By Alex Magaisa

The other big news this week was the death of Perrance Shiri, a retired general who led the Air Force of Zimbabwe for many years. It is impossible to mention Shiri without Gukurahundi, the genocidal campaign in Matebeleland and the Midlands which killed an estimated 20,000 people in the 1980s. Much has already been written and more will be written about the man’s career. Of interest on this occasion is the apparent controversy and suspicion over the cause of his death.

Far from dousing suspicions, President Mnangagwa’s statements after Shiri’s demise only served to fuel more suspicions. Speaking at the funeral wake, Mnangagwa bizarrely waved an envelope saying that they had received results of the cause of death, confirming that it was COVID19. Up until that time, the narrative had been that Shiri succumbed to COVID19. The sight of Mnangagwa waving an envelope gave the impression of a man who was trying too hard. If the intention was to kill suspicions of foul play, it achieved the opposite.

As if that was not enough, Nick Mangwana, Mnangagwa’s Permanent Secretary for Information and Publicity posted a tweet saying “some of the symptoms [of COVID19] are said to even mimic food poisoning”. The tweet was neither random nor innocent. It was posted in the context of rumours circulating around Shiri’s death that he was the victim of food poisoning. If anyone had doubted the plausibility of the theory of food poisoning, Mangwana’s tweet gave it more legs and energy.

I thought the two gentlemen had protested too much. Both Mnangagwa and Mangwana had been drawn to publicly react to a rumour of foul play, which prompted observers to wonder why they felt compelled to do so. Their actions did not kill the rumour. They gave it more life. Shiri may very well have succumbed to COVID19, but the excessive efforts to prove it has left a cloud of doubt suggesting that he was assassinated.

The most important issue in this situation is an examination of why Mnangagwa took this unusual step. In other words, given that it was so unwise and unhelpful, what could have compelled Mnnagagwa to present evidence of the cause of Shiri’s death at his funeral? It is probable that Mnangagwa felt the pressure of the rumour that Shiri was poisoned. The big story here is how Shiri’s death is being viewed within the current tense relations withIN ZANU PF.

In this regard, it is worth noting that Vice President Constantino Chiwenga had given a narrative which suggested that Shiri was not in bad health. He said he had spoken with him only a few hours before his death was announced. There is, it seems, a section of ZANU PF that does not believe Shiri died a natural death. When he waved that envelope at the funeral with purported results of Shiri’s positive test for COVID19, Mnangagwa was not addressing the world. He was addressing his colleagues and subordinates in ZANU PF who see Shiri’s death as suspicious.

Likewise, when Mangwana tweeted that new symptoms of COVID19 “mimic food poisoning”, he was supporting his boss’ narrative that Shiri died due to COVID19, not food poisoning. Both men were addressing their suspicious colleagues in ZANU PF. But their interventions were hardly persuasive. If anything, they increased the existing suspicions and tensions. Who brings evidence of cause of death and waves it at a funeral?