Byo: The epicentre of resistance to colonial penetration

Pathisa Nyathi

IN a rare but welcome move, this year’s independence celebrations will be held in Bulawayo. They were a long time coming. It is better late than never for a city that never really joyously celebrated independence. That rare opportunity affords writers and researchers to focus on Bulawayo with regard to its role in the liberation struggle. The event has opened up themes and narratives that hitherto had not been explored. Only a few days ago there was a new narrative pertaining to the events leading to the death of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu)’s Vice-President, who was Southern Rhodesia’s first black medical doctor, Dr Samuel Tichafa Parirenyatwa. With a few weeks remaining to independence, one hopes more narratives and themes will be tackled as the celebratory spotlight beams on Bulawayo.

In pursuance of new themes, I have decided to delve into the issue of transport and logistics. In this article focus will be on the trains and their use in the nascent years of the liberation struggle. Later instalments will focus on other means of transportation. Before doing just that, it is imperative to deal with the question why Bulawayo is recognised as the cradle of resistance to colonisation. For Bulawayo and her environs, the colonial project was resisted from the very outset. In 1893 King Lobengula’s forces took up arms in an effort to resist the march on Bulawayo, the royal capital. There was spirited resistance in that encounter that the Ndebele referred to as Imfazo One.

Though the Ndebele forces won at the Battle of Pupu on 4 December 1893, the war was lost. Another spirited effort ensued three years later when, on  20 March 1896, Imfazo Two broke out at eNgodlweni close to the banks of the uMzingwane River. Nzobo Mkhwananzi was leader at the village where the second round of resistance played out. In no time the war engulfed most of Matabeleland that whites had taken over following Imfazo One. By June of the same year, the campaign started in Mashonaland, now going under the banner of Chimurenga One.

What developed out of those encounters was an enduring culture of resistance to colonisation and colonialism. Bulawayo was strategically located within the transport network in Southern Africa. The railway system linked the city with South Africa, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) and Malawi. Abundant coal in Hwange saw the rail line to the north diverted to bring coal to Bulawayo’s burgeoning industrial base particularly after World War Two. Many Africans within Southern Rhodesia and beyond flocked to Bulawayo in search of jobs in the city. In no time Bulawayo became a cultural melting pot.

Racism manifested itself in various ways within the city. Accommodation was segregated, with Africans living in squalor in the Location, later known as Makokoba. Their houses were small and overcrowded. They were infested with bed bugs. Bilharzia was rampant. There were communal ablution facilities in the single township allocated to Africans. Diseases were a common feature. In due course there were urban grievances such as low wages, unemployment and the absence of secure tenure in the townships which sprung up following the industrial boom in the post-war period.

Meanwhile, in the reserves allotted to Africans, a set of rural grievances emerged following land alienation. The Land Apportionment Act (1930), saw Africans being removed from ancestral lands, particularly after World War Two when there was heightened white immigration. Some of them were being rewarded with land, made available by taking it away from the Africans. For a while, some of them became squatters on farms belonging to white absentee landlords. Some land companies held land for speculation. Africans were made to pay various types of taxes: hut tax, poll tax, dipping fees, dog tax. During the years of depression African agricultural producers subsidised white agriculture. For example, maize produced by Africans was sold at lower prices in comparison with whites-produced maize. The Land Husbandry Act (1951) exacerbated the situation when centralisation was introduced. Cattle were culled as part of what was termed technical development.

However, our thrust here is not about the well-researched, written and presented socio-economic and political conditions existent in the Rhodesian colonial state. Rather, we take this opportunity to focus the spotlight on the role of the train, the Rhodesia Railways (RR) during the struggle. I will argue that the struggle was fought by people from several backgrounds and persuasions. The one aspect that I shall deal with is transport and logistics with regard to the trains. The armed struggle required movement of personnel humans, cadres, military hardware and munitions. Indeed, at the High Command level there was the Chief and the Chief of Logistics.

Many conditions, both within and outside Southern Rhodesia led to Africans clamouring for independence. In the nascent stage there was labour activism which later transformed, in the July 1960 Zhii riots and arson. It was the youths in Bulawayo, having been disillusioned with the Sabotage Campaign approached Jason Ziyapapa Moyo for the persecution of the armed struggle. The Algerian model, they argued, was not going to work in Southern Rhodesia. Clearly trade unionism and nationalism were not going to deliver the required outcomes. The Rhodesian state was radicalising at a time black Africa was decolonising.

It all started with the pioneering cadres who left the country in the early 1960s, particularly in 1962 and 1963. They boarded trains to Northern Rhodesia and proceeded to Tanganyika by road. From there they flew to friendly countries which offered them training facilities. Zambia then was not independent. The Tanzania Zambia Rail Line (Tazara) did not exist either.

It was during the twilight years of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The northern border was still very porous. Security was lax. As far back as 1962 there were cadres that were using trains to get to Zambia en route to Tanganyika. From there they went to friendly countries that offered sanctuary and training facilities to the liberation movements. The benevolent countries in those early days were the following: Egypt, China, North Korea, Cuba, the USSR, Algeria and Ghana. Before that, military training was taking place in Zambia, under the hands of John Makina of UMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Sikhwili Khohli Moyo. For example, steel trunks loaded with hand grenades in Zambia were put on the trains with cadres accompanying them. That was during the time of Zhanda, uMtshetshaphansi, the underground Sabotage Campaign. Cadres operating underground were invisible and linked with semi-visible operatives who linked with the political leadership.

For example, there were some of the underground activists, six of them, who were kept in a flat in Lobengula Street and 3rd Avenue. The flat belonged to the Ramanbhai brothers of Indian descent. Weapons being used during the Sabotage Campaigns were brought into the country through the use of the train from Zambia. Either Luveve rail station or Mpopoma rail station were used as offloading sites. In order to conceal their operations, cadres sometimes made use of the Nyamandlovu rail station which was quite some distance from prowling eyes. Weapons offloaded from the trains were taken to safe houses in Mzilikazi and Makokoba in particular. From there the contraband was passed on to other activists who cached the arms in the Matobo Hills. From there they were distributed to the rest of the country, including Mashonaland. It was important that individuals in the weapons chain did not know each other’s roles, lest one captured by the Special Branch spilled the beans.

The first gunshots to be fired in the liberation struggle took place at Zidube Ranch south of Kezi (Matabeleland South). The six-member contingent had smuggled their weapons in a steel trunk through the Victoria Falls. The six, commanded by Moffat Hadebe, were Rhodes Malaba, Roger Matshimini Ncube, Israel Maduma, Keyi Nkala and Elliot Ngwabi. Their target was a retired magistrate who, in his career, had sentenced many NDP and Zapu activists.

Even after training in the early days of the struggle, cadres being infiltrated into Southern Rhodesia used the train. For example, Moffat Ndlovu, Bulawayo’s former Town Clerk, used the train through the Victoria Falls in 1965. He was returning from the USSR where he had undergone military training, euphemistically referred to as admin. Sadly for him, when the train stopped at the rail station the train was quickly surrounded by the Rhodesians. He ended up in Khami Prison. In later years of the struggle, the train to Francistown was used by those going to join the liberation struggle.

What emerges from this narrative is that trains were used during the liberation struggle. To facilitate use of the trains Zapu had some contacts within the Rhodesia Railways who facilitated the use of trains during the struggle. Some  ZPRA arms from Ndola in Zambia were loaded onto rail wagons en route to Zimbabwe. The heavy weapons were off-loaded at the Gwayi River Mine Assembly Point. Dickson Netsha Sibanda paid for their transportation from Zambia.

In another article we shall look at other modes of transport that were used to move cadres going for training and returning to the front afterwards. Tonga dug-out canoes, rafts comprising empty drums, dinghies, cars, buses, lorries, bicycles, scotch carts, donkeys, ships and aeroplanes were used to move personnel, military ware, munitions and other logistics to where they were needed.