The Chitepo Assassination
By David Martin and Phyllis Johnson
Published by Zimbabwe Publishing House (1985)
ISBN: 0 949225 04 5

ON March 18 1975 the fight to liberate Zimbabwe from colonial bondage was dealt a heavy blow; one of the central figures of the liberation struggle, Herbert Chitepo was killed.
Chitepo, who was ZANU’s national chairman and leader of its Dare reChimurenga, was killed in a car-bomb explosion.
The question of the day was: Who planted the bomb that killed him?
Theories as to who was behind the unfortunate demise of the revolutionary were propagated, but the question remained.
Was Chitepo a victim of regional feuding within ZANU between the Karanga and the Manyika as the Zambian government decided?
Was the Zambian government involved in the murder as many in ZANU suggested?
Was it a covert operation aimed at disrupting the war and was Smith’s government the real villain?
Ten years after the nationalist’s assassination, David Martin and Phyllis Johnson penned the book The Chitepo Assassination which seeks to proffer answers to the question: ‘Who killed Chitepo?’
The writers, backed by evidence obtained from interviews with former Rhodesian intelligence officers, pin the death of Chitepo on the Rhodesian government.
Ian Robert Bruce Sutherland, a Zambian farmer who had been doing reconnaissance for Rhodesian Central Intelligence Office (CIO) for about six years and Hugh Hinds are named as the ones who carried out the assassination.
With many theories surrounding the death of Chitepo, the one by Martin and Johnson is more convincing.
Born Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo on June 15 1923 and despite his disadvantaged background, just like other blacks during the colonial era, Chitepo rose to become the country’s first black barrister.
Determined to see an independent Zimbabwe, he left his ‘prestigious job in Tanzania in 1966 and moved to Zambia to devote himself fulltime to reorganising the party and beginning the armed struggle in earnest.’
Chitepo, who had been identified by the Rhodesians as the brains behind the review in the military strategy and the conduct of the guerilla war, according to Martin and Johnson, became a target of the Rhodesian CIO since 1969.
“They identified the ‘brains’ behind the looming escalation of the war as the same man they held responsible for the new strategy in the north-east – Herbert Chitepo,” write Martin and Johnson.
“He was the main public voice of the party, enunciating the ideological line and strategy.
“He was seen as the ‘brains’ behind the military offensive, the ‘brains’ behind the political line and the ‘brains’ running ZANU.”
It was such that the Rhodesians sought to eliminate Chitepo by all means.
Without Chitepo, the war would end, they thought.
This was a foolish miscalculation as the brunt of the war lay on the shoulders of many.
Having identified Chitepo as their target, Martin and Johnson write that necessary groundwork was done to ‘get rid’ of the nationalist.
“The operations department had chosen Sutherland to undertake the initial reconnaissance on Chitepo and some of the information which he supplied convinced them that the assassination was feasible,” the writers quote a former Rhodesian intelligence officer.
“The assassin chosen by the operations department was already on their pay roll.
“He was an explosives expert and his name was Hugh ‘Chuck’ Hind.
“Sutherland’s Mazubuka Farm became the planning and operational centre of the Chitepo assassination.”
The ‘job’ was not going to be difficult for the assassins as their handlers had given them the requisite resources.
“It doesn’t require much planning for this sort of thing,” the writers quote a former senior Rhodesian intelligence officer.
“Chitepo’s identity was well known from newspaper photographs and Hind had access to other information from his old police contacts.
“Confirmation of the Chairman’s current street address and those of other ZANU leaders had come in February from a captured ‘terrorist’ and both Hind and Sutherland knew their way around Lusaka.”
Working as a team, Sutherland and Hinds ensured they carried out their mission and were rewarded handsomely by the Rhodesian government, says Martin and Johnson.
The killing of Chitepo was described by a former senior Rhodesian intelligence officer as: “Our most successful operation of the war.
“It went off exactly as planned.”
The joy of the success must have been short-lived as the spirit and zeal to fight on was intensified after the death of Chitepo.
The death of the ZANU chairman might have disrupted the operation of the freedom fighters, but this was not for long as they soldiered on.
“The war was effectively brought to a halt and many ZANU guerillas fighting in the north-east of Rhodesia, cut off without supplies or information, were sacrificed,” writes Martin and Johnson.
The bulk of ZANU’s leadership not already detained in Rhodesian prisons were detained in Zambia and the names of leaders like Josiah Tongogara smeared in the courts and the press.
The freedom fighters knew that by making a decision to go to war, it was more like being handed the death sentence.
In a war situation, death is inevitable and the cadres were aware of that.
The death of Chitepo was a great loss and it saddened freedom fighters, but they had to continue fighting, something Chitepo would have wanted.
Five years later, after the untimely death of Chitepo, Zimbabwe attained independence.
Forty-one years after his death, his contribution to the liberation struggle is not forgotten.