adminLeroy Dzenga Features Writer
Magamba Extension in Rusape, located 170 kilometres northwest of Harare, bears a typical “new stands” aesthetic. Multicoloured roofs, made from tiles and a cheaper variation of zinc, houses at different stages of development as well as bumpy roads, make up the outlook.
Like any other town in the country, Rusape has been sprawling, bursting by the seams; suburbs like Magamba Extension are evidence.
This new settlement is by no means a usual residential area. At its heart is a story made up of numerous episodes of pain.
During the liberation war, it served as a plateau of death, a Golgotha of sorts. Castle Base was a hidden notorious torture place where thousands of freedom fighters, activists and war collaborators were killed under gory circumstances.
“There was a court-marshal where black prisoners were being tried by the settlers after capture,” Cde Gilbert Paya said as he led The Herald crew on a tour of the place.
“Many were tortured to admit to crimes they did not commit and subsequently sentenced to death.”
Known as “The Butcher”, the place was established in 1975, during the height of resistance to white minority rule by freedom fighters.
It was meant to be a silent dissolution chamber, coming out of it alive was a miracle.
“After being tried, comrades were sentenced to death by shooting. This is where children and shooting enthusiasts were taught how to aim using guns, black prisoners were the targets,” Cde Paya said.
The bush court was at first located closer to residential areas, but torture screams prompted the settler army to move the base further into bush.
It was at this new base that a platform was erected.
The concrete platform was enough to make Frenchman Joseph Ignace Guillotin feel like an amateur murderer.
“Before the base was moved further into the bush, it was where there is now a low-density neighbourhood appropriately called Castle Base,” said Cde Paya. “There was a modest court-marshal and a single hoist where convicted prisoners were raised and shot.”
One of the houses in Castle Base belonging to a woman identified as Mai Chiwandire still bears metals on which leg irons used to be latched during trials.
Settler forces took the shift as an opportunity to create a mass murder fortress.
“The new court space was larger meaning there was space for simultaneous multiple trials. After the trials, most of which ended in questionable convictions, people were whisked to a concrete block where they would be shot dead,” he said.
“The new structure, unlike the old one could carry eight people at once, it was within a gulley. Convicted prisoners would be raised from the ground, as soon as their heads were visible to shooters stationed at a higher platform, they would be instructed to fire.”
There was a borehole upstream which was opened to flush the spilt blood into a nearby river.
Prisoners awaiting trial were ordered to bury their colleagues stuffed in tied polythene bags.
When exhumations were done for proper reburials, each polythene bag had a minimum of three bodies.
Because there were no proper tools, the slain freedom fighters were buried in shallow graves, the deepest of all graves seen by The Herald was around one-and-a-half metres.
Appearing at The Butcher was an automatic death sentence.
“Those who were found not guilty and acquitted were told to run across a bush into the dark night,” said Cde Paya.
“In their mind, they would believe that they are free, not knowing they were being used as moving targets.”
After the war, the place was forgotten, it was treated as a mundane bush.
It was only in 1999 when the Zimbabwe National Army went and built walls for mass graves to signify their importance.
There was to be a long period before any improvement was made at the place, at the time those at Rusape Town Council were seeing potential revenue in residential stands.
In 2013, Cde Paya led a team of youths to exhume shabbily buried bodies and rebury them at the same site.
They were working under an organisation called the Fallen Heroes Trust.
Cde Paya described the process as an intersection of indigenous knowledge and enduring memories.
“For us to begin these exhumations, there was a family that used to draw scouring sand. One day a child tried to get sand and encountered a skull. That is when they reported to the war veterans’ offices and processes kick-started.”
Some slain heroes manifested in family members and led the exhumation teams to where their remains were buried.
“There is a process called kuhaka,” Cde Paya said.
“This is when a departed person’s spirit takes over a living being’s body, they then begin speaking as if they are still alive. A lot of bodies we retrieved guided us this way.”
Cde Paya is a heartbroken man as their efforts to rebury 139 bodies from mass graves into singular tombs now appears like an exercise in futility.
The new graves are now buried in thickets, as the place begs for maintenance.
“This place has never been taken seriously, especially by the local authority. On numerous occasions, they have tried to sell stands but we have lobbied to stop them. People are now turning this place into a picnic area, many times we see lovers using the place as a sanctuary and in our opinion that is defiling a place of significant history.”
Around 2013 a deliberate decision was taken to expand the use of the place, making it a district heroes shrine.
A number of liberation war heroes from the area have been buried there.
The decision to expand the space’s use to being an official district heroes’ acre created a maintenance complication.
“After the place was declared a district heroes’ acre, it came under the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ),” said Cde Paya.
“Rusape Town Council who used to employ people to keep the space well kempt withdrew their personnel immediately. Since then the place is only given attention towards national events like Independence and Heroes days.”
That has not encouraged regular maintenance of the place as it is still unfortified with no security wall and there is still a lingering risk of the local authority being in persistent attempts to sell sections of the space.
Zimbabwe may need to look beyond its borders on how such shrines with a painful history can be preserved.
In Berlin, the Holocaust Memorial was built in a way that signifies a place of historical importance.
It is a well secured place kept in pristine condition for purposes of educating those interested in understanding the history related to the holocaust.
Maybe, a similar approach would work in ensuring there is the preservation of the country’s history.
Future generations need to know what was endured for the country to be where it is.
Online Reporter
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