By Munacho Gwamanda-Another key figure in Zimbabwe’s shadowy intelligence network has died, adding to a growing list of mysterious deaths within the country’s powerful military-security establishment
Former Mashonaland Central Provincial Intelligence Officer (PIO), Ndai Rachel Chatora, passed away on April 19 and was laid to rest earlier this week at Plot 2, Riverview Farm in Bindura.
She was buried with full military honours, having been declared a liberation war hero.
Chatora served as the PIO for Mashonaland Central in 2005 and later rose through the ranks to become PIO Administration at the CIO Headquarters in Harare, where she worked from 2007 until her retirement in 2020, concluding a 39-year career in the intelligence service.
Her death comes in the same month—and notably the same week—that two other senior figures in Zimbabwe’s feared military-security establishment also passed away under murky circumstances, raising new questions about the fate of the so-called military junta that has dominated Zimbabwean politics since the November 2017 coup.
The two deceased are Walter Basopo, a veteran Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative long linked to political abductions, and Retired Brigadier General Victor Rungani, a former Joint Operations Command (JOC)member implicated in state-sponsored violence.
Basopo, was reportedly a close relative of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
He is remembered in activist and human rights circles as one of the state agents frequently associated with the March 2015 disappearance of journalist and pro-democracy campaigner Itai Dzamara.
Dzamara, who led the “Occupy Africa Unity Square” protest movement, was abducted in broad daylight by suspected state security agents and has not been seen since.
Despite ongoing pressure from both local and international human rights organisations—including Amnesty International and the United Nations—the state has never offered a credible explanation for Dzamara’s fate.
Basopo was repeatedly named by insiders and watchdog groups as a member of the CIO’s Special Operations Unit, which was believed to carry out surveillance, abductions, torture, and disappearances targeting government critics.
His death closes a potential chapter in one of Zimbabwe’s most chilling unsolved cases and deprives any future truth-seeking efforts of a key potential witness.
Strikingly, Basopo died on the same day as Retired Brigadier General Victor Rungani, whose death was confirmed by the Children of War Veterans Association (COZWVA).
His son, Hardlife Rungani, is a prominent member of the group.
Originally from Bikita in Masvingo Province, Rungani served in the Joint Operations Command (JOC)—a covert body made up of the top brass from the military, police, intelligence, and prison services.
JOC played a central role in coordinating ZANU PF’s authoritarian grip on power, particularly during elections and periods of political upheaval.
During the 2008 presidential run-off, Rungani was reportedly deployed to Mashonaland East, where widespread and systematic violence against opposition supporters was documented.
Human rights observers described the violence—ranging from beatings and torture to arson and murder—as a “campaign of terror” that ultimately forced opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to pull out of the race, paving the way for Robert Mugabe’s contested victory.
Both Rungani and Basopo belonged to a generation of security chiefs who wielded immense power and often operated with impunity—first under Mugabe, and later under Mnangagwa.
Their sudden and near-simultaneous deaths have fuelled speculation about internal tensions, silencing of potential dissenters, or even a possible purge within Zimbabwe’s entrenched security elite.