Acting President Mphoko tours Gonakudzingwa

George Maponga at Sango Border Post
ACTING President Phelekezela Mphoko has called for the speedy rehabilitation of Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp in Gonarezhou National Park on the border with Mozambique, pending its official declaration as a national liberation heritage site.

The Acting President said there was urgent need for Government, through the National Museums and Monuments in Zimbabwe, to complete surveying Gonakudzingwa Camp.

It was built by the Rhodesian government deep in the wildlife-infested Gonarezhou National Park. Fiery nationalist leaders such as the late Vice Presidents Joshua Nkomo and Joseph Msika were banished there in the mid 1960s. This was meant to isolate them from the masses and diffuse the clamour for independence.

Speaking during the commissioning of the ongoing project of surveying and mapping the full extent of Gonakudzingwa Camp by the National Museums and Monuments in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, Acting President Mphoko said the country was supposed to fully document its liberation war history for the benefit of future generations.

“A country without history is not a nation at all. There is urgent need for our country’s liberation war history to be fully documented for the benefit of future generations. Our children need to be told the full story about the struggle for independence,” he said.

“There is need to speed up surveying of the entire Gonakudzingwa Camp, because of the key place it occupies in the history of our nation’s struggle for independence.”

Acting President Mphoko said restriction camps where national leaders were banished such as Gonakudzingwa, Sikombela (Midlands Province) and many others must not be erased from the national memory.

NMMZ executive director Dr Gibson Mahachi said land mines were hindering progress in surveying and mapping the entire Gonakudzingwa Camp. Dr Mahachi said NMMZ wanted to restore the camp to what it was during the colonial regime.

“We would have wanted to have finished surveying and mapping the entire reach of Gonakudzingwa Camp, but we cannot do so because part of the area we want to survey has not yet been demined. There used to be camps One to Five where our nationalist leaders were kept by the Rhodesians but so far we have managed to access Camps One and Five only because of mines,” he said.

His department would soon engage the Ministry of Defence over the matter.

Currently deminers from the Zimbabwe Defence Forces are clearing a 52km long minefield from Sango Border Post to Crooks Corner. The mines were planted by Rhodesians to stop an influx of freedom fighters into the country in the mid 1970s.