adminSaul Gwakuba Ndlovu
CDE Joshua Nkomo’s restriction to the Gonakudzingwa area was a desperate attempt by the Rhodesian (RF) regime to remove Chibwechitedza from the black masses of Zimbabwe and impose in his forced absence some racialist political policies on the country.
The RF stood for racially separate social, cultural, political and economic administrative structures more or less similar to those of the South African Boer regime of that time.
It was violently opposed to the pan-Africanist one person one vote demand, and even to the gradualistic pseudo-liberal inter-racial partnership policy of Sir Edgar Whitehead’s United Federal Party.
The restriction of freedom fighters to the remote Gonakudzingwa area was a radical departure from the Southern Rhodesian administration’s traditional practice of confining political restrictees to their respective home areas or to prisons such as Bulawayo’s Khami Maximum Security Goal, Marondera (formerly Marandella’s) Prison, Salisbury Maximum Security Goal or the Gweru Prison where Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda was held before Nyasaland left the Federation to become independent.
The first people to be dumped at Gonakudzingwa with Joshua Nkomo were Joseph Bruno Msika, Josiah Chinamano, Daniel Madzimbamuto and Mrs Ruth Chinamano. These were held at Camp Number One. Soon after their detention, four additional camps were opened up and were filled up with Joshua Nkomo’s supporters.
Nkomo was to remain in that condition for 10 years and eight months. He spent some of that period in prison at Buffalo Range.
Meanwhile, as soon as the RF got into power, its leader, Winston Joseph Field, entered into serious negotiations with the British government about the RF’s demand for independence. There were reservations within the top RF circles that Field was not an adequately strong negotiator, and he was replaced by Ian Douglas Smith not only as the RF’s leader, but also as the prime minister in 1964.
The RF’s argument was that Southern Rhodesia should be treated differently from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) both of which were protectorates whereas it was acquired by armed conquest.
The RF also argued that had Southern Rhodesia opted to be a part of South Africa through an all-white referendum held in 1923, Britain would have relinquished power over the country then, something it should do at the dissolution of the Federation.
If the British Government did not grant Southern Rhodesia independence following the dissolution of the Federation, the RF regime would unilaterally declare the country independent, so argued Smith and his colleagues.
Britain said that it could grant Southern Rhodesia independence only on the basis of a constitution that guaranteed what it described as “unimpeded progress to black African majority rule.”
That British government position was later referred to in the negative: no independence before majority African rule, Nibmar.
Joshua Nkomo’s position was that the British government should first convene a constitutional conference to transfer power to the majority black people of Zimbabwe and thereafter grant the country independence.
The RF regime had restricted the top leadership of the Zimbabwe African National Union, Zanu, to the Sikombela area of the Kwekwe District, and locked up some of them at WhaWha Prison and others at the Salisbury Maximum Security Jail.
The Federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963, and its assets were distributed among the three territories. The British Government showed a most serious anti-African bias by giving the federal air force hardware to the Rhodesian Front regime in Salisbury in spite of international and local protests.
It gave the whole squadron of Hawker-Hunter Canberra Bombers to the Rhodesia Front racialist’s regime. Asked why it did not distribute the fleet equally among the three territories, the British government said that Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland did not have qualified personnel to service or fly the aircraft.
That enabled the RF regime to bomb Zimbabwean refugee and Zipra and Zanla camps in Mozambique, Zambia and Angola later.
After the dissolution of the Federation, Smith pressurised the British government to give him independence throughout 1964 up to 11 November 1965 when he unilaterally declared independence.
The world was stunned by the event, more so when the British Government ruled out the use of armed force to restore what we may term colonial legality, for lack of a more appropriate phrase. The then British Prime Minister was Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party at that time.
If the world was shocked by the RF’s decision to seize sovereignty illegally, the Commonwealth could hardly believe that Great Britain, as it was then called, would not use force against what its prime minister, Harold Wilson, called its “kith and kin”.
The then Zapu publicity and information secretary, Cde TG Silundika, issued a very strongly worded Press statement deploring the British Government’s ethnocentricism, and stated that its refusal to deal firmly with the Southern Rhodesian white settlers was simply because they were of British extraction. He said that would irreversibly alienate the black people of Zimbabwe from Britain.
The press statement followed a Zapu national executive meeting chaired by the acting Zapu president, James Robert Dambaza Chikerema, the Zapu secretary general, George “Bonzo” Nyandoro, the Zapu treasurer-general, Jason “Ziyaphapha” Moyo, TG Silundika himself, and the Zapu deputy secretary general, Edward Silonda Ndlovu.
A senior Zambia diplomat based in London described the British government as “a toothless bulldog”, a phrase which invoked a lot of embarrassment among some British officials who attended subsequent Commonwealth and UN conferences to discuss the Rhodesian issue.
The Nigerian government convened an urgent Commonwealth heads of state conference in Lagos in the first week of January 1966 at which Britain maintained its refusal to intervene militarily in its rebellious colony.
A day or two after that historic conference, the Nigerian Federal Government was overthrown by a bloody military coup in which the prime minister who had hosted and chaired the meeting Alhaji Sir Abubaker Tafawa Balewa, the country’s Finance Minister, Samuel Akintola; and the Governor of Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Sir Ahmed Bello the Saudanha of Sokoto, and many other government officials were killed.
From 1966 up to 1971 a great deal of diplomatic activities about Southern Rhodesia took place. They included meetings between Smith and Wilson aboard the British frigate, Tiger after which another aboard another navy ship, Fearless.
Nothing materialised at both meetings. Meanwhile, United Nations sanctions had been imposed on Rhodesia but in stages, culminating in mandatory overall sanctions years later. Britain stubbornly refused to use armed force or allow the UN to invoke Chapter Seven of its charter that calls for military intervention by the world body.
Military measures were, however, being taken by the liberation forces. In 1966, Zanu forces engaged Smith’s mercenaries outside Sinoia in Mashonaland West and causalities occurred on both sides.
Soon thereafter, a Zapu group commanded by David Mongwa (Mon’wa) known as “Sharp Shoot” and comprising Embassy Tshinga Dube, who is now the Makokoba constituency MP, Roger Matshimimi Ncube, Cde Ndondo Fly and another comrade operated in the Victoria Falls, Wankie area and ended in the Matobo District from where they crossed into Botswana to return to their base in Zambia.
In August 1967, a combined Zapu/African National Congress Umkhonto Wesizwe contingent commanded by Charles Tshakalisa Ngwenya (whose nom de guerre was John Dube, JD) for Zapu, and Chris Hani for Umkhonto Wesizwe engaged Rhodeisan and South African forces in several battles in the Wankie region.
The armed struggle for the liberation of Zimbabwe had entired a decisive and final phase, a fulfillment of what Joshua Nkomo had declared at a mass rally in Harare Township in 1964: “The British Government does not want to shoulder its constitutional responsibilities over our country.
“We have to fight for our freedom. If the people of Algeria fought and won, we too can fight for our freedom. We are not made of different flesh and blood . . .”
Joshua Nkomo had met and interacted with some Algerian revolutionaries such as Ben Bella as early as 1959 in Cairo. He also met Colonel Gadaffi of Libya during that period.
Those friendly encounters developed into revolutionary solidarity that led to Zapu being offered military training facilities by Algeria and Libya years later, in Algeria’s case, a couple of years after Nkomo had been dumped at Gonakudzingwa, and in Libya’s during the six years when he master — minded the armed struggle from Zambia following his release in December 1974.
(To be continued)
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email. [email protected]
derick.khumalo