Uncategorised

Ex-political prisoners relive Khami experience

04 May, 2014 - 15:05 0 Views
Ex-political prisoners relive Khami experience Ex-political detainees listen to their colleague (out of picture) as he narrates his experience in detention during a visit to Khami Maximum Prison yesterday

The Sunday News

Ex-political detainees listen to their colleague (out of picture) as he narrates his experience in detention during a visit to Khami Maximum Prison yesterday

Ex-political detainees listen to their colleague (out of picture) as he narrates his experience in detention during a visit to Khami Maximum Prison yesterday

Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
SURVIVING former political prisoners who were detained at Khami Prison just outside Bulawayo during Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, yesterday relived the cruelty they suffered at the hands of the colonial regime while they were in detention at the facility.
Khami Prison is one the penitentiaries where early nationalists and freedom fighters from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi (then known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland), were incarcerated for opposing white rule.

The surviving former political prisoners visited Khami Prison yesterday for a tour that was aimed at giving the younger generation insight into the experiences of the country’s nationalists and liberation war detainees.

Liberation war veterans, students drawn from various tertiary institutions across the country and officials from Government departments made up the party which toured the prison facility.

One after the other, the former political detainees and prisoners, told vivid and touching stories of the experiences they went through during their detention at Khami Prison.
Excessive hard labour, torture, general ill-treatment, hunger and perennial disease outbreaks were some of the horrors that the former liberation war detainees said they experienced during the time they were detained at Khami.

Ambassador Phelekezela Mphoko, was detained at the prison in 1963 after being sentenced to three years for killing a police dog and beating up a white police officer who had set the dog on him and his friends.

Ambassador Mphoko recalled the cruelty of the prison guards, such that when he appealed against his sentence and was released on bail pending hearing of his appeal, he quickly skipped the border into Botswana where he sought exile.

“I remember when I was taken to Khami together with Levy Moyo and Mkhwananzi, the experience was just bad. Our crime was that we had killed a police dog that had been set on us.

The white police officer who had set the dog on us came to us with a baton stick and we hit him as well. That is how I was arrested.

“After my arrest my lawyer, Leo Baron, appealed and when my appeal went through, I was released on bail. That is when I quickly left the country for Botswana,” he said.

Cde Richard Mapurisa, who is believed to be the first liberation war prisoner to be sentenced to death by the Rhodesian government spoke of the gruelling 17 years that he endured at Khami Prison.

Cde Mapurisa, whose sentence was later reduced from death to life imprisonment, said he was arrested and taken to Khami Prison in 1963 and was only released on 17 April 1980, just a day before Zimbabwe’s first independence celebrations.

“My experience was terrible. I only endured it because I had no choice since I was serving a life sentence. I really did not have hope. When I got there I was stripped of all my clothes and was made to stay in my cell naked. During my stay at the prison we hardly had time to see the sun or get fresh air. We were kept inside much of the time and would get 30 minutes everyday outside your prison cell.

“We were not allowed to take proper baths and sometimes we would bath under heavy guard with dogs barking at us. It was terrifying as we feared that anytime the dog would be set on you,” said Mr Mapurisa, who was arrested for throwing a petrol bomb at a house belonging to a white family in Harare’s Houghton Park suburb.

Former Gwanda executive mayor Cde Rido Mpofu told of how when he was an inmate at Khami he was made to crush quarry stones using a hammer.

“There were two big pits where we used to crush quarry stones using a simple hammer. We would be taken there every morning and used ladders to climb down into the deep pits. Each one of us would be given one huge rock which you would be expected to crush into smaller quarry stones. It was a painful experience.

“I remember the other time I fell sick, my head was aching and I went to the prison clinic where I was given some medicine and afterwards I started suffering from a terrible running stomach. That was the extent of the ill treatment we were suffering, such that most of us started shunning the prison clinic and kept our illnesses to ourselves. It was terrible,” he said.

Cde Mpofu, who was arrested on suspicion of recruiting freedom fighters, recalled a time when he spent 36 days in solitary confinement without bathing and five days without food or water.

When he was arrested, Cde Mpofu said, he was tied to a police Land Rover vehicle and was pulled for almost 20 metres as the Rhodesian police tortured him in an attempt to get information from him, but he would not budge.

“When I was arrested I was heavily tortured. My hands were tied to a police Land Rover vehicle and I was dragged for about 20 metres. The police wanted to know how and who we had recruited for training. I almost died and was taken to hospital.

“When I recovered I was the taken to Khami Prison where I was put into solitary confinement for 36 days. I went for five days without food or water. I ended up at Mpilo Hospital because I was really in bad shape. I was then discharged after six months of torture because they could not level any charges against me,” chronicled Cde Mpofu.

The former political prisoners also revealed how they established relations with some prison guards, through whom they would send correspondence to the outside world.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa and Minister of Home Affairs Cde Kembo Mohadi, Cde Moffat Hadebe, Cde Xaviers Muchemwa and Cde John Maluzo are some of the surviving former political prisoners who were detained at Khami Prison.

National Museums and Monuments executive director Dr Godfrey Mahachi and the Director in the Department of National Archives, Mr Ivene Murambiwa were part of the team that toured Khami Prison yesterday.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds