Ironic Justice

Saved by Ian Smith's law

"The trial was conducted according to the best traditions of our inherited judicial system," said Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. A white patron of a Salisbury pub had another view. "Happy New Year, everybody," he roared, pint in hand. "It's the last one you'll ever have in this place."

The case each referred to involved Zimbabwe's Minister of Manpower, Planning and Development Edgar Tekere, 43, and seven youthful bodyguards, charged with murdering a white farm manager four months ago. Flanked by his lawyer in a Salisbury courtroom last week, Tekere glowered menacingly as white South African-born Justice John Pittman, wearing the traditional red robe and curly wig, began reading the verdict. Pittman's dry voice droned on for 50 minutes, but his final words rang out like a shot: "All the accused are acquitted."

The chamber erupted in pandemonium. Tekere, barely fighting back his own tears, fell into the arms of his weeping wife. His jubilant supporters hustled him out of the courtroom and into a cheering throng of well-wishers, many of whom raised their arms in clenched-fist salutes. From upper-story windows of the courthouse, white civil servants gazed stunned and stony-faced at the impromptu fete.

According to his own testimony during the trial that began Nov. 3, Tekere and several other Cabinet members had attended a party last Aug. 3 at Stamford Farm, a large estate six miles west of Salisbury. During the festivities, the house was hit by a fusillade of rifle fire. Tekere and his bodyguards returned to the farmhouse the next day and attacked a nearby barracks occupied by five black soldiers of the national army, who were suspected of taking part in the previous night's assault. The soldiers fled to safety. The farm's white manager, 68-year-old Gerald ("Bill") Adams, was shot dead by one of Tekere's confederates as he tried to radio for help. The gunman, Joseph Chakanetsa, claimed to have fired in self-defense when Adams threatened him with a pistol.

The case was widely regarded as a crucial test for Mugabe's government. Tekere, a hot-tempered radical, is the third-ranking member of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and a popular figure among the 20,000 nationalist guerrillas still under arms. It was feared that his conviction might spark a violent reaction from ZANU militants. On the other hand, his acquittal seemed likely to enrage the country's 190,000 whites, prompting charges of a political fix and accelerating a white exodus that is now running at a rate of more than 1,000 a month. Wary of all these dangers, Mugabe insisted that the law should take its course.

In the end, Tekere and his co-defendants were saved from the noose by the 1975 Indemnity and Compensation Act, which shields government officials from conviction for acts committed "in good faith" to suppress terrorism. The law had been passed by the white minority government of former Prime Minister Ian Smith at the height of the Rhodesian civil war and remained on the books after black nationalists took over the government of newly independent Zimbabwe last April. (The law was repealed only after the Tekere trial began.) At the advice of their Gibraltar-born white lawyer, Nick McNally, the defendants claimed that they were only trying to protect government officials from a "terrorist" plot on their lives.

Judge Pittman rejected that argument and found both Tekere and his triggerman guilty of murder, an offense punishable by hanging. But the judge was outvoted by his two nonwhite assessors --lower court magistrates who fulfill the jury's role of deciding on questions of fact under the judicial system inherited from Rhodesia. The split decision led to acquittal. Tekere, whose prestige among militant nationalists will now surely be enhanced, emerged brash and unrepentant from the trial. He pronounced himself "thoroughly disgusted" by what he considered Pittman's racial bias and called for an "overhauling" of the judiciary. Shrugging off Adams' death as "just an unfortunate incident," he declared, "My fellow comrades and I are still at a loss as to what we did wrong." In parting, he offered this self-justification: "I am my leader's taskman, and to be a taskman, at times you have to be a bit radical and perhaps a bit unconventional." On the evidence, Edgar Tekere is certainly both.

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