Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo (1927–1977) was the founder of the

Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a Marxist–Leninist political party in Rhodesia. It participated in the Rhodesian Bush War against white minority rule of Rhode ...

(ZIPRA). Moyo was born in Plumtree to a Kalanga family. Having trained as a builder, he became interested in trade unionism in Bulawayo in the early 1950s and became general secretary of the African Artisans’ Union. He joined the Bulawayo branch of the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC) and became successively its secretary and its chairman. The JZ Moyo High School was named after him. A major road in

Harare Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...

, Zimbabwe, Jason Moyo Avenue, is named after him.

Death

Moyo was killed on 22 January 1977 by a

parcel bomb A letter bomb is an explosive device sent via the mail, postal service, and designed with the intention to injure or kill the recipient when opened. They have been used in terrorism, terrorist attacks such as those of the Theodore Kaczynski, U ...

which he handled at the

Lusaka Lusaka ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was abo ...

offices of the ANC. The parcel appeared to have been sent by a woman known to Moyo, living in

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

. However in an enquiry sponsored by Joshua Nkomo and carried out by Gibson Mayisa, she was cleared as the parcel had not come from there.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moyo, Jason 1927 births 1977 deaths Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army personnel