Political Accidents in Zimbabwe

On 16 August 2011 Zimbabwe awoke to the news that retired General Solomon Mujuru, aka Rex Nhongo (his war alias), the former deputy commander of ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) and independent Zimbabwe’s first black army commander, husband of the (then) vice-president, Joice Mujuru, longterm confidante of (then) president Robert Mugabe, and widely regarded as ‘kingmaker’ with the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF), had died in a mysterious fire at his farm in Beatrice, 60 km south west of Harare. Just four days later, on 20 August, amid public statements of grief from across the political spectrum, and growing speculation about the cause of his death, Mujuru’s remains were buried at the National Heroes Acre in Harare at a huge state funeral attended by tens of thousands of people. After the ‘inexplicable, horrendous fire accident’ – as Mugabe then described it1 – there was only a ‘small pile of charred bones and ash’ to be buried, and workers reportedly needed ‘shovels to scrape his remains off the floor’.2 ‘Burnt beyond recognition’, unconfirmed reports suggested dental records were needed to confirm his identity;3 and (unusually for state funerals in Zimbabwe) the ‘coffin remained sealed’.4 Nevertheless, the closed casket did little to contain the plethora of rumours that emerged in the months that followed, which remain unresolved, despite police investigations and an official inquest. In this article, I use Mujuru’s death as way into discussing ‘political accidents’ in Zimbabwe’s recent history, in order to explore the efficacies of rumours and the politics of uncertainty in relation to what I tentatively term the unfinished nature of death in Zimbabwe. Mujuru’s death is useful because the controversies that surrounded it, and the official inquest that followed, which continue to be the subject of great speculation both in print and on social media,5 turn not only on the inconsistencies of different witness accounts, and the woeful incompetence of the police and fire brigade’s response to the fire, but also on their failure to secure forensic evidence properly, the contested role of the state-appointed pathologist, the unresolved mysteries of the

fire itself, and the obscurities of Mujuru's burnt remains, all of which later provoked (unfulfilled) family demands that his remains be exhumed and re-examined. This illustrates how, in the context of a long history of factionalism in ZANU PF, rumour and dissent can turn on the indeterminacy of material substances, as much as on, or rather in entanglement with, contested narratives and representations. The two are of course intertwined. In this article, I suggest that the productive uncertainties provoked by such 'political accidents' -which constitute a particular kind of death in Zimbabwe -reflect and perhaps reinforce broader (epistemological and ontological) uncertainties that surround all death in Zimbabwe, and perhaps elsewhere, indicating that death is, in a sense, never finite, never complete, interminable, and potentially always in the (un/re)making.
I begin by outlining the main events of Mujuru's death, and the controversies it provoked, before situating this in a longer history of unresolved 'political accidents' in Zimbabwe. While Mujuru's death was undoubtedly an unusually controversial event in recent Zimbabwean history, and one already subject to academic and popular analysis, 6 it does fit a broader pattern of what I call 'political accidents' , a particular kind of death that points to the productive and potent, yet often disruptive, duplicitous and excessive indeterminacy that can surround all death. I return to this below.

Factionalism, rivalries and murky business dealings
On 16 August 2011, Zimbabwe's state-owned daily newspaper, the Herald, announced that 66 year old Solomon Mujuru had died in a 'suspected fire outbreak at his farm in Beatrice' . 7 The report described how a 'sombre atmosphere engulfed the farm' where his wife, Joice Mujuru, other family members , and a collection of senior ZANU PF officials had gathered. 8 The Herald carried quotes from these ZANU PF visitors that reflected both their sense of profound shock and great loss, signalling the start of an intense period of hagiographic outpouring from across Zimbabwe's political divides. State security minister, Sydney Sekeramayi, said it was 'hard to believe' that 'one of Zimbabwe's greatest sons is no more' , while the information and publicity minister, Webster Shamu, described the death as 'a tragedy which is difficult to fathom' , noting that Mujuru was 'synonymous with the history of the whole liberation struggle … a very brave fighter and illustrious son of the soil' . Such sentiments were not reserved to ZANU PF. In his message of condolence, the now late Morgan Tsvangirai, then leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and prime minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU) (which lasted from 2009 to about it … it's a huge event and could spark violence between factions of ZANU PF' . 17 The Mail & Guardian of 16 August 2011 reported that his death occurred at 'a politically sensitive time … as the country grapples with a timeline for its next general election' . pointing to intensifying ZANU PF factionalism then aligning differently around when to hold the next elections, as well as the thorny question of who might eventually succeed Robert Mugabe. Unlike Grace Musila's book on the 1988 murder of Julie Ward in Kenya, 18 which identifies a sharp differentiation between UK and international discourses about Ward's death, and those taking place within Kenya, both international and Zimbabwean media reports quickly linked Mujuru's death to internal factionalism and the looming succession debate. While the UK's Daily Telegraph of 16 August suggested that Mujuru's death 'could intensify turmoil in ZANU PF over who will succeed Mr Mugabe' , the now late Zimbabwean political analyst John Makumbe told the BBC that the death of 'Zimbabwe's "king-maker"' would likely result in 'more fragmentation in Zanu-PF' , pointing to the 'fierce rivalry' between Solomon Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa, then the defence minister. Indeed, many quickly suggested that the 'the most obvious beneficiaries' of Mujuru's death were members of the faction led by Mnangagwa, 19 whilst others pointed to the weakened position that Joice Mujuru now found herself in. 20 Looking back from the time of writing (in August 2018) -seven years after Mujuru's death; four years after Joice Mujuru's unprecedented removal from the vice-presidency and ZANU PF in 2014 (in large part because of Grace Mugabe's vitriolic interventions); nine months after Mnangagwa's own removal from the vicepresidency in November 2017 (after Grace Mugabe turned her crass attention to her new rival), and the spectacular, military 'non-coup' that followed, which removed Mugabe from office (as well as his wife and her so-called G40 faction) and replaced him with Mnangagwa as president and General Chiwenga as his deputy; and less than a month after yet another controversial election (July 2018) -these particular predictions about Joice Mujuru's vulnerability appear, at least for the moment, to have been correct. Certainly, in the wake of Mujuru's death, ZANU PF's succession disputes followed a decidedly changed trajectory, and any confidence that once may have existed that Joice Mujuru would succeed Mugabe, has long since evaporated.
In 2011, however, the abundance of possibilities, rumours and uncertainties meant that 'the way he has gone' was indeed 'difficult to comprehend' , as General Chiwenga, put it the morning after the death. Simply (or perhaps especially) within ZANU PF, let alone outside of it, there is 'so much in-fighting … now that if it's foul play' , commented one MDC member, 'it's anybody's guess who might have done this' . 21  (CIO). 22 This came amid suggestions that he too had presidential ambitions but had encountered deep opposition from an 'old guard' within the armed forces. Blessing-Miles Tendi has since argued that factionalism between Mnangagwa and Mujuru was reflected in long-running tensions between Zimbabwe's military intelligence, allegedly aligned to Mnangagwa, and elements of the civilian CIO linked to Mujuru -a point that both affirms the efficacy, and yet casts doubt on the veracity, of the unconfirmed CIO report. 23 As early as August 2011, rumours circulated that Chiwenga was running a 'hit squad' to 'assassinate anyone that he views as an obstacle' , and linked Mujuru's demise to the attempted assassination of Air Marshal Perence Shiri three years earlier. 24 Suspicions about Mujuru's death quickly reached fever pitch, and Zimbabwe's Independent newspaper cited 'a senior Zanu PF politburo member' as saying that Mujuru's allies were almost certain he was murdered. 'This is political murder, call it assassination, by other definitions, ' the anonymous source said. 'You must put this death in the context of the attempted murder of (Air Marshal Perence) Shiri a few years ago' . 25 Accusations of foul play are seldom far from Zimbabwe's political discourse, and involve allegations of treason and assassination almost as often as actual deaths. The prominent use of such accusations by ZANU PF to marginalise perceived threats, both within its own ranks (such as against Joice Mujuru before her 2014 ouster and against Mnangagwa in November 2017, but also in counter attack by Mnangagwa against Grace Mugabe during the same period), and against opposition parties, Bishop Muzorewa in 1980, Ndabaningi Sithole 1997, and Morgan Tsvangirai in 2002, illustrates the long histories of factional intrigue and nefarious subterfuge that rumours surrounding Mujuru's death quickly drew from, slotted into, and contributed to.
Yet ZANU PF factionalism and succession debates were not the only issues being discussed the morning after Mujuru's death. Questions were also immediately raised about Mujuru's relationship with the president. The question of whether Mugabe had sanctioned an attack loomed very large. Although Solomon had long been one of Mugabe's closest confidantes, dating back to the role he played cementing Mugabe's authority within the guerrilla movement in the 1970s, 26  suggestions also circulated that Mujuru had been forging relations with the MDC opposition in anticipation of a more 'moderate' post-Mugabe dispensation targeted to head off ZANU PF hardliners such as Mnangagwa and Chiwenga.
Suspicions also circulated that Mujuru had been a key actor in former finance minister Simba Makoni's flawed bid to stand as an independent candidate against Mugabe in 2008, on behalf of his Muvambo/Kusile/Dawn movement. Mujuru, many surmised, had been against Mugabe's candidacy in the 2008 elections. 29 Although Makoni's 2008 efforts were ineffective, and never received the public support from Mujuru, or any other senior party member, that was rumoured to lay behind it, in 2011 many blamed Makoni and his 'hidden' supporters for ZANU PF's disastrous results at the March 2008 elections. All this suggested the relationship between Mugabe and Mujuru had indeed soured. Mugabe was said to fear his influence in the military and the politburo. Mujuru, it was often suggested, was the only man who dared to challenge or question Mugabe directly. In other words, for many, it was Mugabe himself who stood to gain most from Mujuru's untimely and mysterious demise. This was extenuated by a particular rumour that began with a Facebook post by Elliot Pfebve, an MDC-T activist, in which he erroneously claimed that two cabinet ministers, Saviour Kasukuwere and Supa Collins Mandiwanzira had been the last to talk to Mujuru alive, on Sunday 14 August, at a cricket match at Harare Sports club. As Nyarota discusses, this post 'perhaps fuelled most of the speculation that Mujuru was assassinated by people linked to Mugabe'; especially after it was published by Zimbabwe News Network, thereby also illustrating how news and social media became entangled in the 'habit of presenting idle speculation as the verified truth' . 30 Aside from factionalism, and his deteriorating relationship with the president, Mujuru's shady business dealings, particularly in relation to diamonds too quickly became the subject of intrigue. 'The plot further thickens' , reported Zimbabwe's Independent, 'when it is taken into account Mujuru's most trusted diamond dealer Bothwell Hlahla died in a car accident in Mutare a few days before' the fire, and on the evening that Mujuru himself died, he was reportedly on his way to Beitbridge to meet international diamond dealers to 'resolve a dispute over payment for gems already sold'. 31 But the world of murky diamond deals is rarely separate from the intrigues of ZANU PF's internal politics. It is well known that various branches of the party, as well as the state's military and security services, received controversial concessions at the Marange diamond fields and that different 'companies' run by party heavyweights have jostled to secure government-determined access over the last decade. Mujuru's business dealings undoubtedly meant he had many enemies, and these are hard to divorce from the political intrigues provoked by his mysterious death. All these different rumours intertwine in obscure ways, reflecting both how the uncertainty of rumours can have the effect of making almost anything seem 29  possible or conceivable, and how the politics of patronage, securocracy, corruption and factionalism are often perceived as deeply entangled. 32 These rumours would persist, wax and wane in the following months and years, and remain unresolved. But it is both the speed with which they emerged in August 2011, and the trajectory they subsequently took that I draw attention to here. Indeed, if on 16 August questions were being raised about the mysterious circumstances of the fire, by the next day, media reports became much more direct, asking whether Mujuru had been assassinated and if so, by whom. 33 On the same day, he was declared a national hero and his state funeral announced for Saturday 20 August. But tensions within ZANU PF were becoming a problem. Joice Mujuru herself was forced to publicly appeal for calm the following day, after ZANU PF youth marched to her home demanding government answers for her husband's mysterious death. Official denials that it was anything other than a terrible accident were considered unconvincing. As ZANU PF alarm about the explosiveness of the situation appeared to grow, the Herald was forced to pull a controversial article about the death, 34 and the politburo issued a directive banning any party member, other than press secretary Rugare Gumbo, from commenting to the press. During the funeral itself, President Mugabe made an appeal for peace and calm, but this intervention did little to halt the intrigue, particularly because he himself expressed his own reservations after visiting Mujuru's burnt remains at the barracks of One Commando in Harare, an odd detail which would only emerge months later during the inquest in early 2012.
On 20 August, Mujuru was buried at the National Heroes Acre, attended by thousands of people. 35 The funeral did little to dampen suspicions. A few days later, Tendai Biti, the finance minister and a senior member of the MDC, accused ZANU PF of orchestrating the death, claiming they had taken to 'roasting' their internal opponents. He later withdrew the remark. 36 Within a few days, Joice Mujuru announced that she, too, was deeply suspicious about the death, and called for a new, more thorough police investigation. 37 Within months, the Mujuru family would call for the exhumation of Solomon's remains and a new autopsy, as details of the police's bungled forensic investigations were revealed. The apparent rush to bury him within four days of his death caused further controversy. DNA tests confirming Mujuru's identity were only carried out after his burial, and as a result, the identity of the deceased became a major subject for the inquest's deliberations in early 2012.
Rumours and intrigue therefore did not cease after Mujuru's funeral, especially as more details about the fire and events around it were leaked to the press. The farm's former owner, Guy Watson-Smith, contributed to the ferment by expressing his disbelief that Mujuru could not have easily escaped the burning building, given that it 'had more windows than holes in a colander' . 38 Police tried repeatedly to quell such speculations, as criticism mounted over the delay in releasing their investigation's findings. Concern about these delays mounted to such a degree that the issue was debated in parliament, and a new police investigation was launched in November but, as before, no details were released for public scrutiny. 39 The police, it seemed, did not want to take responsibility and many suspected this reflected the political pressure they were under. Some suggested that the delays mirrored the March 2008 elections, when the official result was delayed while ZANU PF regrouped to unleash a terrible wave of violence that enabled them to secure their hold over power in the June 2008 presidential run-off. 40 While 'in a country with a history of politically suspicious deaths' 41 it is not surprising that suggestions of foul play emerged quickly, it is striking how many of the rumours circulated around existing intrigues. Part of the context for the controversies enveloping Mujuru's death was therefore already in situ long before the fire took place. In the first few months after the death, official efforts to keep a lid on the rumours simply fuelled further speculation. This changed, however, with the public inquest in 2012, when details of the fire, the events around it, and of the police investigation, were finally made public. Then, as with the leaky, stinky human materials exhumed from the Chibondo mine earlier that year, 42 the particular materialities of the death and its context -the farm's layout; the unexplained fire; the human remains burnt-beyond-recognition; guns apparently found next to the body; missing keys; contradicting witness statements; the flawed autopsy and problematic state pathologist; the failures of his VIP security and of the local police, fire service, and so on -all added further traction to the political uncertainties already surrounding Mujuru's demise.

The inquest
In early January 2012, after months of speculation, the attorney-general, Johannes Tomana, announced that police investigations 'are now complete and an inquest is set to begin soon' . The police report had been 'kept a closely guarded secret' and Tomana 'appealed to all interested parties … to be patient and let the judicial process take its course' . The inquest would 'bring finality to a tragedy that shocked the entire nation' . 43 As with other inquests into unexplained deaths, 44 it did nothing of the sort, but it gripped Zimbabweans' attention for the following three months. If anything, the inquest only fuelled suspicions of foul play by offering multiple points of traction through which the rumours could gain purchase. 45 The inquest began on 16 January 2012, and was presided over by Magistrate Walter Chikana. The courtroom was spruced up, the toilets cleaned, running water was available, and heavy security was deployed in anticipation of the vice-president's attendance. 46 A total of 42 witnesses were summoned to give evidence, including the vice-president. When the inquest opened, objections were immediately aired by the Mujuru family lawyer, Thakor Kewada, that they had not yet seen the police findings or witness statements to which they were legally entitled. The magistrate postponed the hearing to allow them 'time to peruse the report' . 47 When the inquest reopened, the police came in for heavy criticism from Kewada, particularly the three officers who formed Mujuru's official VIP security detail.
During their cross-examination, it emerged that, on discovering the fire, none of them had airtime to call the fire brigade, and their police radios had been out of order for six weeks. 48 Furthermore, they did not know the layout of the homestead and so had 'opted to run three kilometres to the farm compound to get information on the location of his bedroom, instead of smashing windows to rescue him' . 49 Evidence emerged that Mujuru's relations with the three guards had been 'frosty' after they beat up one of his farmworkers. He had told his housekeeper, Rosemary Short, 'not to give them food because he was unhappy with the way they were carrying out their duties' , and 'that there was virtually no security at the farm and that we were actually guarding ourselves' . 50 Two of the policemen admitted they had been asleep, leaving their colleague alone on duty when the fire was discovered. 51 The farm's southern gate was also unguarded 52 and the police, stationed at the nearby town of Beatrice, had had no working vehicle for six months. A white commercial farmer from the area had been asked to help them reach Mujuru's farm after the alarm was raised. 53 More serious were contradictions between the police's statements and those made by Mujuru's staff, particularly Rosemary Short and Clemence Runhare, a private security guard. Both claimed they heard gunshots on the evening before the fire, which they had assumed was the VIP guards shooting snakes or warning off intruders, or came from poachers on nearby farms. Later that night, the police themselves dismissed these as the sounds of asbestos roofing cracking in the fire. 54 Runhare also claimed that when Mujuru arrived at the farm's outer-perimeter fence earlier that evening, he was sober and accompanied by an unknown man. However, the policeman stationed 'at the inner-perimeter gate testified that Mujuru was drunk, alone in the vehicle and that a suit was draped over the passenger seat' . 55 Short insisted that 'Mujuru was not that drunk that he could not appreciate what was happening' , adding that 'when he came home drunk' he would usually 'fall asleep upon parking his car' . 56 The inquest also scrutinised Solomon's actions before arriving at the farm. He had apparently stopped off at a Beatrice motel on his way home from Harare. Several witnesses claimed that Mujuru, who was known to be fond of whiskey, had not been drunk when he left the bar. The bartender, Portia Kamvura, stated that Mujuru had ordered four whiskeys before setting off, saying he had to drive to Beitbridge early the next day for business. 57 According to Douglas Nyakungu, an employee of the Zimbabwe Electrical Supply Authority (ZESA), who drank with Mujuru that night (and who later reappeared as an expert witness), the general had received a mysterious phone call that appeared 'serious, going by his facial expressions and hand movements' . 58 Further questions were raised about timing: why had it taken Mujuru forty minutes to reach his farm from Beatrice, a journey that would normally take only ten minutes?
Other details noted by his staff raised further questions. Short stated Mujuru had come to ask her for her keys to the house because he had left his own in Harare but his keys were later found in the burnt-out bedroom. He had not parked in his usual spot, stopping instead some distance from the kitchen door that he would have used to get into the house. Unusually, he had left his mobile phone, groceries and medication in the car, and had left the car unlocked. Short also contradicted suggestions that the fire had been started by a candle or a cigarette, noting that Mujuru was not carrying matches, did not smoke, and that there were no candles in the bedroom where the fire was believed to have started. 59 Amid the tension of the inquest there were lighter moments. Another security guard, Samuel Lewis, 'raised laughter in the courtroom' when he claimed he 'ran more than 300 metres in half a minute' to raise the alarm after the fire was discovered. 60 But the inquest's first week was dominated by critical scrutiny of the police. The pressure on them was intense, and 'most of the [police] witnesses … appeared visibly frightened … speaking in very low tones' such that 'the magistrate had to ask … the police officers, to speak up' . 61 One was 'driven to the verge of tears under cross-examination by Joice Mujuru and her relatives' . 62 Indeed emotions ran high for everyone. When Short claimed Mujuru had 'sensed that his death was coming' , Solomon's brother Joel and sister Elizabeth 'failed to hold back their tears' . 63 The independent media scrutinised the 'shocking shortcomings in the calibre of personnel in the Zimbabwe Republic Police' , 64 and Pedzisai Ruhanya commented that 'Mrs Mujuru was now seeing first-hand how incompetent the police force was' . 65 But such criticism was not reserved for the police, particularly when it emerged that the fire brigade had taken hours to arrive, and that when they did, they had no water because the tanks on their fire engines were leaky. 66 Beyond exposing the fact that 'disaster preparedness' was 'in a shambles' , 67 the independent media criticised the police for failing 'to properly investigate this gruesome murder of our liberation war hero' and for obstructing 'all possible leads and evidence to uncover what sounds like a political killing' . 68 Clearly, as more details emerged, suspicions were further fuelled that the inquest was 'heading towards a white-wash' . 69 Complaints also focused on state media coverage, prompting some to remark that the inquest could 'not be of any significance to ZANU PF' , who were, Lovemore Madhuku claimed, 'not taking it seriously' . 70 In the same news report, others noted that politically motivated deaths were 'not new in ZANU PF' . 'Remember when Tongogara died' , Charles Mangongera explained, 'there was suspicion … but after that the party soldiered on' . 'What we already have is a seeming case of cover up … I doubt if there is going to be conclusive evidence' .
If the first week of the inquest failed to calm the rumours, these were enormously amplified in the following weeks as the inquest turned to the fire, Mujuru's corporeal remains and the state pathologist's report. Various expert witnesses gave evidence, including the fire brigade, ZESA officials, the state pathologist, and forensic scientists from South Africa. All raised further criticisms of the police's conduct at the scene and subsequent investigations. Early suggestions by police that a candle might have started the fire had already been undermined by Short's evidence. Later testimony by both fire-brigade and ZESA officials ruled out an electrical fault as a possible cause. Douglas Nyakungu, (the ZESA official drinking with Mujuru on the night of the fire) said investigations had shown that 'no ZESA equipment had started the fire' and that there was no evidence of overloading by 'high-currency appliances' . The fire had 'destroyed the electrical set up in the house' and not vice-versa. 71 Meanwhile 'fire fighters testified that the flames … were too intense to have been "just a normal fire"' , and 'no ordinary fire could have caused the roof to drop as it did' . 72 Harare's chief fire officer, Clever Mafoti, explained that their investigations had been inconclusive but had identified 'two sources of the fire in the main bedroom and the lounge' . Mafoti added that fires with two sources usually point to arson or an electrical fault' . 73 However, Mafoti noted, the 'fire brigade could not definitely prove that theory because the crime scene … had been contaminated by too many people' . 74 By 'the time that we eventually arrived most of the leads had been destroyed' he added. 75 Therefore, as Bothwell Mutandiro, director of Zimbabwe's police forensic section, later admitted to the inquest, 'the cause of the fire could not be determined ' . 76 This uncertainty about the fire's cause and concerns about compromised evidence were echoed by forensic scientists from the South African Police Service (SAPS). They suggested 'the handling of evidence at the scene … fell below professional standards' . 77 Lieutenant Colonel Lenong, chief forensic analyst at SAPS, ruled out explosives, and Seomyatseng Jack Maine said that tests on materials retrieved from the scene to ascertain whether 'accelerants' had been used, also showed no evidence. But, 'that was not to say any were not used' , he stated, pointing to factors that could have 'compromised' the results, including how the samples were collected, the intense heat of the fire, and the incorrect storage plastic bags used by the police. 78 These uncertainties about the fire were directly linked to uncertainties provoked by Mujuru's corporeal remains. Again, critical questions were raised about the competence of state investigators. Many witnesses spoke of unusually large, intense blue flames covering the burning human remains 'to a radius of about 30cm around the body' , which was discovered 'lying face down with both legs and arms severely burnt' in a passage near to the main bedroom. 79 Tawanda Madondo, gardener at the farm, described finding a burning 'black object … the shape … of a human being' , which needed 'a number of buckets … to be extinguished' . 80 The number of buckets needed to douse the remains escalated from two to ten in different witness accounts. 81 Constable Cletwell Garisai and Inspector Simon Dube 'told the inquest they poured at least ten buckets of water to douse the blue flame which was intense and became ferocious when water was poured on it' . 82 Later Mafoti, from the fire brigade, explained that in fires above 500 degrees a 'triangle of combustion' could cause body fat to spontaneously combust with a blue flame, and that water poured on such an intense fire would immediately evaporate, causing the hydrogen in it to explode and intensify the flames. 83 Gruesome descriptions were heard about the burnt remains, which were not easily identifiable. Indeed, Mujuru's identity had not been confirmed until DNA test results were released several weeks after his burial. This was a point that Mujuru's brother Joel had raised repeatedly, even before the inquest began, claiming that he could not be confident that the body they had buried was that of his brother. These doubts were shared by many Zimbabweans in the country, and abroad. 84 Even the inquest report noted that the police's decision to authorise burial before DNA tests had confirmed Mujuru's identity 'made no sense' , was 'inappropriate' and an 'oversight' on their part. 85 As the inquest continued more questions emerged. As the Zimbabwe Independent noted, 'the expert witnesses did nothing but raise more questions' , 86 for example, about why 'Mujuru's body burnt to ashes in two hours yet it takes over 11 hours to do an ordinary cremation in a confined environment' . 87 Others referred to a curious hole in Mujuru's stomach, and missing organs. Doubts were also raised by differing accounts of the extent to which his body had been burnt, the position it lay in, and whether the arms were raised. 88 There were suggestions the body had been moved before the investigators arrived. 89 Others queried why the carpet under the body was un-or less damaged by fire, indications for some (including for Mutandiro, director of Zimbabwe's police forensic section) 'that Mujuru died before the fire spread into the room where his remains were retrieved' . 90 Equally contentious were the number of guns kept in the house: were there 14, 15 or 17? 91 Were they all registered? And what about the guns allegedly found next to his body? 92 And suggestions that spent ammunition had been found. 93 . These tied into comments about why a solider of Solomon's experience could not have escaped the burning building, something President Mugabe had raised at Solomon's funeral. 94 The work of pathologist, Dr Gabriel Alviero Gonzalez, a Cuban doctor working at Parirenyatwa Hospital, who was drafted in to carry out the autopsy at One Command Barracks in Harare on 16 August 2011, received particular attention at the inquest. The Zimbabwe Independent summarised his testimony as follows: A postmortem carried out by Dr Gabriel Alvero deduced the cause of death as 'carbonation due to open fire, origin unknown. The tracheal mucosa was red and black with carbon inside demonstrating that the deceased was alive when the fire started, ' he said. Postmortem findings were: The right arm was complete but left arm was burnt to ashes up to the elbow level. Both lower limbs were burnt to ashes up to the knee level. The lungs were severely burnt and could not be recognized. The large vessels such as the aorta and vena cava were burnt and could not be recognized. The teeth were present but fragile and breaking off. The esophagus was severely burnt and could not be recognized. The stomach was burnt and absent. The pancreas was absent. The liver and gall bladder were present but severely burnt and charred. A portion of the bowel was present but damaged by action of the fire and heat. The kidneys were absent. The bladder was absent. The prostate was absent. The spleen was absent. No endocrine organ was found. 95 While Gonzalez had identified no external injuries, others suggested that one of Mujuru's legs was broken. 96 Some questioned why the autopsy had pointed to smoke inhalation as a possible cause of death, due to evidence of carbonisation in the mouth and throat, while other indications implied his lungs were still pink. 97 The pathologist's status was also questioned when it emerged that he was not formally registered in Zimbabwe. 98 Furthermore, the autopsy had been carried out without proper equipment, 99 and no tests were done on the blood or organs because they were all burnt out. Amid this barrage of criticism of the bewildered Cuban pathologist, giving evidence through an interpreter, one of the oddest details to emerge was that President Mugabe had himself turned up, unannounced, just moments before the autopsy began, later telling journalists 'I have never seen a person die in such a horrific manner, we are all shocked' . 100 The pathologist testified that 'Mujuru appeared to have died from inhaling smoke' , but added that his findings were inconclusive 'considering the state of the body' . 101 The many official failings that the inquest revealed obviously fed the feverish rumour mill, and the Mujuru family repeated their demands for an exhumation and a new post mortem by an independent pathologist from South Africa, Dr Reggie Perumal, who was in court alongside their lawyer. 102 Their court application was made even before the state pathologist had given evidence. Kewada questioned the Cuban pathologist's autopsy 'saying he had been in the country for only seven weeks and had a poor command of English' , had been ill-equipped, and had 'bungled' the post mortem. 103 Initially, Magistrate Chikwanha delayed responding to this request, saying it was 'premature' and evidence from the 'local pathologist' needed to be heard first. 104 Later, Chikwanha denied the request altogether in an extraordinary outburst accusing Kewada 'of "violating" the Inquest Act' , and arguing that 'to conclude that Dr Alviero [Gonzalez] had not carried out a proper job' was 'highly inappropriate' . The magistrate claimed that Kewada was not 'qualified' to 'address him 'over facts provided by witnesses' , and would have to await until 'after the court has analysed all evidence' , had made its 'conclusions on how the deceased met his death' , and then sent 'recommendations to the AG's office' . 105 After three weeks of testimony from 39 witnesses, the inquest ended with 'sharper contradictions and inconsistencies' and 'deepening suspicions of foul play' than it began with. 106 Chikwanha's report was published at the end of the following month. It concluded that there was no evidence of 'foul play' , and that Mujuru had died of 'carbonisation' from smoke from an open fire whose cause could not be determined.
Despite the suppositions, speculations, conjectures and suspicions by various people including the deceased's relatives, nothing concrete and no evidence at all was placed before the court to show that there was foul play in the death of the deceased. In addition to that there is evidence from the doctor that deceased did not suffer any other injuries besides that caused by fire and there is also the evidence from the lead investigator, Chief Superintendent Makedenge to the effect that they carried out exhaustive investigations but there was nothing to show that there was foul play leading to the death of the now deceased.
The facts and evidence presented before the court, therefore, do not show that there was foul play and consequently the court concludes that there was no foul play.

W. Chikwanha Provincial Magistrate 14 March 2012 107
Following Chikwanha's report, the attorney general told the police to close the case. 108 Mujuru's lawyer called the result a 'mockery' that failed to 'bring closure to the case' . 109 Despite continuing uncertainties and persistent demands from Joice Mujuru and the Mujuru family, 110 no exhumation or re-examination of Mujuru's remains has ever taken place.
These continuing uncertainties link Mujuru's death to other unresolved, highprofile deaths in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Indeed, they are a key aspect of the kind of 'political accident' that Mujuru's death epitomises, as I outline below. The inquest left the cause of death profoundly unresolved, and if anything, only extended the uncertainty, by offering in its minute account of the known and unknown aspects of the death, multiple points of traction for the swelter of suspicion and rumour to gain purchase. Indeed, as several commentators had already surmised, the inquest was never 'likely to bring finality' as the attorney-general had promised. This is partly because public inquests of this sort, although judicial, are usually not charged with identifying culpability but merely cause of death. This is important in a Zimbabwean context where deaths are very rarely understood as 'natural' , whatever their immediate cause, and usually provoke difficult-to-resolve questions about intent and culpability. 111 Pushing further, however, one could question whether the political and social functions of such public inquests really are about offering the kind of finality and closure the attorney-general had promised; a position that is akin to older anthropological arguments that see the function of death rituals as being about remaking society after the rupture of death. 112 In contrast, I suggest that the inconclusive nature of the Mujuru death inquest, and others like it elsewhere, whatever the official pronouncements, is important for two reasons. Firstly, because this is how the politics of uncertainty surrounding death works, situated contingently between necro-politics and bio-politics -between the need for political legitimacy and the need to demonstrate necro-political sovereignty, impunity and capacity for fatal violence -such deaths must remain unresolved. They cannot be fixed as a named person or party's culpability as this would undermine the need for political legitimacy; yet by keeping rumours and suspicions of malevolent intent in circulation, this uncertainty contributes to 'necro-political power' by making rumoured culprits (or even just the very possibility that such a party exists) appear powerful, sovereign, and above the law.
As I have argued elsewhere (and below), this double effect was also key to the political efficacy of the war veteran-led 'vernacular' exhumations at Chibondo earlier in 2011. 113 Here I suggest it is equally key to the efficacy of 'political accidents' as particular kinds of death in Zimbabwe. In both cases, this uncertainty turns, in part, on the 'excessivity' (Fontein), 'torque' (Pinney), 'indeterminate alterity' or 'otherness' (Renshaw) of human materials -what Pinney also calls the 'alterity of an enfleshed world' -which demands but ultimately elides easy determination or stabilisation into meaning. 114 Filippucci et al. argue that the 'excessive metonymic qualities' of human materials often 'defy … efforts to turn them into meaningful metaphors' . This explains why human remains can be subject to huge and often highly specialised efforts and dramatic over-determinations into particular types of subjects/objects, such as ancestors, victims, heroes or specimens -processes that are often unusually problematic, politicized and contested. 115 This was apparent both during the Chibondo controversies and the Mujuru inquest in the way that the manner in which human remains in both cases where handled, interpreted and 'reconstituted' was what provoked particular attention, debate and critique. 116 Secondly, and related to this, the unresolvable and inconclusive nature of the Mujuru inquest is important because it exemplifies something that is maybe a feature of all death in Zimbabwe, and maybe all death in general. That it is never, or very rarely, entirely contained, stabilised, resolved, finished, or over and done with. That there always remains a contingent potentiality and uncertainty to death which defies material, semantic and temporal closure, and has to do with the way that death raises but cannot resolve difficult ontological questions about the imbrication of matter and meaning, and the entangled material and immaterial aspects of life.
Of course, these two reasons are intertwined, and therefore the profound ontological problems that death raises are what give the uncertainty of death its political traction, even if it also, ultimately, necessarily defies attempts to channel such political utility. While the key point here is that the uncertain or unfinished nature of death is politically productive, it also seems unlikely that any inquest could have resolved the burgeoning questions and intrigue surrounding Mujuru's demise.

A particular kind of death
Mirroring what has frequently been reported within an innovative strand of research on road and traffic accidents across the region 117 (part of a new literature reassessing meanings and practices of death across sub-Saharan Africa), 118 fatal accidents in Zimbabwe, on roads or elsewhere, are often the subject of much public discussion, dissent, rumour, and sometimes occult accusation. Links between rumours, gossip, sorcery and 'the occult' are well established, 119 as are the political imbrications of witchcraft accusations, 120 but a key point here is that the uncertainties of such deaths often leak out of and across social, symbolic, discursive and political realms, and the uncontained materialities of bodies and persons can destabilise things, places, times, and landscapes as much as they question official and normative accounts of fatal events. This is what Jensen, in a different but not unrelated context, refers to as 'shimmering' . 121 Traces of past accidents are highly visible in the carcasses of vehicles on roadsides, but also appear through the uneasy presence of unsettled spirits and indeterminate ghosts said to haunt accident 'black spots' , 122 themselves becoming dangers to be avoided or encountered at great risk.
There is an important link here to landscapes of terror associated with militia 'bases' and election violence. These too are also often reportedly haunted by ngozi (spirits) demanding atonement and reparation. 123 Accidental and violent deaths are therefore linked by the haunted landscapes of terror they co-produce (literally and metaphorically) through the spilling of blood exemplifying the profound uncertainties that all deaths provoke. Indeed, as pointed out, death is rarely considered 'natural' in Zimbabwe. 124 and is therefore very often accompanied by an excess of intrigue and contestation exactly because of the instabilities of personhood and society, bodies and spirit, material and immaterial, matter and meaning, that it can reveal. 125 This is part of what I call the unfinished nature of death in Zimbabwe. 126 These dynamics are reflected in how Zimbabwe's postcolonial milieu has long been punctuated by the 'accidental' deaths of politicians, army officers 127  year, the outspoken ZANU PF MP Edward Chindori-Chininga died in a car accident only a week after the parliamentary committee he chaired released a 'damning report' into 'the abuse of diamond revenue from the Chiadzwa diamond fields' . 130 All died in 'mysterious' accidents accompanied by rumours of foul play and assassination plots. Although I am mainly focused on the 'accidental' deaths high-profile ZANU PF officials, because this status is key to the 'political accidents' I am describing, there are also examples of suspicious deaths beyond the party which feed into the swelter of intrigue that can surround fatal car accidents, such as of senior ZAPU and ZIPRA figures in the 1980s, 131 and more recently Susan Tsvangirai's death in a car accident in 2009, which some suspected was a botched attempt to assassinate her husband Morgan Tsvangirai. 132 Another example illustrating how the unexplained deaths of much less high-profile party members can provoke similar controversy was that of aspiring ZANU PF parliamentary candidate Bruno Mugabe, just before the 2000 elections, when his car was washed away in a flash flood in Masvingo, which many suspected was intertwined with that province's infamous factionalism, and possibly occult interference. 133 The point I am making is that these kinds of 'political accidents' constitute a particular kind of death that can be used as a lens through which to make sense of the unfinished nature of death in Zimbabwe. Controversial deaths of senior ZANU PF politicians are not only a feature of the last two decades, since Zimbabwe's turn towards 'authoritarian nationalism' . 134 There are many older unresolved deaths dating to the 'struggles within the struggle' , which beset nationalist parties and guerrilla armies during the 1960s and 1970s. 135 As with so much of contemporary Zimbabwean politics, the past looms large, close, and unresolved. Just as the burial of every new 'national hero' invokes recursive referral back to the nationalist politics of the 1960s and 1970s, so every new 'accidental' death renews the controversies of earlier unresolved deaths. Often these coincide exactly because such 'political accidents' have produced so many 'national heroes' , an observation frequently noted in the media. 136 'national heroes' and the reinforcement of anti-colonialist rhetoric at the same time as reasserting hierarchies of necro-political sovereignty.
One problem that any discussion of rumours faces, like studies of jokes and humour, is that what they mean or rather do is so context dependent; their efficacy is dependent upon their performance and reception as much as on their 'content' per se. 147 The rumours surrounding Mujuru's death illustrate this very well. The immediate suspicions about murder (and who might be responsible) engaged with a wide host of pre-existing intrigues to do with ZANU PF factionalism, its deepening succession disputes, the still rebounding repercussions of its electoral failures in March 2008, of the wiki-leaks scandal, and Mujuru's alleged fallout with the president, as well as various conspiracies involving diamonds and murky business interests. In August 2011, and even months afterwards, each rumour seemed possible or even likely.
Seven years later, however, after his wife Joice Mujuru's eviction from the vicepresidency, Mnangagwa's ascendency to and then removal from the same position, followed by President Mugabe's own removal in late 2017 in favour of Mnangagwa and Chiwenga, ZANU PF's deepening factionalism around the succession issue has become the most likely intrigue lying behind the Solomon's death. Other explanations now appear less convincing, less salient, less obvious, even if other possibilities do continue to circulate. Rumours surrounding such uncertain, high-profile deaths make each of those deaths both unique events in and of themselves, and of course unique to any moment in which they are (re)considered, reconstituted, and given new or renewed significance, meaning and value. In other words, they are historically situated.
Solomon's death was, therefore, like Chitepo's assassination, Tongogara's accident, and all Zimbabwe's other mysterious deaths, a unique event that is necessarily of changing significance and meaning in changing circumstances, and is perhaps therefore best judged on its own (historical) terms. And yet all these different deaths are connected; in people's minds and conversations, but also in their form, their uncertainties, and the responses they provoke; each new mysterious death immediately indexing the last. 'Political accidents' are, I suggest, a particular kind of death in Zimbabwe. And although they resonate across the region, where the death of public figures is often surrounded by a wealth of intrigue, 148 there is something particular about this form of unfinished Zimbabwean death that has to do with the profound uncertainty that surrounds them; a productive and potent, yet often disruptive, duplicitous and excessive indeterminacy.
Most obviously what unites these 'political accidents' -distinct from the unresolved violence and deaths of the liberation struggle, of the Gukurahundi, and of more recent political violence 149 -is both the senior ZANU PF status of the dead, and the speed and public grief with which so many were immediately declared national heroes, despite (or maybe because of) the controversies surrounding their deaths. This has often been remarked upon by the media who gleefully report the 'mysteries' surrounding the 'litany of sinister deaths' of national heroes. 150 While the apparent contradiction of a ruling party engineering the 'accidental' deaths of its own 'heroes' contributes to the broader contestations long surrounding ZANU PF's elitist control of state commemoration, 151 it also offers a coherence to these particular kinds of death. In this respect, it is instructive to note that aside from the multilayered politics of exclusion surrounding the selection of national heroes -marked by elitism, hierarchism and the exclusion of high-profile members of rival parties and movements (such as ZAPU/ZIPRA) as well as former ZANU/ZANLA 'rebels' and perceived 'sell outs' , such as Ndabaningi Sithole or Wilfred Mhanda (aka Dzino), sometimes in favour of only recently significant political actors like Chenjerai Hunzi, with questionable liberation credentials -another less-remarked upon dynamic is the phenomena of former party 'insiders' who later became critical voices against the party, but who are nonetheless still interred as national heroes after their deaths. This includes both Eddison Zvobgo (d. 2004) and Edgar Tekere (d. 2011) who were both buried at National Heroes Acre despite having expressed specific sentiments critiquing the Heroes selection process and denying any wish to be buried at the site. 152 These two examples are, of course, different from each other, and from what I am calling 'political accidents' . Nevertheless, they are informative. Edgar Tekere was a more outspoken and longer-standing adversary of President Mugabe than Eddison Zvobgo's much more measured and careful critiques in the later years of his life. And although both were awarded national hero status, President Mugabe's response to each death was different. Highly unusually, he avoided attending Tekere's Heroes Acre burial in 2011, but had sung Zvobgo's praises at his funeral almost a decade before, describing him as a 'fearless and dedicated gallant freedom fighter' . 153 Both Tekere and Zvobgo had in their own ways challenged Mugabe during their lives, and at different moments harboured ambitions to succeed him. Both died after long illnesses, so neither death was surrounded by controversies common to 'political accidents' , although Zvobgo had survived a car accident in the mid-1990s that for many 'looked suspiciously like several others in which challengers to Mugabe have died' . 154 Yet they do illustrate the opportunities that the deaths of high profile ZANU PF A key issue here is that rumours of foul play surrounding 'political accidents' can only ever remain allegations. They cannot be substantiated or fixed through more authoritative mechanisms, judicial or otherwise, because that might mean issues of legitimacy would outweigh any necro-political advantages. Any such fixing, however contingent, could undermine the productive uncertainties at play in these situations. 'Political accidents' must therefore, almost by definition, remain unfinished and unresolved in order to be political efficacious. In this respect it is no surprise that the inquest into Solomon's death, although officially concluding it was accidental, hardly offered resolution to anyone's satisfaction; just as the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe's reburial and memorialisation of the remains at Chibondo, and the sealing of the mine, ultimately has only delayed rather than resolved the controversies provoked by those exhumations; and just as the 1976 Chitepo Commission report failed decidedly to curtail decades of subsequent intrigue surrounding Chitepo's assassination.
Reflecting more broadly across the region and beyond, what marks Zimbabwe's 'political accidents' off from a plethora of other rumoured assassinations is that they are (nearly) always officially framed as 'accidents' (Chitepo's death being the obvious exception). Moreover their 'accidental' nature although questionable (and usually questioned) always remains a possibility. The unresolved uncertainties surrounding these deaths are not confined to why and by whom someone is killed, but whether malevolent intentionality was involved at all. Therefore despite the continuing fervour of intrigue around both Tongogara and Mujuru's deaths, for some evidence of 'foul play' in either case remains thin and unconvincing. 160 In comparative examples across the region, such as Kenya, it is more common for rumours to surround the death of someone recognisably a victim of intentional killing (having been shot, for example) so that any unresolved questions revolve around the question of who lies behind it, and the why. 161 With Zimbabwe's 'political accidents' , by contrast, the possibility of 'chance' and misfortune (as well as 'occult' intervention) always retains potential traction. 162 This makes the uncertainties surrounding these deaths more profound, in turn extenuating the potential political efficacy deriving from the duplicity of the rumours in which they are immersed. Because a possibility always remains that any particular individual's 'accidental' death really was an accident (even as it is assumed not all of were) the duplicitous salience of this kind of death is amplified, fuelling both the necro-political affects and enabling 'patriotic' proclamations of heroism to be endlessly reinforced. Of course, such uncertainty also means that any political affects remain potentially disrupt-able. The indeterminacy surrounding such deaths is both of great potential political salience and yet, in the end, excessive to it. 160 Nyarota, Graceless Fall. 161 A good example was the torture and death of Chris Msando, a senior election official, a few days before Kenya's 2017 election. See 'Kenya Election Official Tortured, Murdered Before Vote, Officials Say' , Reuters, 31 July, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-kenya-election-death-idUSKBN1AG1B5 (accessed 10 September 2018). 162 An informative counter-example is the considerable effort Kenyan authorities spent on trying to persuade Julie Ward's father that her death was accidental -a very unlikely scenario; Musila, A Death Retold.