The ManicaPost
Freedom Mutanda and Sifelani Tonje Post correspondents
Firstly, let us say we are humbled by the overwhelming responses to our dialoguing with the unsung history makers who are scattered all over this our beautiful nation. These are the people who keep us going. The following is a sampling of some of the comments the readers posted on WhatsApp and emails:
Frank Thomas Chimbanje of Chibuwe communal area had this to say about last week’s article: “ I enjoyed the story of our hero who saved many souls during the 2000 floods. Keep it up in telling the story of the people making history and when you do so, you give them immortality.’’
Another regular reader, Earnest T Nyabereka, a Roman Catholic catechist, hammered home the notion that combatants and non-combatants collaborated to deliver Zimbabwe from the evils of colonialism.
‘‘Freedom wasn’t a result of those who carried guns only but it was a great combination of sacrifice by the comrades and the people who provided provisions and carried the military hardware. There are many heroes of the liberation struggle who were not combatants. Thank you for the job you are doing of chronicling the exploits of the unsung heroes and heroines. In Mozambique, we used to say iwe neni tine basa,’’ he said.
As Cde Nyabereka has rightly said, everyone participated in one way or the other. Female combatants are written and talked about with Cde Sheba Tavarwisa as one of the members of the High Command, an organ of the party charged with prosecuting the war by giving the required leadership for a successful war against imperialism. There are thousands of women who crossed the border into neighbouring countries such as Mozambique in an attempt to be in the thick of things as the decisive phase of the armed struggle announced itself to the nation.
Among the thousands who braved the weather and minefields was Vainah Mfote whose nom de guerre was Rutendo Magorira. Hers is a story of youthful exuberance and excitement as she joined 32 other young men and women from Chibuwe who went to Mozambique in August 1975 when the chilly conditions of winter had their lingering presence in the Chipinge Lowveld. She says she has never regretted her decision to take up arms and face the mighty Rhodesian army.
The Manica Post visited her at her modest home in Chibuwe where she resides with her grandchildren. Seeing her unassuming posture and softness of voice, one is tempted to think that she isn’t a trained cadre but she is a Gandanga like many of the unsung heroes of the Second Chimurenga.
Cdes accompanying us fired shots into the air to scare off the FRELIMO soldiers. The dark night suddenly became daylight but the FRELIMO soldiers didn’t fire back. I wonder whether it was due to their cowardice or they felt that they were to blame for the chaos that erupted at Espungabera, a small town close to Mount Selinda which acted as a midway place to rest for the would-be-guerrilla fighters who went to war using the Mozambique route from the Chipinge side.
As the shots died down, an atmosphere of uncertainty filled the place. How will the Frelimos react to the gunshots? Will they allow us to train or they will send us back home? How will the Rhodesian authorities respond to our return?
It all started after our arrival at Espungabera having traversed the land and breadth of Chipinge and the immediate territory close to Zimbabwe. We passed through Chikwekwete on our way to freedom. Boys and girls from Jersey, Gwenzi, Chikore, Msani, Mutema and many other places congregated at Espungabera on our way to the Holy Grail-freedom for the majority of Zimbabweans.
FRELIMO soldiers wooed us and used food as an enticement to make Zimbabwean girls fall prey to them. On the other hand, the boys who had already trained and those who were still to train didn’t want any close liaison between us and the Camarada.
They said, ‘‘chandakabvira kanyi aisi ndaa yekutama arume asi kuti titore nyika yedu (the girls left home not because there weren’t men in Zimbabwe but they wanted to take back their land from the imperialists)…stop abusing our sisters in exchange for food.’’
At the time, there were food shortages at the camps prompting some men and women to practice chirenje — getting food from the masses — in order to survive the acute food shortages. It was during this period that some unscrupulous FRELIMO cadres solicited sexual favours from us as female refugees waiting to be trained in return for a good share of food.
People see wars in movies and glorify it thinking that those are fake bullets.
No, the war front and the rear were never places for the faint hearted. I went to war as a fourteen year old alongside some men and women who were almost of my age. We heard about bazookas but we never considered the import of our joining the war. Apparently, zidutu rehondo (war spirit) swept us into the comrades’ way and we never looked back. I witnessed the horrors of war at Gondola where the dying never recovered and their open and dumb wounds cried out for proper medical treatment to no avail.
Soon after the Chimoio attack, my group went for military training and went to Gondola where the worst things you can dream about war were exposed to us; it was a point of no return.
Death crawled everywhere; we saw its eyes, ears, nose and arms everywhere we dared to look. We yearned for a return to relatively tranquil Chibawawa which was a holding camp. There were no hoes, picks, shovels or spades to dig the graves to bury the corpses. Hunger gnawed at us and it became our constant companion; some succumbed to that as well as diseases which prevailed over the malnourished cadres.
Since there were no requisite tools to dig the graves, it was left to us to dig graves using steel wire; we initially dug using bare hands but the sores that came out were too bad to bear; the steel wire was a slight improvement although for the survivors, it was a gruesome spectacle.
We buried naked corpses in shallow graves; there were no coffins to talk about. After the rainy season came, some bones could be seen protruding from the shallow graves. We all thought about Chibawawa; commanders urged us to become conscious of the aims of the liberation war.
Gondola was more populated than Chibawawa ; it is justified to say there were more food shortages there; thus, the death toll from cholera was bound to rise. We soldiered on.
I didn’t go to the front but the experiences of war left me with a sour taste in the mouth. Along other female combatants, I carried war materials (mathidza in Portuguese) that included guns, bullets and other war goods which could weigh as much as 60 kilogrammes. I was at Mavhonde at that time and my menstruation stopped for a long period of time. I am not sure why the natural cycle of a woman suddenly disappeared from me; the only solace is that all the female combatants in my group suffered the same fate.
It would have been another twist to my story if I had continued to have my periods. At Gondola, I attended to the sick and infirm. The open weeping wounds were a result of some cadres who had been injured at the front and brought to the rear for them to recuperate.
We worked as semi-trained nurses and there was need to be always vigilant; thus, we were trained in the art of war.
From 1978 to 1979 when ceasefire was announced, I was at Mavhonde where my main duties were to assist those from the rear with ‘mathidza’ to the front and those coming from the front either to recuperate or for more war material.
Ceasefire came and we prepared to go back to Zimbabwe and enjoy the fruits of independence. I remember boarding a bus and disembarking at Kondo only to see changed circumstances. When we went to Chikwekwete via Mwangazi, Kondo had a few shops but in 1981, there were a number of them.
Since I was big with a child, I was demobilised from the army in 1981 and returned home for good. Beaulah is my first child and I have five children in all.
Looking back, I don’t see myself as having wasted five years of my life by joining the war effort more than four decades ago.
Freedom is never given on a silver platter especially when those who had colonised us saw the beauty that is Zimbabwe and how resourced the country is.
Challenges may come but the bottom-line is we are devoid of colonialism in our day to day life.
Zivai Magamba, a war veteran said: ‘‘There were very few female combatants who saw action due to the fact that the war situation was terrible and dirty at the same time.
Dirty in that if caught these women guerrillas would be exposed to untold suffering that did not exclude sexual abuse and gang rape.’’
That does in no way take away the narrative that women were for the most part in the trenches with their male counterparts. The fact that they were trained shows how much women were an integral part of the arsenal at ZANLA and ZIPRA’s disposal during the protracted war.
For your views and comments, please use the following platforms: call, WhatsApp or SMS me at 0777582734 or email me at [email protected]
