Chenjerai Hunzvi

Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi (October 23, 1949-June 4, 2001) served as Chairman of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association from 1997 until his death in 2001.^[1]

Education in Europe

Hunzvi was born in Chiminya, a village in the Mashonaland province of Zimbabwe. The Rhodesian government arrested Hunzvi in 1965 for involvement in black nationalist movements. However, unlike Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo Hunzvi did not become a key figure in the establishment of Zimbabwe. Instead, he studied medicine in Eastern Europe where he married a Polish woman named Wieslawa Hunzvi. He learned French and Romanian. In 1979, in the middle of his studies, Hunzvi visited London to attend the Lancaster House Agreement. He did not return to Zimbabwe until 1990 when he began a medical practice in Budiriro, a township of Harare. Wieslawa Hunzvi fled Zimbabwe in 1992 to escape violence from her husband. She described Hunzvi as a "cruel and vile man who took delight in beating me. And as for the war, he never fired a shot. He saw no action at all."^[2]

Political career

Hunzvi became chairman of the Zimbabwean Liberation War Veterans Association in 1997, which, at the time, was almost unheard of in Zimbabwe's political spectrum. Hunzvi was soon organising demonstrations and openly criticizing President Mugabe for reneging on his promises to compensate war veterans. In this way, and much to Hunzvi's credit as an effective activist, the War Veteran Association became a force Robert Mugabe could not ignore. Mugabe soon agreed to pay a huge sum towards the war veteran community. By 1999 however, Hunzvi's reputation had diminished since becoming involved in a corruption case regarding the theft of money from the War Veterans Fund. He was denied bail, but never found guilty. In 2000 Hunzvi adopted the name "Hitler"-claiming it to be his nom-de-guerre and led the campaign that led to the seizure of white-owned land and the deaths and harassment of many supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change party. War Veterans denied voting access to whites and MDC supporters when Mugabe sought a mandate to seize white owned farms, although the attempt failed to stop a 55% No vote. Hunzvi died in 2001 while in Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital. While some have attributed his death to malaria, others say he died of AIDS.^[1] Despite never fighting for ZANU-PF, one fraud charge Hunzvi could not defeat was his claims to be "117% disabled" for which he was fined. Irrespective of his phenomenal achievement in forcing Mugabe to grant one off payments of USD $2,500 and monthly pensions of USD $100 to the 50,000 members, contributing heavily to the crashing of the Zimbabwean dollar, Hunzvi was eventually voted out of the War Veterans Association.

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