adminFreedom Mutanda
Adolf Hitler, the mercurial dictator, had concentration camps in Germany specifically for the Jews and his opponents while Ian Douglas Smith had them, misnamed “Protected Villages” during the war of liberation ostensibly to protect Africans from the “terrorists,” it was ironical that the indigenous people had to be protected against their liberators, the ZIPRA and ZANLA cadres.
Such was the propaganda machinery at the disposal of the illegal regime that it sought to depict the guerrillas as “terrorists” whose sole aim was to rape the womenfolk. For those who were gullible, they turned against the comrades and finally became sell-outs who like the biblical Judas sold the liberty of this country for a few pieces of silver.
Why were Protected Villages
established?
To answer that question, let’s follow the remarkable tale of a “Keep” inmate who drifted in and out of the protected village from 1977 right up to independence. He is a barrel chested man in his sixties, Cde Zituta, who lived in Manzvire Protected Village, Chipinge, up to the end of the war, today, he still stays there.
‘’During the decisive stage of the liberation struggle, the enemy forces realised the power of the ‘boys’ lay with us, the povo. I am sure their strategists hatched this idea of rounding us up like sheep and place us where it would be easy to monitor our activities. If comrades were alienated from the people, then it meant that the war effort was doomed. Food and other material help would cease if villagers’ movements and actions were strictly monitored,’’ Sekuru Zituta said wistfully.
All of a sudden, chiefs, headmen and kraal heads were told that there would be a shift in government policy with regards to where ordinary people lived. As the powers of traditional leaders had been usurped through a succession of colonial legislations, no traditional leader could refuse a direct order from a Native Commissioner.
‘’The colonialists wanted to break people’s lives. However, we refused to kow-tow to their whims,’’ Sekuru Zituta continued.
Life in the Protected Villages
At that time in the late 1970’s, it was debatable whether life in the protected villages was better than staying away in ‘liberated or semi liberated zones’. Ruthless soldiers did not spare people whether they stayed or did not stay in the ‘keeps’.
‘’It was a double edged sword, really. Outside the keep, comrades came in search of food while the Rhodesian soldiers came looking for the comrades.
Either way, one was in trouble outside the protected villages. If the enemy soldiers came across comrades eating food, there would be a contact with the result that civilian casualties were many.’’
In the protected village, there were few incidents of contact but life was unbearable in many instances.
“For starters, different clans had to stay close to each other. To illustrate, the Zitutas, the Mhlangas and so forth, had different areas allocated to them within the ‘keep’. Somehow, in a cruel stroke of fate, the whites managed to put into practice their revered but much hated policy of divide-and-rule. Remember, these people saw their previous homes burnt to the ground the moment we left. For instance, when we left with a few belongings, we returned the following day to collect more items only to see the entire home razed to the ground. We were dumbfounded,’’ Clever Sigauke, a former resident of a ‘keep’ said.
What was disconcerting was that in the protected village, there was no freedom to rear animals, grow crops and fetch firewood close to places where they stayed.
‘’We couldn’t fetch firewood and had to go out to do things we felt were normal before our incarceration. Imagine the authorities erected a security fence to forestall us from venturing outside and help the comrades in any capacity.
Guards that patrolled the security fence throughout the day were mostly blacks although whites were the overall leaders. Furthermore, those black soldiers were really bad and occasionally, whites would come in to stop a black soldier as he mercilessly beat up a civilian,’’ Sekuru Zituta said.
Rhodesian soldiers were at times unwilling to leave their base instincts and raped women, especially married ones.
‘’Women bore the brunt of the callous soldiers who disrespected the holy union of marriage.
They forced themselves upon married women. Some men were beaten for failing to come back from wherever they had gone before 6pm. Failure to walk quickly would result in one getting sjamboked. If people didn’t go out of the protected village, cattle would bulldoze their way out of the kraals and destroy other people’s fields. Chaos reigned as people went after each other with accusations and counter-accusations after cattle had destroyed someone’s garden. The guards derived amusement out of the arguments that ensued,’’ Sekuru Zituta continued.
Granted, people come from different backgrounds and due to that, toilets were a luxury to many of the people who were coerced to go into the ‘keep’ thus villagers quickly learnt that they had to be hygienic because a few toilets were available for the swelling population of people that were being shepherded into the Manzvire Village.
Contacts between comrades and Rhodesian soldiers
If the Rhodesian regime established protected villages to put a stop to the armed struggle, then they were in for a rude shock. Years of ‘pungwe’ meetings had made ordinary Zimbabweans realise that the white man understood one language-that of violence-and so he must be fought using his weapon. Political Commissars had done their part excellently.
Battles between comrades and enemy soldiers took place in Manzvire area as the fight to see who would emerge triumphant took centre stage.
Sekuru Zituta vividly remembers a contact between the comrades and the Rhodesian soldiers.
‘’In March 1978, vakomana attacked the guards at Manzvire Keep. That was because the boys had gathered intelligence to the effect that the guards were ruthless and beat up people for no apparent reason. Guards killed a donkey and forced some people to drag the animal for burial.
Those security people had a rude awakening, the comrades attacked at about 10 o’clock in the morning. Several guards died and in fury, the guards ordered that no-one must get out of the keep until the army arrived. That day, the army beat the living daylights out of us. Frighteningly, members of the media were there as the soldiers humiliated us,’’ Sekuru Zituta narrated his ordeal.
Cde Zituta remembers the Mariya contact as if it happened yesterday. A tragedy occurred because of a genuine mistake. A violent fight had erupted between the two protagonists near Mariya, a village close to Manzvire.
‘’After the cat-fight, Cde Gondo went to collect a gun and a watch from a fallen soldier. He thought all soldiers had perished. Somehow, enemy reinforcements had arrived in helicopters and that forced the other comrades to flee and wait for another opportune time to attack. He was gunned down. For the soldiers, comrade Gondo was a trophy to be moved around with. They paraded him all over the Rukangare and Madhuku villages among others. They wanted people to say ‘thank you’ after they had seen Gondo.
“Mahala refused to say those horrible words and he got punished; one soldier took hold of Mahala and forced him to eat Gondo’s brains that had gushed out. He died at Chisumbanje Police Station after a severe beating by the Special Branch guys,’’ a far- away look enveloped Sekuru Zituta.
Comrades fought tooth and nail at Rimayi to make sure that no erection of a protected village ever took place. They fought very hard to make it a point that they continued to receive support from the people. If all areas had protected villages, then the war was doomed.
Mao Ze Dong, famously said, ’’People are the sea and we are the fish.’’
Since then, till the end of the war, Rimai Village in Chipinge remained a liberated zone despite the skirmishes between Rhodesian forces and the ‘boys’ that visited the area.
Helping the comrades even under tight monitoring
At one time, Ian Smith is said to have boasted that his ‘kaffirs’ were the happiest blacks in Africa. Nevertheless, these are the people who braved the harsh and restrictive conditions in the ‘keep’ to help the terrorists who were said to have tails.
How did the ‘povo’ help the boys in the prosecution of the war while they remained in the concentration camps erroneously called ‘protected villages?’.
‘’One Elliot Magodo refused to get into the protected village preferring instead to remain outside and live the life of a person of no fixed aboard as he became literally, the commander of the mujibhas. Businessmen gave Elliot some money and goodies every now and then and he would find a way to go and buy the food or clothes for the guys. He survived up to the end of the war. Single handedly, Magodo made the war tick as he acted as a liaison between us in the ‘keep’ and the comrades who prosecuted the war up to its logical conclusion,’’ Sekuru Zituta said.
As the war escalated, some schools were closed but other children continued going to school although it meant travelling long distances and learning for a few hours-two-at most.
‘’Our children went to school outside the protected village. In 1979, after the 18 hour curfew elapsed at 12pm, the school started at 2pm and ended at 4pm.Surprisingly, every day, on their way back from school, children queued outside the gate while every pupil was interrogated by the guards, they were always asked what kind of people they had met outside in efforts to flush out comrades. What they did not know was the guerrillas went in and out of the ‘keep’ without their knowledge. Whenever there was contact, there wouldn’t be school as the soldiers said they wanted to ‘ferret’ the culprits but they never succeeded,’’ Sekuru Zituta remembers well.
1980 and the dawn of independence
With the advent of independence, it was time to return to their original places. People had nostalgia about the good times they spend outside the keep.
Thus, with the announcement of a return, there was a stampede to get back home. Amazingly, some people had to remove the cone shaped thatch of their huts as they built their new homes again.
‘’We were happy to finally see an end to the atrocities perpetrated against our people by the Smith regime. My first time to enter a voting booth will remain engraved in my mind.
Putting an ‘x’ where I wanted was a new phenomenon that I still practise thirty five years on. My experience in the protected village showed me the resilience of the Zimbabwean people. We can’t forget those horrendous days but it is pleasing to note that it was not for nothing that we lived in those oppressive conditions.‘’
Sekuru Zituta lives in Chipangayi but he goes to his rural home whenever he feels like without fear that he may be interrogated before he enters the confines of his home.
Online Reporter