Jason Moyo
Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo was a Zimbabwean nationalist and founder of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA).
Moyo was born in Plumtree, Zimbabwe in 1927. He attended Mzingwane School for his primary education. After obtaining his primary education he trained as a builder and carpenter.
He became interested in trade unionism in while living and working in Bulawayo in the early 1950’s and became General Secretary of the African Artisans’ Union in the mid 1950s.
Still in Bulawayo he joined the Bulawayo branch of the African National Congress and became Secretary and Chairman of the Afrcan National Congress, Bulawayo Branch.
He was arrested on 26 February 1959 and detained at Marondera Prison in 1960. In November 1961 he was elected a member of the National Executive of the NDP. Following the NDP’s ban in 1961 he joined ZAPU and became National Treasurer. When the ZAPU split occurred in July 1963 he remained loyal to Joshua Nkomo and was appointed Financial Secretary of the PCC. Soon afterwards he was appointed to the position of External Executive of the Council. He set up headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia where he lived until his death.
When an attempt was made in 1971 to rejoin the split ZAPU and ZANU by the creation of FROLIZI, Moyo refused to join and took over the leadership of the ZAPU faction.
Following the grouping of all nationalist parties under the ANC in December 1974 he remained in Lusaka and was a member of the ANC team of consultants at the Victoria Falls talks in August 1975. Following his return to Lusaka he was offered the position of Deputy Chairman to Ndabaningi Sithole in the ZLC but refused. On 12 September he and three other ZAPU representatives in Lusaka were suspended from the ANC by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.
On 14 April 1976 he was appointed second Vice-President of the ANC (Nkomo) in charge of External Affairs. The terms of his appointment gave him full powers to deal with military affairs as chairman of the ANC’s external mission. On 13 October he was appointed as delegate to the Geneva Conference.
Jason died on January 22 1977 in an assassination in Lusaka when a parcel bomb exploded. He was buried in Zambia and after Zimbabwe’s independence he was declared a National Hero and his remains where interred at the National Shrine on August 11 1981.
