By Kenny Mangwiro in Kwekwe
THE retired Brigadier-General Benjamin Mabenge who died in Harare aged 69, has been hurriedly accorded national hero status by President Mnangagwa and will be buried at the national heroes acre in Harare this Wednesday.
Mabenge: A gun-totting criminal who threatened Kwekwe businesses
The decision by President Mnangagwa must have surprised many in his close circles, considering how he often clashed with the fearless former army boss who once challenged him to an open fist fight at some open space in Kwekwe town.
But being fearless was only a tiny fraction of Mabenge’s character: he was a self-proclaimed murderer, a corrupt and foul-mouthed man who had no respect for women as well as societal values in general. Some of us who have rubbed shoulders with him here in Kwekwe can attest to the many times Mabenge showed his dark side without any remorse at all.
How can we forget the steamy incident when Mabenge, brandishing a cocked AK47, stormed the Haggie Rand factory along Bessemer Road in Kwekwe saying he wanted to fish out some MDC sympathetic manager at the wire manufacturing plant? That was way back in 2005, and Mabenge was declaring openly that any opposition supporter deserved to be killed the most painful way.
He frog-marched Haggie Rand management to convene an emergency meeting which he chaired, his gun laid right on the desk and pointed at the bamboozled workers. It took a lot of pleading by senior managers, one of whom was close to Mabenge, to make him go away without pulling the trigger. The “culprit” manager immediately resigned and subsequently changed homes in Kwekwe fearing that Mabenge’s lynch mob could come after him.
Mabenge also had a run in with top management at Sable Chemical Company, where Blessing Chebundo was employed, saying the company had funded Chebundo to beat Mnangagwa in the 2000 election. This was despite that Chebundo was actually in trouble with the same management who wanted to push him out for his opposition politics at a time Sable Chemicals was part-owned by Government.
It is easy for outsiders to dismiss the likelihood of Mabenge pulling a trigger at people he suspected of the slightest of things, such as not liking Zanu PF. Mabenge was a lover of guns and would open fire at hapless women searching for firewood at his Woodlands Farm in Mbizo Extension.
Described as a ‘blood thirsty monster’ Mabenge in November 2007, fatally shot Clement Takaendesa and seriously wounded Taurai Chigede at close range, using a powerful FN rifle. The two were supporters of the MDC led by Tsvangirai. He was briefly arrested but was released just days after the fatal shooting.
We were equally shocked that when the State-controlled Herald newspaper reported on the case a few days later, it claimed the shooting victims were poaching for fish on a stretch of river that runs through the retired army general’s property, Woodlands Farm.
Mabenge never stood trial for the callous murder even though he was arrested for the shooting. In no time, he walked out of police cells and the matter disappeared somewhere along the courts system.
With Mnangagwa’s protection, Mabenge goes after MDC members
The MDC leadership in KweKwe especially Dr Henry Madzorera maintained Mabenge was getting protection from then Rural Housing and Social Amenities Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, now the President.
Before his defeat in the 2000 parliamentary elections to MDC’s Blessing Chebundo (now with Zanu PF) Mnangagwa as the MP for Kwekwe enjoyed huge benefit from the violence Mabenge inflicted on opponents, including those within Zanu PF.
In 2000, Mabenge allegedly led a group of youths that doused Chebundo’s home with petrol, but Chebundo escaped death by a whisker when he grabbed one of his attackers. This prevented him from being set on fire because the attacker would have
been burned in the process.
Mabenge also burned down the MDC offices in Kwekwe and other houses belonging to leading party activists in 2007 as he continued on his rampage against anyone linked to the opposition. Back here in Kwekwe, we knew him as Freddie Matanga, his Chimurenga nom de guerre.
As Kwekwe residents, we recall that Mabenge’s worst violence spree was between 2000 and 2005, when he inflicted the maximum fear and left a trail of broken bones among opposition activists. He enjoyed Mnangagwa’s protection as he was his election agent, having been in that position since the mid-1990s.
Mabenge challenges Mnangagwa to an open fight
As his stoke as a strongman kept rising, Mabenge thought of challenging Mnangagwa in the Zanu PF primary elections for the 2005 elections. That was the time the two’s relationship turned sour and Mabenge’s economic fortunes plummeted astonishingly.
As Mnangagwa loves to say, if you get out of favour with him, unovunyana seshizha (you become worthless instantly like a leaf in the sun). Mabenge resisted all warnings that Mnangagwa would not forgive him for openly contesting him, and that he could find another constituency if he now wanted political office.
So on the eve of the primaries, Mnangagwa promoted one of his aides, Owen Mudha Ncube to take over Mabenge’s post as election manager. Mudha’s late father had been in good books with Mnangagwa. So the primaries went on, and Mudha and his boys crafted a plan to deliver victory for ED whatever the cost.
Party members were bussed from deep in Nkayi where Mudha had close connections with youths. The voting was far from free and fair, with chaos and fist fights at the Zanu PF offices in Kwekwe. When Mudha’s boys were picked up by cops for the brawl, they were released “within an hour” while Mabenge’s supporters had to endure the cells till the next Monday morning.
Soon after the results were announced and Mabenge was declared the loser to Mnangagwa, Mabenge himself often told me that he went on a direct telephone call with then President Mugabe.
“I told vaMugabe that Mnangagwa haadiwe nevanhu kunoku and ndamudya but andibiridzira, so what’s now left is that ndiri kuda fight naye, man to man,” Mabenge boasted many times about that call.
Indeed, Mabenge openly challenged Mnangagwa for a bare knuckle fight at the civic centre in Kwekwe, where no aides wold be allowed to join in. The night of the primary election loss, Mnangagwa reportedly visited Mabenge at his home and insisted they smoke the peace pipe and stop involving Mugabe in “our local politics here because if Mugabe gets angry we will both lose out”.
It is not clear if Mabenge heeded that advice, but what is clear is that his finances started running out. He lost a home he was living in and had to take refuge at the old, abandoned houses which used to be for manager at Gaika Mine. He pawned his household property at local shops and was pressed for cash nearly everyday, as it emerged that he was now failing to pay school fees for his sons who were in high school then.
His wife, Rosegema, and their six children were instantly shaken by the sudden plummeting of fortunes and had to be assisted oftentimes by simple neighbours with daily needs including food and bus fare to school.
The fall and rise of Mabenge as a boardroom man
In around 2009, when Mnangagwa became Defence Minister, he sent Owen Mudha to bring Mabenge’s sons to Harare so they could get scholarships processed for them. Down and without a cent, Mabenge grudgingly agreed and the children went on to study at universities in South Africa and Asia.
But Mabenge remained destitute, ran into problems with creditors and drank Chibuku like a fish drinking water. He would walk around Kwekwe CBD, chain-smoking all them time. He would tell anyone who cared to listen, how he challenged Mnangagwa for a boxing match and how Mugabe pleaded for a ceasefire!
But Mnangagwa would not forget his former campaign manager. From his portfolio as Defence Minister, Mnangagwa kept on pushing for more opportunities on behalf of Mabenge.
In 2009, then Information Minister Webster Shamu announced a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings board that was packed by Mnangagwa’s henchmen and – you guessed right – retired Brigadier Benjamin Mabenge was among the directors.
In fact, it was payback time for most securocrats who had helped Mugabe get back into power sing raw violence countrywide after the 2008 election loss to Tsvangirai. So apart from Mabenge, the ZBC general manager finance post went to retired Brigadier-General Elliot Kasu. The board of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, which regulates the state broadcaster, included several retired officers, particularly three former brigadier generals, Felix Muchemwa, Mabenge and Gilbert Mashingaidze.
Another retired Brigadier-General, Elasto Madzingira, and a retired colonel, Reuben Mqwayi, were board members of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, whose role is to allocate licences to potential broadcasters. Such was the case at nearly all other State-owned enterprises. But Mnangagwa was not done yet with handling Mabenge some chance to enjoy “rifa renyika“.
At that time, Zimbabwe’s newly discovered diamond riches, the Marange fields, were rewarding hugely especially for the connected elites. Mbada Diamonds and Anjin Diamond Mining Company, joint ventures between the Zimbabwe government (read army) and some rather shady private Asian businesses, were formed to exploit the riches.
Both were soon firmly in the grip of former military officers, with Mbada run by retired air vice-marshal Robert Mhlanga. Anjin’s company secretary was Charles Tarumbwa, a serving brigadier general. Mabenge had to be squeezed in somehow, even though he lacked the educational qualifications that fellow former army bosses possessed.
Because Mabenge lacked any boardroom etiquette, he could only be appointed at the low-tier security division at Anjin where he was appointed deputy security manager in 2010. The position earned Mabenge his first decent vehicle in years – a Chinese-made Rhino CAM, and there was a weekend party at his Gaika ramshackle home where we braaied and drank all weekend celebrating the vehicle.
“I see newspapers cry foul that diamonds are being looted,” Mabenge would say after downing one beer too many. “Of course, we fought so that we enjoy our God-given resources, and there is nothing Tsvangirai or (then US President Barack) Obama can do about it” I remember Mabenge telling me that, puffing a billow of cheap cigarette smoke right into my face.
He held onto that Anjin post until 2013, and moved his family to the farm in Mbizo. He had muscled a dying white man out of that farm with the help of Owen Mudha and other Zanu PF youths of the late 1990s.
Because he was now “eating”, Mabenge went back to his animal instincts and began instilling fear in the opposition. In 2011, Mabenge told the ZBC TV during the live broadcast of national hero Solomon Mujuru’s burial that retired army officers like him would meet take action against Tsvangirai for demanding security sector reform.
“The retired officers’ corps will be meeting within the next 14 days to
consider the options,” Mabenge fumed. “I want to warn whoever is making such careless suggestions that this is the time to inflict doom on the enemy. It is not for us to tell them what we will do but for them to guess.”
In 2014, when his board membership at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation came to an end, Mabenge was immediately appointed board member to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Services Commission, and he enjoyed perks and benefits there up until 2019.
Old age and failing health slow down Mabenge
Old age and failing health gradually slowed down Mabenge as he had of late withdrawn from public life. When he still had the gun in his hand and Mnangagwa on his back, he unleashed terror to locals including schools and businesses. He would overrun Globe and Phoenix School with his youths and dig for gold right in the school premises during daytime when children were supposed to be having lessons.
Mabenge’s life is typical of all the top leaders in Government today who fought in the liberation war. They liberated people, only to go on to subjugate the same people to more untold suffering and trauma.
Mabenge was born on August 6, 1954 in Zvishavane district and attended Copper Queen Primary School. In the early 1970s, he skipped the border into Zambia and went on to receive military training at Mgagao in Tanzania. Zanla then seconded him to Mozambique between for further training and service.
In 1976, Mabenge became the Zanla General Staff Political Commissar for Tangwena sector in Manica province, a credit for his oratory skills. In 1976, he became a member of the Zanla High Command as Field Operational Commander in Gaza province.
After independence in 1980, Mabenge who was a military attache in Damascus, Syria, also doubled as Zanu PF Chief Representative to the Middle East. His unchecked behaviour got him bundled onto a plane and sent back home where he continued in the army as a senior.
His weakness had always been with educational studies, and he enrolled for correspondence with Rapid Results College, acquiring a Diploma in Business with the Professional Institute of Administration. Mabenge also attended other courses with the Zimbabwe Defence Staff College.
Here is the man Defence Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri said was renowned for his bravery and resentment to corruption.
“He was forthright and frank. Upon his return at independence, he joined the Zimbabwe National Army where he rose to become a Brigadier General. He was a fountain of wisdom, he fought for us to be a sovereign country. He was an exemplary leader,” said Muchinguri-Kashiri.
“The President is saying as Government, we are indebted to the Mabenge family who gave us their son. He has a rich history. Some in our midst are cowards, we now want the return of our erstwhile colonisers to rule us.”
Mabenge will be buried at the National Heroes Acre this Wednesday.
