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A chilling and eerie feeling impulsively wrestles one’s psyche upon arrival at the infamous Castle Kopje Camp known to locals as “KuButcher”, where thousands of black people met their fate at the hands of bloodthirsty white Rhodesias.“KuButcher” (the slaughter-house) is one of those notorious places where Rhodesians slaughtered blacks, mostly unarmed civilians, and disposed of them in mass graves and mine shafts as was the case with Chibondo in Mt Darwin.
Located on the south-eastern fringes of Rusape town in Manicaland Province, “KuButcher” bears permanent scars of a genocide inflicted on black people, for the simple reason of either questioning the racial iniquities of colonial Rhodesia, or simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The remaining concrete slabs, scare-crow like small blair-toilets, huge concrete trenches and some scattered bullet shells are all clear testimony of the resistance and resilience of the spirits and souls of those who perished at the Butcher’s, who to this day have refused to be washed away by the vagaries of weather and sheer political amnesia.
Thus, 34 years after independence, Butcher’s mass graves were last year “discovered” and authenticated by the Fallen Heroes’ Trust of Zimbabwe and the Department of National Museums and Monuments.
One individual who has been instrumental in the identification and exhumation of the slain heroes of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle in Rusape, is Cde Mavhura Mavel Bandera, a resident of Rusape who is the secretary general of Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association in Makoni district.
“I am not sure why it took so long for people to “discover” these mass graves that are just in the vicinity of Rusape Town because some of the black collaborators who participated in the murder of fellow countrymen are still living with us in Vengere,” said Cde Bandera.
After being arrested, black people, women, children and anyone suspected of aiding the guerillas were commandeered to Castle Kopje Camp. Their first stop was a small rugged corrugated room used as a courtroom. There was no defense counsel and no prosecutor, as the whole process was conducted by two or three white military colonial officials.
In leg-irons and sometimes hooded, the accused were forced to consent to the charges while a heavy metal hook hang above their heads eerily signaling the inevitable demise.
Very few people were spared death upon reaching the Marshal Court as the military officials were the arresting officers, the prosecutors and the judges.
The grueling Marshal Court experience was followed by the hanging of the “accused” on a conveyor belt at a shooting range nearby. The accused were later tied to a metal conveyor which moved up and down along a huge concrete trench.
Young and impressionable white children barely in their teens were often given the task to kill the accused, paraded 50 metres away as effigy targets for shooting practice.
“The idea was to instill a sense of hatred in the young and impressionable whites, so that they grew up with an intense hatred of black people. The idea was also for them to harden their hearts in treating blacks as nothing, but mere primates incapable of any rationality,” Cde Bandera said.
It seemed the white colonial officials derived pleasure in killing black people, as some had the temerity to engrave their names on the walls of the concrete trench as if their acts were some kind of a “passage of rites.”
After the shooting, it was the task of other Africans to carry the slain bodies to what was called the “main hole”; a huge pit into which bodies were first pilled-up before being transferred to various mass graves dotted around the kopje.
“These cowards just killed people indiscriminately. When we exhumed these mass graves, we were shocked to see some bodies with children clutched on their backs. They were just heartless.”
Cde Bandera said Castle Camp Kopje was located on a farm donated by one commercial white farmer. Two elderly men of Malawian origin who used to work for the white commercial farmer, were the ones who alerted war veterans in Rusape of unusual sightings of women and children writhing in pain during the night. Besides the two elderly men, some people allocated housing stands close to the mass graves also confirmed hearing unusual sounds of people crying even during the day.
In an attempt to authenticate reports of mass graves, the Zimbabwe Fallen Heroes Trust consulted spirit mediums who later led the way in the discovery of several mass graves and the exhumation of the bodies for reburial.
At least 160 bodies were exhumed and given decent burials at a ceremony attended by war veterans, officials from the Zimbabwe Fallen Heroes Trust, Government officials and the Manicaland Provincial leadership.
However, Cde Bandera said that at least 20 000 people were killed at Castle Kopje Camp, as there was a bigger mass grave believed to have 15 000 bodies, which could not be exhumed because the process needed more resources and manpower.
“We all agreed that this huge mass grave would be rehabilitated and a fence erected around it in order to give the place a decent look,” Cde Bandera said.
Some residents living close to the mass graves expressed gratitude to the Zimbabwe Fallen Heroes Trust in giving a decent burial to the thousands who perished at the Butcher’s chamber.
Amai Beaullah Tsambatsi said reports of unusual sightings have stopped since the rehabilitation of the mass graves.
“It is clear that the souls that were put in some shallow mass graves needed some peace and recognition. Since the rehabilitation of Castle Kopje Camp, the whole place has been peaceful and people can pass through without fear of unusual encounters,” said Amai Tsambatsi.
While the majority of Rhodesians would want to conveniently brush the brutal and colonial “past as another country,” the majority of Africans who bore the scars of such a brutal past, view it as an integral reference point of the horrendous existence they endured and overcame.
The past to most black people is crucial in shaping the way they view the present, and therefore dictates solutions that can be proffered for current problems. Butcher Camp is a permanent scar on the conscience of Zimbabweans, whose atrocities must not be allowed to recur.
Online Reporter