THE widow of national hero Brigadier General Paul Armstrong Gunda has been given 10 days by a High Court judge to vacate an army house she has been occupying since her husband’s death in June 2007.
Rangarirai Gunda was fighting an army bid to evict her from 14 Lawley Road, Suburbs, Bulawayo, claiming her husband had been given an option to buy the property which they moved into in 2004.
But Justice Lawrence Kamocha said her claims were “a bald and unsubstantiated assertion”, adding: “There are no facts to support her story. It is not enough to merely allege dispute of facts without demonstrating to the court the disputed facts by, for instance, producing a letter offering the property for sale to the late husband of the respondent or by averments in her affidavit to the effect that at a meeting between her late husband and a named officer or officers of the army held on such and such date, at such and such place, her late husband was offered the sale of the house.”
According to army rules, spouses of dead soldiers must vacate army houses within a month – but the former One Brigade commander’s widow was not served with an eviction notice for a year and three months.
During court hearings, the army said it was not under any obligation to explain the delay – a stance criticised by Kamocha in a judgement made available on Monday.
Justice Kamocha said: “Rangarirai Gunda’s right to lawfully occupy the house should have ended on July 31, 2007, according to the army regulations. For some unexplained reasons, the applicant did not seek to evict the respondent at the expiration of the one month.
“Instead, the notice to vacate was only issued after a period of 15 months. The deponent to the applicant’s affidavit took the stance that the Ministry of Defence was under no obligation to explain the inordinate delay to the respondent. That attitude is wrong and unfortunate.”
Despite delays in evicting her, Justice Kamocha said he found no legal grounds for the widow to keep the property which the army wants to reclaim to house the new commander of One Brigade, Brigadier General Thomas Moyo.
The judge said: “Rangarirai Gunda properly conceded that she was not the owner of the house and had no lease agreement entitling her to stay at the house. She is not an employee of the army.
“It is common ground that her entitlement to stay at the house should have terminated at the end of July 2007 at the latest.
“This court holds that she had no entitlement to continue staying there thereafter. She must vacate the premises.”
Gunda died after a train rammed into his car at a rail crossing, but there were media claims at the time that his family suspected he had been assassinated and his car parked in the path of a train to make it look like an accident.
It was alleged that Gunda was killed because he was part of a murky plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe.
The speculation gained new impetus when his widow took out a full page advert in the Herald newspaper calling for divine justice.
"Be not silent, God of my praise,” she said in the advert. “Appoint a wicked man against him, let an accuser bring him to trial.”
The army dismissed her claims of foul play as “unwarranted accusations”, pointing to the report of an independent board of enquiry which ruled that his death was an accident.