Source: Late general was poisoned – Sunday News Jun 19, 2016
Tinashe Farawo Harare Bureau
NATIONAL Hero Brigadier-General (Retired) Dr Felix Muchemwa died from asernic poisoning administered by aparthied South African intelligence agents while he was on active military service in Mozambique in the 1980s, it has emerged. At the time of his death in Egypt on 13 June, Rtd Brig-Gen Muchemwa — former Health Minister — was Special Disability Advisor in the Office of the President.
Rtd Brig-Gen Muchemwa will be buried at the National Heroes Acre in Harare this morning, with body-viewing scheduled for Stoddart Hall in Mbare, Harare at 7am. Thousands of Zimbabweans are expected to give the former Health Minister and one of Zanla’s medical corps’ key members a rousing send-off.
At Dr Muchemwa’s funeral parade at One Commando Barracks in Harare yesterday, Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Constantine Chiwenga said arsenic poisoning caused the death.
Gen Chiwenga said: “In April 1987, while on active service in Mozambique, the general was repatriated back home after it was discovered that he had ingested poisoned wine, which was later discovered to have been sent from Songo Cabora Basa by the then apartheid South African intelligence who backed the MNR (Mozambique National Resistance) bandits with the aim of poisoning our forces.
“What we came to know of later was that yes, while Felix escaped death many times from enemy fire, he could not escape the enemy’s dangerous chemicals, which manifested themselves later as it became apparent that he had been a victim of asernic poison.
“Thus, contrary to the public account of the cause of his death, health experts actually attribute it to what in medical parlance is called ‘peripheral neurolopathy’, secondary to asernic poisoning, and not cancer as others want to suggest.
“What exacerbated his condition was the late diagnosis which was only done in 1996 in the United Kingdom, and he was transferred to Egypt where there were chemical specialists. Yes, indeed, in the course of his life, the general was successfully treated for lung and prostate cancer.”
Rtd Brig-Gen Muchemwa’s body arrived from Egypt on Friday and was received by Defence Minister Dr Sydney Sekeramayi, Gen Chiwenga and other service chiefs.
Since last Monday, condolence messages have been pouring in for the late national hero, and President Mugabe — when he visited the family home of the deceased on Friday — lauded Rtd Brig-Gen Muchemwa’s commitment to the national interest before and after Independence.
COMMENTS
Must have been a very slow acting poisoning …. very very slow.
OK, lets try and get a sensible time-line on the late Brig-General: he was poisoned in 1987; a diagnosis of another illness relating to the poisoning was done in the UK in 1996; he was transferred to Egypt (in 1996?) to be seen to by chemical specialists. He dies last week sometime, June 2016, some 20 years later, in Egypt. Was he there for 20 years under the care of the chemical specialists? Why was he not treated here in Zimbabwe? Of course we know why: his boss has trashed this country to smithereens so much so that there is no longer any medical care to speak of. But that is also why his boss’s daughter went out of the country to do excactly what hundreds of Zim women do every day in this country, without the benefit of leaving: give birth to a child. Probably one of the least troublesome medical happenings in the world – except Zimbabwe.
This a very strange story.
Those liberators of us Zimbabweans never stop making their endless demands for rewards for their fighting and suffering in the Struggle. Fighting and suffering that was in truth, mostly done by the poor suffering ordinary you and me, in the rural areas.
Here we have a man who it is claimed was poisoned in Mozambique in 1987 by so called apartheid agents. This of course was seven years after Zimbabwe was already free from colonial rule…that is if we can call us being free under Mugabe and his brave liberators. And then it takes the brave Brigadier doctor 29 years to die from that poison.
But why would apartheid agents be interested in poisoning Zimbabwean Brigadier-General Felix Muchemwa, when they had more than enough of their own fish to fry.
If the real truth be told Felix ate one of those hot Mozambique peri peri crabs that had been left out of the fridge for too long. And from then and forever, he lived like a king all over the world as a dying man, while us long suffering Zimbabweans were picking up his bills.
And to crown it all he was even “Special Disability Advisor” to Mugabe. For a so called expert doctor, how did he ever fail to tell Mugabe himself to retire, as his obvious disabilities in every field of Government were killing Zimbabwe.
One day we are all going to have a hard time telling our grandchildren of this madness that we are now enduring. And worse still, why we did nothing to end it!
Sekuru Mugabe don’t lie. Everyone knows that Dr Muchemwa had HIV and died from Aids .