Chenjerai Hunzvi

Chenjerai Hunzvi (23 October 1949 – 4 June 2001), also known by his infamous nickname Hitler, was a Zimbabwean politician who served as Chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association from 1997 until his death in 2001.

Early life Hunzvi was born in Chiminya, Southern Rhodesia, on 23 October 1949. He left the country and having been identified as being bright, was sent to study in Romania, becoming fluent in Romanian and French, and subsequently began medical studies in Poland where he married a Polish woman with whom he had two children. He subsequently remarried and has two other children.

In 1999, Hunzvi was arrested in corruption case regarding the alleged embezzlement of Z$45m of the war veterans' funds. He was denied bail, due to fear that he would intimidate witnesses or abscond. The actual trial was repeatedly postponed, and the war veterans' leadership voted to remove him from office. In 2000 Hunzvi led the campaign involving war veterans and other supporters of ZANU-PF in the seizure of white-owned land. During parliamentary elections in 1999, he incited followers to intimidate and harass members of the opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change. Calling himself "the biggest terrorist in Zimbabwe" he was identified by numerous witnesses for participation in beatings and torture, and his medical clinic labelled a "torture chamber" by Amnesty International in 2000.

Hunzvi was elected to parliament in 2000, but died in 2001 in Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital. His death was variously ascribed to malaria, a heart condition, or AIDS.