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This is my story, a story of the liberation of Zimbabwe, a story of walking from Mutare to Mozambique, the land filled with people led by Samora Moises Machel who said the liberation of his country was nothing if neighbouring countries were not independent. Sonny Bumhira is my name, born in 1959. I can not say I was old enough to go to Mozambique but it is a fact that an unseen force pushed me towards the land in the east buoyed by the 25 June 1975 revolution in Mozambique.
These people, the Mozambicans whom we christened ‘Maputukezi’, had become masters of their destinies while we, Zimbabweans, were still under the yoke of colonialism. One July morning, when I was barely fifteen, together with five others, crossed the border into the Machipanda area and continued on our way to Nyadzonia.
We got to Nyadzonia on 7 August 1976 and within hours I had been integrated into the system although I was a kid. We played with each other on the small soccer pitch as young lads don’t take long to play with each other. I had been classified a ‘mutoto’. Believe you me, there were hundreds if not thousands of ‘vatoto’ at Nyadzonia. They had accompanied their parents who sought refuge there.
My sole aim of crossing the border was to take up arms and fight against the regime. Nonetheless, the Mozambican authorities regarded us as refugees and told the world the same gospel in order to forestall Rhodesian attacks.
However, that was not to be.
Tragedy struck on 9 August 1976 at the refugee camp. As the enemy struck, blood flowed through- out the camp as bullets riddled the bodies and those who ran helter-skelter in fright, were mowed down. To date, I still don’t know how I survived that attack.
I remember comrades who attempted to cross the Nyadzonia River but fell into the salivating mouths of crocodiles. Some cadres lay on the ground and appeared as if they were dead since Nyati had instructed the soldiers to shoot everyone.
In spite of it all, comrades were determined until victory announced itself.
Children wailed as they sought their parents, the stampede to hunt for refuge where guns would be a distant memory took its toll on the people at Nyadzonia.
The whites who painted their faces black snarled at us as their machine guns emptied their cruel bullets at the fleeing defenceless ‘povo.’
Callous, it was.
Is that valour when you kill defenceless people? Is that an observance of international law?
My eagerness to be trained pushed me to Doroi, another refugee camp. As was the norm in camps, there were people of all ages. Inside me, a burning desire to be trained unsettled me although I knew being trained would be difficult as those old enough to be trained were always chosen ahead of the little ones.
It was a dream come true for me when I went to Chimoio for training. Somehow, I got to be trained since I had gotten tall enough to be looked up to as a big boy. That was in 1977.
The Chimoio massacre took place when I had had a four week training stint at the place. Again, I managed to escape unhurt though up to now, I shudder as visions of the atrocities committed by the enemy revisit my mental vision. Wails from women, boys and men caught by the Rhodesians broke the serenity of the camp. Some comrades ran like head-less chickens as there was no time to laugh.
Our instructors urged us to be resilient as we would continue training at Gondora Camp near Beira on the road to Tanzania. I was one of the people chosen to go and train at Nachingweya, Tanzania. We were the third group to be trained in Tanzania. Sunga Mberi was the first one and that was an advance group, and came Fanya Haraka meaning quick action. By that time, the war was getting hotter and hotter.
It was time to end the war with a flourish. Thus, our group was called Sasa Mariza which meant finish off in Swahili. Our job was simple: finish off the war. It was now 1978/9 and Ian Smith sought to dilute the unity of the liberation struggle by having the Internal Settlement talks with the likes of Bishop Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Chirau among others.
At Nachingweya, the training was very tough and some comrades-in-training contemplated quitting. I soldiered on in spite of the toughness of the training methodology. I remember clearly a near death experience as we were training. We practised the use of mortar bombs in groups of six. Among us, there was a timid cadre.
He stepped on the end of a mortar bomb and it was propelled towards us. It struck the barracks and exploded. On hearing the explosion we nearly fainted, had the mortar bomb struck one of us, we could all have perished there.
We specialized in heavy artillery and trained in mobile warfare which is the strategies which fell in between guerrilla and regular warfare. I trained in the use of anti-air, 75mm guns, 40 barrel bazooka, Mortar 82 and light machine guns.
At that time the High Command and the political leadership was sure that the war was reaching its peak. Therefore, the Sasa Mariza was a group of young and abrasive men and women whose mandate was to finish off the struggle that began with the crocodile gang’s glaring show of bravery when they killed a white man in Melsetter, now Chimanimani.
White Rhodesians and their acolytes had their backs to the wall. Our brief was to ensure total victory for ZANLA and ZIPRA. We were dynamic. If the situation demanded regular or conventional war fare, we would do so but we were equally adept at guerrilla techniques.
I appropriated the nom- de-guerre Kid ma Wrong-Wrong and worked in the Nehanda sector in Makoni. By that time, the Rhodesian commandos wreaked havoc in the country as the siege mentality set in among the indigenous people who were forced to live in the so-called protected villages littered in many rural areas.
As comrades, we could not allow the concentration camps to remain functional since their remaining relevant would mean the comrades would not have a support base from within the local community.
A Dzakutsaku attack
One day we were in the Nyabadza/Zonga area. We were in the midst of the masses. All of a sudden, gun fire erupted and we realized that these attackers were the Dzakutsaku or Pfumo revanhu soldiers who fought alongside Rhodesians in the Zimbabwe/Rhodesia era.
It was a surprise attack. There were about two hundred Dzakutsakus and we were only 50. It wasn’t because we were out-numbered that we ran away like cowards to the nearest hill.
Everyone who received military training also received political education. Never engage in a fight with the enemy when there are many people around. The safety of the masses is of paramount importance. It is better to be deemed cowards than to endanger the lives of the people who supply you with food, clothes and other materials too numerous to mention.
A comrade got entangled with a barbed wire and the enemy followed him, we watched as he disentangled himself from the wire. Fortunately, he survived but the other comrade was not so lucky. The enemy shot him and paraded him throughout the Nyabadza area for the next two days.
There were casualties on both sides although the enemy had more deaths than us thus they were very bitter as they pulled the comrade’s corpse all over the village. We waited for an opportune time to strike back and avenge our dead comrade.
Four days later, we laid an ambush along the road. Being an expert in bombs, we laid them in the dust road off Nyabadza. When they had stopped to deactivate the claymore mines, we struck with pure venom. They retaliated but the damage had already been done. Later in the evening from our post, we saw helicopters and army trucks ferrying the dead and wounded to Rusape and Mutare hospitals where there were mortuaries.
There was a deep breath of satisfaction as these events showed our nickname ‘finish them off’ truly speaking, as a rallying points, it can galvanise those who were in the bush and those that never went anywhere near the fighting zone. We had quite a number of contacts with the enemy but for now, it is instructive to reiterate the importance of the people in the prosecution of the Second Chimurenga.
Guerrilla principles entailed mobilization of the people. On entering an area, our political commissar would talk to the povo reasoning with them about the national grievance and telling that it is only a gun that would emancipate sons of the soil, vana vevhu.
As such, when a member of the povo died due to the sell-outs, we left no stone unturned to get to the bottom of the matter. We went to the assembly points and continued to be the vanguard of the party right up to now. Today, I am happy to be a member of the Zimbabwe National Liberations War Veterans Association and I am the Chipinge district administrative secretary.
There could be other war veterans from the other side. I belong to the group of fighters that brought dignity to the indigenous people of Zimbabwe. I make no apologies to be a member of such a group. I assist war veterans when they want help in regards to their children’s educational development and other social and economic issues. During the war of liberation, there were people who acted as double agents but we dealt ruthlessly with such scumbags.
Next week Comrade Kid Ma Wrong-Wrong re-visits betrayal at its worst level and how the comrades dealt with the unfortunate selling- out act. Don’t miss out on that thrilling episode of conversations with legends of the Second Chimurenga.
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