Dumiso Dabengwa

Who is Dumiso Dabengwa?

Dumiso Dabengwa is a Zimbabwean politician. He served as the head of Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army intelligence during the Rhodesian Bush War.

In 1982 Dabengwa was charged, with Lookout Masuku and four others, of treason by the Mugabe administration. They were acquitted due to lack of evidence in 1983. On release they were redetained under emergency regulations. At this time the Gukurahundi began.

Dabengwa was released four years later.

From 1992 to 2000 he served in the government as Minister of Home Affairs, and in 1991 he was appointed to the chair of the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project.

During the Rhodesian Bush War the white minority nicknamed him the "Black Russian" because he trained in Moscow, Russia.

Dabengwa ran as a ZANU-PF candidate for a seat in the House of Assembly from Nkulumane in the 2000 election, but was defeated by Movement for Democratic Change candidate Gibson Sibanda. Dabengwa said that the MDC would have won even if its candidate was a donkey. He was again defeated in the March 2005 parliamentary election. He served as a member of the ZANU-PF Politburo, but he announced his support for the opposition candidacy of Simba Makoni in the March 2008 presidential election at a press conference in Bulawayo on March 1, 2008. A spokesman for Mugabe said that Dabengwa's defection to Makoni was unimportant, claiming that Dabengwa did not command any support. It was reported that Mugabe had offered to appoint Dabengwa as Vice-President following the election as the replacement for Joseph Msika, but that Dabengwa had declined the offer.