Was Mthimkhulu and his group revolutionaries or putschists?

Continued from last week
We took them one at a time to bath in the river, where we all washed. The commissioner drove away. I continued to visit the Zambian officials to keep them informed. I met Aaron Milner, for example, who was very helpful. We had treated our prisoners quite well.

Finally the Zambian government decided that Milner would come to our camp to discuss things. He came and we sat down and we told him that we wanted to have a conference involving the ZPRA comrades from other camps in Zambia, and that the big group under Ambrose Mutinhiri in Morogoro in Tanzania should be brought in. Milner agreed and talked to the Zambian Cabinet.

But they insisted that the Zambians should take all of us to a neutral place and that we must leave our arms at F Camp.  We agreed and were taken to a very remote game reserve area at Mboroma.

The Meeting at Mboroma
About 100 of us were at Mboroma waiting with a group of 10 to 20 pro-Chikerema and J Z Moyo supporters. But no combatants were brought from other camps. Milner flew in. We discussed the conference and he chaired. The leaders gave their views. Chikerema and J Z Moyo walked hand in hand to the podium and said, “We are all brothers. We were chosen by Joshua Nkomo and only Nkomo can remove us.” Everybody put their views.  On the final day I had my chance, as the group had agreed in advance. As Philemon Mabuza should have been the chair of the March 11th Committee, he should have spoken, but I was asked to continue.

I made 18 points. As we had only the one copy of the paper, and the Zambians took this, we can only recall by memory. But Joshua M Mpofu did his best to record what I said. Below are the summarised points: 1. Five Zapu National Executive members in exile accused and counter -accused each other in public in February and March 1970. 2. The Five admitted that there was no strategy to fight the Rhodesia Front Regime. All the Five wanted to do was to run a sabotage campaign to frighten the regime into accepting negotiations about majority rule. 3. The leaders gave no thought to how the fighters and ordinary members of Zapu would react to this policy. 4. The leaders treated Zapu like a private company that had gone bankrupt. 5. The leaders made it clear that they were retreating to tribal enclaves. 6. The leaders behaved like antiquated village chiefs and produced no analysis of the military forces in the country. 7. The fallout was the result of the leaders’ inability to find a new strategy. 8. So a quarrel developed between them. 9. They used freedom fighters like automatons, not making clear whether the freedom fighters were supposed to be guerrillas or saboteurs. 10. The leaders did not spell out their main goal and fundamental objectives as (for instance) the African National Congress of South Africa had done through the Freedom Charter. 11. Fighters considered that the time had come to recognise a guerrilla as a politically motivated fighter. 12.

A political programme of national liberation should be based on the premise that liberation was a revolutionary process focusing on the attainment of freedom and social justice in a liberation society. 13. A guerrilla is an angry citizen whose anger is instigated by the injustice of a repressive system of governance in his or her country. 14. A guerrilla is a self-developed politician who volunteers to fight. 15. A guerrilla cannot be treated like a conventional soldier who is expected to follow orders from above. 16. Our leaders failed to understand that our freedom struggle had developed from a civilian-driven struggle for majority rule to a revolutionary process. 17. As the leaders were in disagreement, they could not lead the freedom fighters; the leaders’ tribalism disqualified them from leading a revolution.

18. We propose that all five members of the National Executive Committee in exile should be suspended from leadership of the struggle or until a Zapu elective congress was held.

Milner’s demeanour changed that day. I knew something was terribly wrong. I called for a vote. Aaron Milner said, “There’s going to be no vote. These are the leaders appointed by Joshua Nkomo and they are going to continue to be your leaders.” He seized my paper with my 18 points and kept it. Milner said: “Who supports Walter Mthimkhulu? Go to the left.” He then said:

“Who support Joshua Nkomo and President Kaunda? Go to the right.” The vast majority came to the “Walter Mthimkhulu” side. Milner got his security people to arrest us, but there were too many of us. A list of “ringleaders” was given to Milner. We were put into trucks and taken to another camp which we called The Fridge. It was freezing cold at night. The Zambian government called it the Walter Mthimkhulu Camp. We sent messages to Mboroma to tell the others where we were and that we were safe. The messengers returned to us at Milima.

Many men, perhaps 40 walked away from Mboroma to the Fridge to be with us. That left about 60 men at the Mboroma. A few of the 60 eventually followed Jason Moyo and Chikerema. Some quite influential people were left in Mboroma: they did not go over to Moyo and Chikerema. Some men at Mboroma who refused to join Moyo and Chikerema were sent to Livingstone and handed naked to the Rhodesians with the message “These are the Rhodesian spies”. Some of the group who had been sent to Livingstone were still imprisoned when I returned in 1978. I fought for their release. A few others from Mboroma who refused to co-operate with Moyo and Chikerama were sent to prison in Eastern Zambia. Eli Mthethwa fought very well as the leader of that group and got the United Nations to bring a court against the Zambian government: this was unsuccessful.

We stayed at the Fridge. The Zambian government took us from the Fridge to prison: a lot of us were taken to Milima Prison, which was an open prison between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. Conditions were quite comfortable: we could play football, for example. Later we were transferred to Livingstone. While we were in Milima, Peter Mackay came and asked to see me and Cain Mathema. Cain, as one of our communications men, had often stayed in Peter’s house. Peter was very upset at what had happened to us. He said that he was going to London and asked if there was anything he could do.

I briefed him, saying that I thought our chances of getting out soon were very slim: there was no court and we were prisoners at President Kaunda’s pleasure. I said to Peter: “Please do what you can to raise awareness of our situation. The world should know”. We arranged a means of communication. Jacob Moyo was Peter Mackay’s  contact person and got him to be in touch with me, as Mackay and I were already in contact.

Then one man escaped, also called Jacob Moyo. The Zambians moved us to be with convicted prisoners, which made it harder for us to escape. The Zambians took away our shoes. I refused to give up my shoes and two of us were put in solitary confinement. We had no blankets, nothing. After we had been in solitary confinement for some time, some friendly security guards came at night and brought us blankets and then took them away in the morning. The guards knew us because we had been in the same location for some time. I was in solitary confinement for eleven days: that is a very long time. When we returned to the original place, we still had our shoes. The chance of escape had now passed.

At Milima, there was a big garden which flourished under the expert care of Livingstone Mashengele. We sold food to the wardens. The escapee, Jacob Moyo, who was a very big strong man, was brought back after three weeks, at liberty. He had become very thin. We were then brought back to high security conditions at Livingstone. Some of us were beaten up badly, for no reason, by some of the wardens as we arrived. But Catholic priests came every Sunday to pray with us and talk to us. They took letters for us and received letters for us. We communicated with Peter Mackay, for instance, and Jacob Moyo who was in Britain.

Nathan Shamuyarira came to see me, but nobody came from Zapu. Nathan was very helpful: he brought us books so some of our colleagues in jail got their O-levels: Cain Mathema was one of them. Gerson Phangwana, an ex-Inyathi student, was head of the school. Nathan also went to see the UN Refugee Council in Lusaka. Finally someone from the Refugee Council came to see us and tried to get us support so that the UN could pay our travel costs. Finally the UK government agreed to take us all: but the Zambian government treated us all as prisoners until we got on the plane. The colleagues who has been imprisoned in Eastern Zambia were released at the same time and taken to the airport.