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Go ye well gallant fighter and brave comrade. Your blood has, indeed, watered the Zimbabwe flag as we used to sing during the war. You have fought your fight. Ours is to continue it, pursuing with vigour, our role as the ideological school of the nation, custodians of the revolution. OUR dear beloved Comrade in Arms, Vivian Muchicho (nee Mwashita), whose Chimurenga name was Kundai Mabhunu, is no more. She died at 2am on April 8 2016 at Parirenyatwa Hospital, Ward B7, in the Intensive Care Unit, after having suffered a repeat stroke on April 7 2016. She had an earlier stroke in 2014, which left her wheelchair bound. She suffered from hypertension and diabetes.
Cde Vivian Mwashita was born on September 26 1958 at Rusape Hospital.
Her family hailed from Headman Newanji’s Village, under Chief Mutasa, in the Zongoro Area near Manica Bridge, Mutasa District, in Manicaland.
She attended her Grade 1-7 at Rukudzo Primary School in Kambuzuma, Harare.
She then did Form 1-4 at Saint Peters Kubatana High School, in Highfield, Harare.
She crossed the border into Mozambique to join the Liberation Struggle under the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) in April 1975, in the company of comrades Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, Winnie Newanji, Erina Mukudu (now Nyamweda), Susan Muchinguri (who now lives in London), and the now late Tokodo Murinda.
Upon arrival in Mozambique they went to Villa de Manica from where they were ferried to Nyadzonia Base.
They survived the Nyadzonia Massacre in August 1976.
She received training in guerrilla Warfare in 1976 at Chimoio Training Base, in Mozambique. Some of her instructors included now Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri (then Cde Chocha) and Comrade Lot Sibanda.
She later went to Ethiopia for a further four-month-long training as a Military Instructor at Tatek Military Base.
Upon her return to Mozambique, after a short stint in the rear, she again survived the Chimoio air bombardment by Rhodesian forces in late 1977.
Her colleague, Comrade Catherine Santana, who worked with her in the same office until the Chimoio attack, and who is now also bed-ridden with illness, testified that after the Chimoio attack a large number of the female instructors stayed behind in Mozambique while an equally large group, which included Comrades Santana, Mwashita, Irene Zindi, Viola and Comrade Mrs Mupamhanga, fled the attack towards a gathering point called Zhunda.
From there, the instructors were directed by the late Comrade Josiah Magama Tongogara, then the Zanla Chief of Defence, to go back and assist with the burial of hundreds of comrades who had been killed in the attack.
Cde Mwashita was among those who went and witnessed the gruesome scenes of wanton Rhodesian carnage, a scene which remained etched in her mind and which, until her untimely death, always moved her to tears whenever she tried to recount what she witnessed.
After that incident, a caucus of the High Command decided that all assistants and female commanders had to be deployed elsewhere. It was at this point that Cde Mwashita was deployed to the battle front in the Tete Zanla Operational Province, under Comrade Shiri, in September 1978.
In the battlefront, she first served as Assistant to Cde Vatema Tichatonga, now Group Captain Gede of the Air Force of Zimbabwe, who was a Detachment Commander at the time. She saw active combat in Percentine Sector, in Hwata, Chitsungo and Gota Area of Guruve. The biggest battles she fought in included Hwata and Patamukombe, where the fighting lasted from 7am to 9pm and her Detachment, commanded by Cde Vatema Tichatonga lost four comrades who were killed in action.
She left this frontline combat role around May/June 1979, to be part of a large contingent of female combatants who were responsible for carrying ammunition on their backs from Zumbo on the border with Mozambique, via Chidodo, to supply the fighting formations deeper in the interior.
This was a very difficult operation, filled with pain and fatigue, where these female comrades each carrying loads of up to 50 kilogrammes of ammunition, explosives, guns and landmines strapped on their backs would walk non-stop for up to seven days, sometimes with little water and scant food and crossing crocodile infested rivers, under pressure to reach the frontline where fighting was raging.
Many female combatants who were part of these task groups have never been able to conceive. Equally many suffer from chronic incurable excruciating backache. Yet many others who witnessed the death and carnage that Vivian saw at a tender age, are today burdened with various diseases of stress, including manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorders.
This largely untold story about the junior unranked female combatants of the Liberation Struggle was Vivian’s life as well. Luckily for her, though, after Independence she got married and was blessed with three children, daughters Nyasha Bianca Muchicho (Now Mrs Hove), Memory Theresa Muchicho (Now Mrs Mamhiyo) and a son, Chamunorwa Dexter Muchicho, who is also grown up and married.
Vivian is survived by these three children, her husband Mr Peter Muchicho and six grandchildren.
After the attainment of Independence in 1980, Cde Vivian first worked at the Zanu Headquarters at No. 88 Manica Road (now Robert Mugabe Street), in Harare. Later she was attested into the Central Intelligence Organisation, where she served until 1992, when she retired. Thereafter, she pursued an illustrious political career, under Zanu-PF.
In 1995 she won the Harare South Constituency. In 2005, she became the Zanu-PF Senator for Mvurachena Constituency, incorporating Harare South, Sunningdale and Waterfalls House of Assembly Constituencies.
Cde Mwashita departs from our midst a devout Christian, who worshipped at the Saint Martin’s Citadel of the Salvation Army. She was also an enterprising business woman, a great philanthropist, and instructor of women and youths in her constituency where she taught life skills such as soap making, bread baking and other forms of empowerment.
God has, indeed, picked his flower, which is Vivian from, His Garden. It is He who chooses the time, the place and method of our departure from this earth. All we can do as mortals who live in His Glory and at His infinite mercy, is to grieve with hope and faith.
The Minister of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees, Honourable Tshinga Judge Dube, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Brigadier General Retired Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi, Principal Directors, Senior Management and Staff of the Ministry, on behalf of the entire fraternity of War Veterans who shared with Vivian the trenches and that moment of history which was the Struggle for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, have the honour to express their deepest heartfelt condolences to the Mwashita and Muchicho families at this untimely loss of a gallant fighter.
We are, indeed, certain that had Vivian not been unwell, stricken by a stroke on the very day that our Patron the President, Comrade RG Mugabe, was in a historic meeting with his fellow War Veterans at the City Sports Centre, in Harare, she would have been there in this big reunion after 36 years with 10 000 of her fellow fighters.
To her, we say, go ye well gallant fighter and brave comrade. Your blood has, indeed, watered the Zimbabwe Flag as we used to sing during the War.
You have fought your fight. Ours is to continue it, pursuing with vigour, our role as the ideological school of the nation, custodians of the Revolution and the bedrock upon which our Party, Zanu-PF, shall continue to build itself for as long as we survive. Rest in peace gallant fighter, our dear sister in the Armed Struggle for the emancipation of the People of Zimbabwe.
Mourners are gathered at No. 17654 New Cranborne, Harare. Funeral arrangements are to be advised.
This article is published courtesy of the Ministry of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Former Political Detainees and Restrictees
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