close family members and relatives.

Tekere was elected by a democratic process to be the first ZANU-PF Secretary-General following Zimbabwe's independence.

Edgar Tekere being the ZANU-PF Secretary General, personally invited Bob Marley to perform at Rufaro Stadium, for the official Zimbabwean Independence Celebration.

Marley's music was inspirational to the guerilla fighters whilst they were in the bush fighting.

More than 100,000 Zimbabweans attended the concert, and Bob Marley performed the song "Zimbabwe", an unofficial Zimbabwean anthem.

He also stayed with Edgar Tekere during this tour date.

When ZANU won the 1980 elections, Tekere was appointed as Minister of Manpower Planning in Mugabe's Cabinet.

He followed his appointment by making a series of outspoken speeches that went far beyond government policy.

Shortly after his appointment, on 4 August 1980 he greeted then-Prime Minister Mugabe and visiting President of Mozambique Samora Machel in combat fatigues, announcing that he was going "to fight a battle."

Tekere and his bodyguards went looking for supporters of Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU outside Harare but, failing to find them, went onto a neighbouring farm and shot white farm manager Gerald Adams.."

Tekere retained his government post when he went on trial together with seven bodyguards who were all former guerrilla fighters in the independence war.

On 8 December the High Court, on a majority decision, found him not guilty of murder.

Both assessors, over-ruling the judge, held that while Tekere had killed Adams, he was acting in terms of an utter conviction that State Security was at risk.

It is important to note that now with Twenty First Century global research on war veterans it is believed that Tekere suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which led to his erratic behaviour.

At the trial, there was a lack of evidence led that Edgar Tekere and his platoon had first gone looking for ZAPU operatives before conducting a military style sweep of the farm on which the farmer was killed.

There was also no evidence that he had said that he was proud to have killed Gerald Adams.

State Counsel Chris Glaum did not put this to any of the defendants.

The trial was presided over by Judge John Pitman J. There were two assessors, Christopher Navavie Greenland, a provincial magistrate, and Peter Khumbuyani Nemapare, a senior magistrate.

The court was especially constituted to present as racially balance in that Judge Pitman was white, Greenland is mixed race, and Nemapare is black.

It was the first and last time that a court was constituted in this way.

Tekere was represented by Louis Blom-Cooper QC, a flamboyant English counsel, and there were many confrontations between him and the presiding judge.

The court was unanimous that Tekere was guilty of murder.

However, by a majority, it found that as he had acted in "good faith" at the time, he was entitled to indemnification under a law that Ian Smith, the previous Rhodesian Prime Minister, had ironically enacted despite widespread opposition to protect his security forces during the Bush War.

Any member of the country's security forces was exempt from conviction in respect of any crime committed if, at the time of commission, such member was acting in "good faith", acting in terms of a genuinely held conviction that the State's security interests were being served.

Greenland wrote the judgement in which the two assessors over-ruled Pitman on this issue.

It was the first time in the history of the country that assessors over-ruled a judge.

The assessors found that Tekere presented with a personality and mindset which was completely consistent with an unreasonable but genuinely held belief that he was acting in the interest of state security with the confrontation between one of his men and the farmer, in which the latter was killed, an unfortunate consequence of the security sweep which Tekere genuinely believed needed to be conducted.

Tekere was dismissed from the government on 11 January 1981, a decision he was reported to be happy with; he retained the Secretary-Generalship of ZANU.

In April 1981 he was detained by Kenyan security forces to prevent him from speaking to students after giving a newspaper interview in which he said he was proud of the killing of Gerald Adams.

In July, Tekere referred to some ZANU representatives as having "inherited the colonial mentality," which was straining relations between them and the party's supporters.

Mugabe hit back by saying "Those who are complaining that the revolution is not continuing... are the most immoral and laziest in the party."

In his book "The Other – without fear, favour or prejudice" Greenland reveals, for the first time in 2010, that Judge Pitman made a surprising and inexplicable "about-face", having first been firmly of the view that Tekere was entitled to the indemnity and then changing his mind without proffering good reason.