adminPost Correspondent
A people without a name can never hold itself as a proud member of the group of nations; that notion drove the sons and daughters of the soil to go in their thousands to join ZIPRA and ZANLA in efforts to drive away a system that sought to make Zimbabweans remain nameless until kingdom come and as the racist Ian Smith said, “Not in a thousand years,” will the black population of his Rhodesia ever calls itself by its name, Zimbabwe.
From every walk of life girls and boys joined the call by eminent nationalists such as President Robert Mugabe and the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo to use guns to dislodge the oppressive and belligerent regime fronted by the unrepentant racist, Ian Douglas Smith, the Rhodesian prime minister, who declared UDI on 11 November 1965, in an effort to forever enslave Africans who wanted a piece of the cake in their own country. Although they faced a mean military machine, these gallant fighters had one aim: to fight to the bitter end for the rights of everyone to be recognised as a human being and for one man-one vote.
In a speech, at the burial of an eminent freedom fighter at the National Heroes Acre, His Excellency, President Mugabe, vividly described the vicissitudes that visited combatants as they prosecuted the war. The problems included rain, lightning, bitter cold, hunger and lack of clothing. The list is endless.
Notwithstanding the obstacles, war quickly spread to many areas in Zimbabwe. Despite the incarceration of their leaders, Zanla and Zipra guerillas trudged on towards the emancipation of the people. Assassinations of key figures of the struggle threatened to derail the forward march of the struggle. In a way those hurdles sharpened the desire of the freedom fighters to go back to Zimbabwe that would be independent.
Relentless efforts to divide the ranks of the nationalists were fruitless. Nyadzonia provided a perfect opportunity for the ruthless Rhodesians to use their covert methods and infiltrators to deliver what they thought to be a body blow to the liberation movements.
In spite of murdering thousands, the resolve of the fighters did not dissipate. In fact, more liberated areas sprouted in the country. A protracted war went on and it was a war of attrition which other people could have surrendered and left the country at the mercy of the hated colonialists.
Our heroes did not go back in cowardice.
We celebrate heroes who braved the landmines dotted along the eastern border area placed there by the military machine that hoped to forestall guerillas entry into the country thereby stopping the supply of human resources into the motherland.
A regime that copied Hitler’s method of putting people into concentration camps and call them ‘‘protected villages’’ in an ironic twist of fate, failed against the AK-wielding comrades who made the nights memorable to those who attended pungwe meetings in the rural areas.
Those were the days of the bazooka and the sub-machine gun.
The late military great, Solomon Mujuru, became a living legend with the cult song ‘‘Mukoma Nhongo, bereke sub tiende chauya chauya.’’
Those were the days when armed convoys between major towns put the regime busy and one could see the tactical acumen of the military leaders on the side of the Zanla and Zipra High Commands.
Fliers dropped from helicopters urging the populace to ditch the freedom fighters hit a brick wall as the mood in the nation between the Zambezi and the Limpopo rivers refused to budge and continued to offer full support to the ‘‘boys and girls.’’
These ‘‘boys and girls’’ have come of age 34 years after independence and became men and women as they drove the socio-politico-economic situation of the country. Some of them never made it to Zimbabwe and their bodies lie buried in numerous unmarked graves all over the country and in neighbouring nations.
We celebrate their demise but in death they know they achieved iconic success. Today, they are represented by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the national shrine.
They wanted to see a Zimbabwe free from oppression and where the dignity of the African was respected, a nation that allowed people to get the economic fruits of their sweat and not to take raw materials out of the country to feed metropolitan countries’ industries.
Our land is in the hands of the indigenous people and economic results may have failed to come instantaneously, but we see them. These heroes are smiling. For the first time since 2000, tobacco exceeded the 210 million kilogrammes recorded in that year. The majority of the farmers are beneficiaries of the land reform programme, which has been blasted left, right and centre by our detractors. Alarmingly, not many among us are aware of this record and it is high time we trumpeted our successes.
I have always wondered why many of us doubt the capacity of our indigenous farmers to deliver and make the country get back to its bread basket status. We are going there. It may be a gradual process, but one day, we would wake up to find everyone appreciating the land reform success. China and Russia had land revolutions as they took away land from the landlord class and gave it to the peasants. Resistance came from all angles but success came though at a price of vilification from the Western world.
Online Reporter