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CURRICULUM VITAE

PLACE OF BIRTH

The Honorable D.N.E. MUTASA, the first Speaker of the Parliament of Independent Zimbabwe, was born at St. Faith's Mission, Rusape, on July 27, 1935. Like many of his contemporaries, he came from a humble background; his father was a village headman and his mother was a traditional wife. But, despite this background and the hostile social and political environment that prevailed in Southern Rhodesia, he was determined to fight injustice, ending up in the leadership of his nation.

EDUCATION

He received primary education at St. Faith's Mission from 1943- 1950 and was the only day-scholar selected to attend Goromonzi Government School in 1951. He completed secondary education in 1957, with the last two years of his stay at Goromonzi being made very difficult for him because of his political views.

He furthered his education when he was in prison at Salisbury Remand Prison and later at Faircroft College before obtaining a joint Honors Degree in Sociology and Political Science at the University of Birmingham in 1976. In 1990 the same University awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in honor of his work in Zimbabwe before and after the war of liberation.

POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

The Makoni Student's Association, which was formed at Goromonzi in 1952, introduced him to politics. Under its auspices, he was selected to be a delegate to the inaugural congress of the Southern Rhodesia ANC in September 1957. This was the first political organization that he joined.

He became a member of ZANU in 1963 at the request of the late Maurice NYAGOMBO and the late John MATAURE with whom he worked very closely up to the time of their deaths.

Comrade MUTASA was arrested in November 1970 and detained in solitary confinement for nine months at Senoia Prison (now Chinhoyi). He was later transferred to Salisbury (Harare) Remand Prison where he was detained together with President MUGABE and Comrades NYAGUMBO, NKALA, MNANGAGWA, MALIANGA, TEKERE MALOWA and Shepherd MARINGE. He was released in November, 1972 on condition that he left the country.

While in the United Kingdom, he was instrumental in setting up the Birmingham Branch of ZANU and became the chairman of that branch and later of the ZANU (UK) District. In this capacity he attended the pre-Geneva Conference of ZANU held at Lusaka and later the Geneva Conference in 1976. He was subsequently called to work full time for the ZANU(PF) in Mozambique. In 1977, he was elected to the Central Committee as Deputy Secretary for Finance. He travelled extensively in Europe raising funds for the Party.

Comrade MUTASA stood as a ZANU(PF) candidate for Manicaland in 1980, and after the Party won an overall majority, he was unanimously elected Speaker of the House of Assembly. In 1985, he was again unanimously re-elected Speaker of the Second Parliament of Zimbabwe.

In 1984, he was elected a Member of the Central Committee and then appointed Secretary for Transport and Welfare and later promoted to be Secretary for External Relations. In December, 1989 following the Congress of ZANU(PF) which sealed the merge of ZANU(PF) and PF ZAPU, Comrade MUTASA was appointed Secretary for Administration (which is equivalent to the Secretary-General) of ZANU(PF). In April, 1990 he was promoted to the position of Senior Minister of Political Affairs in the President's Office. In 1992 when the Ministry of Political Affairs was abolished, Comrade MUTASA was appointed Senior Minister to the new Ministry of National Affairs, Employment Creations and Co-operatives.

For eight years Comrade MUTASA worked for the Party only, as the Secretary for Administration and then as Secretary for External Relations. In 2004, he was appointed Minister for Special Affairs in the President's Office in-charge of Anti- Corruption and Anti-Monopolies. In April 2005, appointed Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement in the Office of the President.

Comrade MUTASA does not accept to work for a private individual. So on-leaving Goromonzi he was employed as a Clerk at St. Faith's Farm, a co-operative community which has been started by Guy and Molly CLUTTON-BROCK in 1949. He remained there until 1959 when the co-operative was closed down by the Anglican Church on the grounds that its work had become too political.

On leaving the mission farm, Comrade MUTASA together with Shem MURANDA and Ralph IBBOTT became co-founders of the Nyafaru Development Company under the chairmanship of the late Reverend Basil NYABADZA.

In July, 1960 he joined the Civil Service of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland as an Administration and Executive Officer in the Department of Conservation and Extension in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. In 1961, together with Comrade KABASA and others, he co-founded and was elected the Secretary of the Southern Region Association of the Federal Public Service Association which was specifically geared to serve the interests of black civil servants and was a counterweight to the white-dominated civil servants trade union. Southern Region Association's most significant achievement was establishing equity in the conditions of service between blacks and whites with the same qualifications. This benefited black hospital nurses who had been prejudiced by colour-bar.

Comrade MUTASA was the PSA's delegate to the Victoria Falls Conference on the break up to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In October and December, 1963 he went to London to present the case of black civil servants and they were promised a semi golden hand shake on their retirement from the federal civil service. It was with this money that he helped to establish the Cold Comfort Farm Society with Guy GLUTTON- BROCK in 1964.

On leaving the federal civil service Comrade MUTASA because deeply involved with the epic on the Tangwena people which came to head that year. As Director of the Nyafaru Development Company, near which the Tangwena people lived, he embraced their cause advising and raising funds for their defence and subsistence.

With the exacerbation of the Tangwena problem in 1970, he became more involved with problems affecting his fellow men and b ecame more of a problem to the authorities. So he was banned from entering the Tribal Trust Lands (Communal Areas). In spite of this he organized the Mutema people in Chipinge D istrict to defy an illegal order which stopped them from flood irrigating their lands.

Between 1965 and 1970 Comrade MUTASA was Chairman of the Cold Comfort Farm Society, Director of Nyafaru Development Company, Manager of Nyafaru Primary School, member of the National Council of the Rhodesian Red Cross Society, member of the Executive Committee of the Jairos Jiri Association and Chairman of the Salisbury Christian Action Group.

At Independence, in 1981, he resumed the Chairmanship of the Cold Comfort Farm Society and the Cold Comfort Farm Trust in 1985. He is on the Board of Governors of Peterhouse School, was the President of the Harare Agricultural Show Society for nearly seven years and a trustee of numerous trusts including the President's Fund.

During the period of his Speakership he was elected Vice President and later President of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. He was also President of the Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers Conference from 1989 to 1990.

Comrade MUTASA's life is guided by Christian and socialist principles. He maintains that there is little difference between Christianity and Socialism.

Comrade MUTASA loves children. He is married and has nine children. He feels that he neglected his own children before and during the liberation struggle and hopes to make that good by devoting life to looking after his children, grandchildren and other needy children and to write books based on his private and public experience in life. He hopes to leave this world a better place than he found it.