Online Reporter
The Second Chimurenga/Umvukela would not have been successful if Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Angola had not offered their territories to serve as rear bases for our liberators.
Zanla campaigned from Mozambique while Zipra did the same from Zambia. Mozambique and Zambia, then newly independent, and under great revolutionaries Samora Machel and Kenneth Kaunda respectively, accommodated tens of thousands of young Zimbabweans, a good number of whom actually underwent military training in those countries. Thousands more underwent training in Angola and Tanzania, then under Cdes Agostino Neto and Julius Nyerere.
Apart from offering their territories, our neighbours also rendered leadership, food, clothing, moral and logistical support and so on which made it easier for the cadres to successfully prosecute the 15-year armed struggle against British colonial rule.
Sadly, some sites at which the combatants were stationed were targeted for attacks by the regime. Most cowardly, the regime hit refugee camps as well, among them Nyadzonia in Mozambique, killing thousands of defenceless kids. Thousands more starved to death.
There was neither time nor space to accord most of the departed patriots decent burials thus decisions were quickly made to pile their bodies in mass graves. While some sites are well taken care of, others aren’t.
To get a full understanding of the situation at the hallowed sites in Mozambique, Zambia, Angola and Tanzania, President Mnangagwa sent Vice-President Kembo Mohadi to tour the places since mid-August. Concluding the visits yesterday with a stop in Mozambique, he expressed satisfaction with the huge task he undertook.
“What we had set ourselves to do, we managed to achieve,” he said, as we report elsewhere in this edition.
“You are right to say that we started in Angola and then from Angola we went to Zambia, Tanzania and then here (Mozambique). What this trip has given us is that we have now collected all the data that is required at each and every country where we launched our liberation struggle from. We are, therefore, going to sit down, sift through the information that we have and then strategise and then come up with a way forward of what we are going to be doing next.”
We recognise the important work that the Second Republic has been doing to preserve the memory of the national struggle for freedom. It has honoured a number of founders such as Mbuya Nehanda, Mtshane Khumalo, Ndabaningi Sithole, James Chikerema and so on. It has erected a shrine at the site of the December 4, 1893, Battle of Pupu at which Mtshane Khumalo commanded Ndebele warriors to annihilate Allan Wilson and his men.
It has done much more at home thus Vice-President Mohadi’s tour escalated the mission out into the region so that the Government can gain a better appreciation of the situation at the historical sites to then facilitate action towards greater preservation of the liberation war legacy.
We look forward to the Government moving with speed to ensure that the sites are property recorded and preserved for the benefit of present and future generations.
