Josiah Tongogara

Josiah Magama Tongogara (4 February 1938 – 26 December 1979) was a commander of the ZANLA guerrilla army in Rhodesia. He attended 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 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. It was where Tongogara first met Ian Smith.

Tongogara was one of several rebel commanders operating from outside of Rhodesia's borders to free the country from white rule. In 1973 he took over command from Herbert Chitepo of the armed forces of the Zimbabwe African National Union. And in 1975, he put down an internal revolt by members of the Manyika tribe and consolidated that control with the assistance of Mujuru, aka Rex Nhongo. Herbert Chitepo, who may have encouraged the Manyika revolt, was killed by a car bomb that year, and a Special International Commission in Zambia found Tongogara, among others, responsible.

At the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, Tongogara was a crucial "moderating" force, according to Lord Carrington, the then British Foreign Secretary, who chaired the talks. By then Tongogara openly favoured unity between ZANU and 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 Wilfred Mhanda, a former ZANLA commander who was imprisoned in Mozambique for allegedly leading an internal revolt within the party. As Lancaster House concluded, Tongogara returned to Mozambique, where Zanla was based, to inform his soldiers of the ceasefire. Among them was Margaret Dongo, who, aged fifteen, had crossed into Mozambique to join the guerrillas, adopting the chimurenga (liberation war) name of Tichaona Muhondo ("we shall see/resolve this in the battle").

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