Freedom fighter groomed by Big Josh

19 Mar, 2017 - 00:03 0 Views

The Sunday News

EX-freedom fighter Cde John Simbarashe Hungwe probably has a unique war history. At an early age of his life Cde Hungwe pseudo name, Christopher Magwaza, grew within the vicinity of the late Vice-President Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo at the Rhodesian Railways compounds in Bulawayo. As if that was not enough Cde Hungwe went to attend a military academy in the then Soviet Union where he rubbed shoulders with revolutionaries who went on the become State Presidents of their countries later on life, the two former Mozambican Presidents Cdes Joaquim Chissano and Armando Guebuza as well as the President of Cuba, Cde Raul Castro.

Cde Hungwe, a bubbling character is now an active member of the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) in Bulawayo who is blessed with an analytical mind on political and labour issues. Our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) recently spoke to Cde Hungwe for our Lest We Forget Column and he touched on many issues concerning the labour issues during the colonial State and on the armed struggle he spoke about training, his life in the Soviet Union and operations . Cde Hungwe was born to Peter Maginya Nyika and Tsvakai Ngwenya in Chief Mataruse’s area in Mberengwa District but was later on raised by his step-father, a Mr Katiyo who worked for the Rhodesian Railways and that saw the family moving from Zimbabwe to Zambia and at one time even went as far as the then Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo). Below are excerpts of the interview:

MS: Cde Hungwe, you say in your early stages of life you lived a nomadic life, what did you mean?

Cde Hungwe: You see I was later on raised by a step-father, Katiyo who came from Mutoko in Mashonaland East and he was working for the Rhodesian Railways. So he was part of a team that was putting up infrastructure along the way to Zambia and DRC and his fellow workers some of them whites, a majority of them being Italians and Scottish. We the black children used to play with those white children. So we saw the development of the railway infrastructure from Livingstone, Sikombo, Mazabuka, Lusaka which at that time was as the size of Plumtree Town. We even went as far as Lubumbashi in DRC.

However, during that time what surprised me and I was to understand later was that the Italians used to complain a lot about being discriminated by other whites especially the British, French and Germans. As for the black workers they were just paid two pounds 10 per month. Besides that small amount they were given small quantities of maize meal, coarse salt, groundnuts and dripping, a solid form of cooking oil.

MS: How did the black workers take that?

Cde Hungwe: Our fathers used to fight for their rights but to no avail. At that time the political temperature in Zambia had picked up, that was the time of the days of nationalists such as Harry Nkumbula, Kenneth Kaunda, Kapwepwe and Chona. We later returned home and stayed at the railway compounds in Gweru, but later moved to Bulawayo. That was the end of our nomadic life as we settled at the railway compounds. Where we stayed our houses were structures made up of asbestos sheets, which were very hot during summer and very cold during winter. However, at the nearby compounds there were some houses that were better than ours and had electricity. Those houses were occupied by the families of Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo who was a personnel clerk at the railways, Mpedzisi, the compound administrator and Simimba who was the security man.

MS: What kind of house did Dr Nkomo occupy?

Cde Hungwe: He was given two houses at compound number three which had two rooms each and so he had four rooms for his family.

MS: Did you get closer to Dr Nkomo as children living within the same vicinity?

Cde Hungwe: Yes, very much. As children we used to roam the compounds and at times we would speak to him. Dr Nkomo will then explain the story behind the films which we loved so much, films that featured the cowboys and Red Indians. He will tell us that the Red Indians were fighting for their land while the cowboys were economic thieves. He will then tell us that we blacks were in the same position as that of Red Indians while the whites were the cowboys. At that time I was a pupil at Sizinda Government School.

MS: I think that could have driven you to get into politics.

Cde Hungwe: To a certain extent yes. However, I was later to experience the injustices of the colonial regime when I started working for the railways as a fireman. At the railways and other employment sectors blacks were third class citizens. The railways for example used to give white workers, I mean the super super whites that is those of British, German and French origin company houses, which were fully furnished. A white worker would just move into the company house with nothing as the houses were fully furnished from the kitchen to the bedrooms. The company even provided the white employees with towels, brooms and soap. The Asians and Coloureds were better treated than Blacks who wallowed in poverty. The whites also had the privileges of getting mortgages and car loans. The white workers bought houses in areas such as Matsheumhlope, Four Winds, Suburbs and Hillside. There was also a Railways Cooperative Store for the semi-skilled whites and other members of the white community such as Portuguese, Italians and Greeks. Those were regarded as inferior whites. Such conditions made me hate the colonial system.

MS: Then when did you join the armed struggle and what had happened?

Cde Hungwe: I joined the armed struggle at the end of 1972 but during that year there were two incidents that made me angry against the Smith regime and the white rule. First of all I was assaulted and pushed out of a moving train while on duty in areas around Nyamandlovu by the whites I was working with. On that particular day they were angry that some whites working for the railways had been injured when a train derailed as a result of a land mine that had been placed on the rail by the guerillas in areas around Silwane up there in Gwayi, Matabeleland North. I was lucky to survive and I spent quite a number of days in hospital. When those people who had pushed me saw me alive they said “ the baboon survived”. The other issue was the Kamandama disaster at Wankie Colliery where 472 workers lost their lives. While the authorities did everything in their power to try and save lives of the white workers, they never applied the same zeal when it came to the black workers.

Even the widows of the blacks were not given as much attention as the white widows. The black widows were just given their katundu and very little compensation. Some of them were forced to leave for their countries of origin such as Malawi, Zambia and DRC. I then realised that to get social justice we had to fight and so I left the country to join the armed struggle.

MS: How did you leave?

Cde Hungwe: I left by train from Bulawayo. I sneaked into the guardroom and hid there until I reached Francistown in Botswana. On arrival in Francistown I went to White House, a place that was used by different liberation movements from Southern Africa such as MPLA, ANC, Swapo, Frelimo and so on. As for the Zanu comrades they had their own place in the Shashi area of Francistown. I then joined cadres from those sister organisations. That is the place where I hooked up with fellow local cadres such as Marshal Mathe (Mpofu), Gregory, Cecil Banda, Mdluli and Themba Nyathi. Those comrades arrived immediately after my arrival. The first trained person that I met there was the late Ethan Dube who was the chief of intelligence. He later came back in the company of Dumiso Dabengwa and they are the ones who gave me the pseudo name Christopher Magwaza. Ethan gave me Magwaza while Dabengwa came up with Christopher. In fact Ethan said I should be Magwaza because I was Hungwe as hungwe, the fish eagle bird first pierces its prey, the fish when catching it. While we were still in Francistown that is when we surrendered our national identity cards and I think they were destroyed by those comrades who were already senior because I never saw my ID again. After staying for sometime in Francistown we then flown to Lusaka in Zambia.

MS: On your arrival in Lusaka where did you go?

Cde Hungwe: It was now early 1973 and we were met at the Lusaka International Airport by Cdes Cephas Cele and Stephen Vuma. They took us to Mwembeshi, which by then was a transit camp and was located in a game park. We were 11. At Mwembeshi we met Cdes Dingani, Cain Malaba, Busobenyoka and Elliot Masengo (Chirinda). When we arrived there the situation was tense as it was the period when Zapu was facing serious internal problems that almost destroyed the party, it was the Chikerema period. Some people had left Zapu with Chikerema to form Froliz, so there was a lot of uncertainty. In fact when we got there those comrades who were at the camp didn’t waste time as they immediately started teaching us how to use firearms in case we were attacked by the Chikerema group and also because they were a lot of dangerous wild animals roaming the area . Every day we were introduced to a new firearm. On day one we were introduced to the hand grenade and taught how to use it, day two it was the Tokarev pistol, day three the PPSH rifle, day four the Smirnoff and day five the AK-47.

The LMG we learnt it theoretical.

MS: For how long were you at Mwembeshi?

Cde Hungwe: We spent about one and half months there and by that time we had met senior commanders such as Nikita Mangena, Report Mphoko. We then left Mwembeshi for Tanzania and we were driven by Cde Masengo and another comrade whom I cannot remember. When we got to Mbeya we met Cde Albert Nxele who in the later stages of the struggle was to become Dr Nkomo’s head of security. We then moved to Morogoro where we found 10 recruits undergoing training and they were about to complete that exercise. In our group the number had gone to 49 .

MS: Just 10 recruits and how was the set-up there?

Cde Hungwe: It should not surprise you that they were just 10, remember many people had left during the Chikerema period and the party was rehabilitating itself. Zipra was being re-organised. So among those 10 were Cdes Godfrey, Makanyanga, Bismarck, Zwafa and Skin. While those guys were in their final stages of their training we started doing cooking duties because all along the instructors were the ones who were cooking for the recruits, it was a difficult period I tell you, some people really suffered for this country. As for the set-up of the camp, the camp commander was Sam Mfakazi deputised by Enoch Sebele who was the commissar while Cde Jordan Gampu was the chief of staff. The rest of the instructors were Ben Dubhu Mathe (Retired Brigadier-General Tshile Nleya), Enoch Tshangane (late Major-General Jevan Maseko), Stanley Gagisa (Elish Nleya) and Cassius Moya (Retired Colonel Eddie Sigoge Mlotshwa). Among that group of instructors as recruits we were charmed by the agility and physical fitness of Gagisa, Gampu and Sigoge, they were outstanding when it came to drills such as self-defence. They were brilliant in judo and karate. Those three guys were something else I tell you.

MS: So how was the training and what were taught especially considering the desertion of some cadres during the internal fights in Zapu?

Cde Hungwe: As a result of the internal fights the focus was on rebuilding a political and military force. The emphasis of the training was on producing an armed politician. Cde Sebele who was a sibling of George Silundika used to take us through political science lessons and the guy was brilliant. He started us from the days of ice age, stone age, feudalism and industrialisation and so on. It was quite revealing to us. That man was a really political commissar I tell you. Cde Sebele taught us that when we got to the masses we had to explain why we were fighting, politicise them on the social systems and the importance of religion. He told us that we had to explain why the African religion was also important and that God had always been worshipped by the Africans.

MS: Among the 49 recruits do you remember any of your colleagues?

Cde Hungwe: Yes, of course. We had Khwela whose real name is Chitambo, he left the army recently where he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, Gilbert Khumalo (Nicholas Nkomo) who went on to become one of the senior Zipra commanders and at the time of the ceasefire commanded St Paul’s Assembly Point in Lupane and Entumbane in Bulawayo, Titus Musonza, David Thodlana (Tshaka Moyo) who was to be a senior NSO officer, Peter Mudzi, Moses Phinada, Todd Mpisi who became a regional commander in areas around Tsholotsho and Hwange and is now a businessman in his home area of Silobela in Midlands and Thizi who died in combat along the Zambezi River. The list is long but I can remember most of them.
MS: Then tell us about after your training.

Cde Hungwe: After completing our training Cde Gilbert Khumalo was chosen as the commander of our group of 49. I became the commissar effectively meaning that I was the deputy commander but as we were waiting to be taken back to Zambia for deployment the camp commander summoned myself, Marshal and another cadre Thomas, the guy who came from Rusape and is still around living in Mpopoma here in Bulawayo and told us that we had been chosen to go somewhere. The other comrades in our group were deployed to the front. Then the three of us were then taken to Dar es Salaam where we were joined by other people that we had never met, these fresh recruits and they included Khaliphi Bhebhe, Ernest Gumbo, Arthur Materere, Tarutenda Moto, Chad Chigwedere and Francis Chipunza. We then told to wait for someone and we not told who that person was. While waiting for that someone and we were 10, we stayed at the house which was used by Cde Ackim Ndlovu, who was the party’s chief representative in Tanganyika. That is where we met the man who used to broadcast the party’s propaganda on Radio Tanganyika, Cde Swazini Ndlovu, an intelligence officer who later on was to head one of the departments of the NSO.

So all this time you were still waiting for this someone and when did he show up?

Cde Hungwe: He eventually did show up and we were surprised that it was Eddie Sigoge, the judo and karate expert. We were then told that we were going for further training in the Soviet Union and that was still 1973. We then flew to the USSR.

Next week we continue with Cde Hungwe telling us how he met Cdes Chissano, Guebuza and Castro, the objectives of their training in the USSR and his deployment to the front.

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