adminFreedom Mutanda
LAST week, Cde Blue Guy Muhondo walked with us from Mwoyomuchena Village in Chipinge on the way to Mozambique to join those who were fighting against the illegal regime of Rhodesia that racially abused Africans. After I had been trained and failed to go to the front, I felt that I had not reached the pinnacle of my involvement in the war effort.
However, Cde Hamunyari, told me that fighting in the front or rear was really the same. My fellow combatants who waited with me for any mishap that may occur in the run-up to independence felt the same way initially but the ideology that we had been taught in the camps made us realise that we were doing a good job by simply waiting as a reserve force.
Nevertheless, there were times when I nearly died at the hands of enemy attacks.
Chibawawa attack
At Chibawawa, we had a lot of people that stayed there as refugees. Most of the inhabitants at the camp were non-combatants. There were watoto (young children) and wazee (old people) and these had little or no combat training.
It must have been in April 1978. I am not sure, but Chibawawa came under attack from Renamo bandits who were uncomfortable with our stay in Mozambique as they had their own axes to grind with the Frelimo-led government fronted by the late President Samora Moises Machel.
We went to the river to bathe; that was before 5:00 in the morning. A fresh breeze came from the east. Remember, cooks would start their thing lest they won’t be able to finish cooking and feed the thousands who were there.
One would think Zimbabwe had no more people left as many people milled round the big pots used to cook the food. Beans were the major relish we ate. Up to now, I feel that our friends in the east helped us survive in those dark days.
Renamo fighters attacked Chibawawa Camp at about 5am. They used heavy weapons to attack the camp. It wasn’t a training camp; thus, the contact affected me much because the watoto were the intended victims together with wazee.
We fought back as if our lives depended on it using one and two barrel guns to fend off the attackers who showed no mercy. I fought like a possessed man to repel the attack.
Those people in the Maridhera, not all of them, supported the Matsangaise guys. Their complaint was we made their lives difficult as Ian Smith’s soldiers made forays into Mozambique and destroyed their peace. After the skirmish, the people in the Madeira came to Chibawawa Camp and gave us rounds of applause for successfully fending off the Matsanga guys.
Fortunately, only a few had such kind of thinking, the rest followed the thinking of the leadership in their country that felt that without the emancipation of Zimbabwe then Mozambique cannot fully enjoy her independence.
For two hours, the armed combatants at Chibawawa fought back ferociously at the experienced Renamo fighters who shouted obscene words as they fought. Apparently, they wanted to literally catch us. That is why I think they wanted to capture the young ones and the old people who were the major tenants at the camp apart from us who were a stand-by force.
As the fight raged on, reinforcements came from the Frelimo side. In that contact, I got injured on the leg. It was my first real fight after my training at Samakweza. Shrapnel hit my leg and for close to two months I had problems with the leg although the medics did their best to make me not feel uncomfortable.
Our commanders told us that the political leadership had reached an agreement with Ian Smith and Bishop Abel Muzorewa which would culminate in the declaration of a ceasefire. Nonetheless, they professed pessimism at trusting the white man to an extent that we would commit all our forces to go to assembly points in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the old saying, ‘tambawakachenjera’ (be careful as you play) was used by our leaders and I was chosen as one of the 5000 combatants who constituted the reserve force.I was comfortable with that. After all, the hallmark of a soldier is discipline. What you are told to do by your commanders has to be done. In that scenario, all we had to do was to wait.
You have heard of the patience of a vulture; we had that patience and we continued to have drills waiting for the day our commanders tell us that ‘chatsva’ in Zimbabwe.
Nothing like that ever happened. Although we had heard of some glitches in the process of independence, there was no serious thing that warranted us to come to the country to salvage a ceasefire and lead our people to independence denied to us by the treachery of the whites.
A sigh of relief came over me when in February 1980 I was one of the comrades that boarded trucks from Samakwera Training Camp and arrived at Goromonzi Base 2 Camp. Cde Ndoda was our commander at Goromonzi. Our homesickness was coming to an end.
I thought about my mother and father through-out the time I received my training and I remember the day I saw them, I was completely over the moon with delight.
Post- independence personal and professional development I joined the department that dealt with providing security to ministers and our leader was Cde Joshua Misihairambwi. I joined the MGU and later the PPU which stands for Police Protection Unit.
The years I spent in that department will always be part of me until I die. At one time, I was a personal aide of the honourable Vice-Presidents namely Cde Simon Muzenda and Cde Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo until his death in 1999. It has been a roller-coaster ride.
On September 30, 1999, I retired from the police and went back home to Vheneka to enjoy my retirement with my family. My wife, Janet Sithole and the seven children stay at our rural home although we have a house in Chipinge town.The people in my ward (Ward 27) voted me to be their councillor; during my tenure as a councillor, I enjoyed being their servant as they helped and supported me in community projects.
When we were out there in the training camps, we always said, ‘’tonogutirakumusha’’ and we still want to have a good life. Thus, we continue to hope that our welfare will improve as the economy improves also.
Where I come from, rainfall is scarce. In that regard, farming without irrigation will not bear fruit. Hence, I appeal to the powers that be to establish irrigation systems in the lowveld so that people like me and others can embark on farming which will not only boost household food security but the country will benefit also by lowering the food import bill.Equally important is agriculture education to be given to us as war veterans for us to be part of the solution to the problems that bedevil Zimbabwe. Our children receive state funding in education and we are grateful but timeous payment of school fees would go a long way in solving conflicts between us and school authorities.
To be honest, looking back to the nearly four decades of serving the nation, I feel blessed to have been there when the call to be there was made and I quickly responded.
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Online Reporter