The Sunday News
Charles Dube
JOSEPH Takundwa is steeped in blood as much as his accomplice Nyati. Though we agree that Nyati forced Takundwa into the deepest pit of crime, the latter could have avoided that by reporting the former to the police.
Takundwa did not take the legal course of action because he was equally and totally guilty. “Money is the root of all evil,” goes the adage. Takundwa defies society’s expectations as he rapes and brutally kills his daughter Tabitha.
This indeed is a bleak view of human nature. Man can do anything as long as he gets money at the end. Joseph Takundwa has an obsession of becoming rich hence he becomes a slave of Nyati’s machinations. He cannot even sleep because of nightmares. He claims his murdered daughter (Tabitha) keeps on coming to him. Takundwa believes in nyangas who can give him strong charms to help fight off the dreams. Nyati dismisses the idea of dreams from Takundwa arguing that dreams are in his head. They do not exist anywhere else.
Where did Joseph Takundwa and Nyati meet? Takundwa says he first met Nyati during the war. He talks about the war of liberation of course. He says he joined the army when the war of liberation was just a small flicker beginning to ignite the north eastern border of Zimbabwe. He was fighting on the Rhodesian army side, a clear sign that he was against his own people who were fighting for independence.
Takundwa says 12 years after he joined the Rhodesian army; the war grew into an inferno that was raging throughout the country. On the battle front, the going was getting tougher with each passing day. He could no longer stand the terrible fear that would always grip him whenever he went on military operations. He puts it plainly that he no longer enjoyed his work.
He asks: “How can anyone enjoy this kind of work where death can come from anywhere anytime?”
Even the army truck in which they travelled was far from being safe. A landmine could suddenly turn the very solid looking truck into a ball of death. There was nowhere to hide in that kind of job. What he feared most was the possibility of being captured by liberation war fighters he calls by a derogatory term, a gang of “terrorists.” That was the worst thing that could ever happen to a Rhodesian soldier. As Takundwa talks about his war experiences, he reveals the atrocious activities of the Rhodesian army.
Joseph Takundwa reveals that life in the army had its ups and downs. He is callous as he refers to the cruelest moments as unforgettable when their group was assigned to what he calls soft assignments as the manning of road blocks, the burning of villages, and the interrogation and torture of captured civilians. Is burning of villages and torture of civilians something to cherish or immortalise? He is sadist as he says he particularly enjoyed the power that the loaded gun gave him over the unarmed civilians.
He says his experience in the army taught him that people can give one anything in return for their lives. As proof that Takundwa was equally wicked as Nyati, he brags that he can no longer remember the total number of women who “willingly” gave in to him at gunpoint. He is barbaric to the extent that he says at times they even forced husbands and children to watch while they enjoyed themselves with their spouses and mothers.
He goes on to show how brutish he was, as he says he will never forget the thrill he got from merely pointing the muzzle of a gun at an unarmed civilian’s head. The reaction would never cease to amaze him. The pleading for dear life always made him feel so powerful. This surely is misplaced gratification and proves beyond reasonable doubt the fiendish nature of Joseph Takundwa before he meets Nyati.
But one day he met his match. Takundwa talks of this old man who showed absolutely no fear of his gun. He says he will never forget that stubborn old man. The old man had dared laugh at the muzzle of his gun. On that particular day they had been sent to go and burn down a village of collaborators in what was called “Chiweshe Tribal Trust Lands”. On their arrival everyone else had fled into the bush except this particular old man.
As they approached the village with their guns pointed, the old man had approached them casually like someone approaching a flock of harmless sheep. There was not even a sign of fear in the old man’s eyes. When called by Takundwa the old man did not change his pace. He walked like one who knew where he was going. When asked where he was going the old man responded: “That is the question that you people should answer, not me!” The Rhodesian soldiers were taken aback as they had never encountered such boldness before.
When the soldiers asked the old man if he knew who they were, he was candid asking them how he could fail to recognise a black mamba about to enter his house. He went further asking them how he could fail to recognise the same people who murdered his wife and daughter the very last month. The old man did not compromise his stance even when they threatened to burn down every little hut in the village starting with his own.
The Rhodesian army was trigger happy. When Takundwa failed to silence the old man through threats, he raised and pointed his gun at the old man. He expected to see the old man tremble with fear. He expected to see the old man fall to his knees and plead for his dear life. But to the amazement of Takundwa the old man kept on walking boldly towards the muzzle of the pointed gun. Takundwa shows cowardice as he says there was something about the old man’s courage that sent a cold shiver through his spine.
He adds that there was something terrible about those laughing eyes. Throughout his military career he had never encountered someone who had such eyes. Were the old man’s eyes weird as to be out of this world or Takundwa was tormented by his conscience which was gnawing at him for betraying the cause of his own kind? How could he defend a system that was suppressing his kind? The old man kept advancing towards him and he reacted by shooting him dead in cold blood.
Takundwa decided to leave the Rhodesian army because he had had enough of those jitters. He hatched a plan knowing that it would be painful but anything was better than being shot through the head by liberation war fighters. He deliberately shot himself on the foot and the bullet completely ripped off his toe. He would have to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. He was forced to retire from the army on medical grounds.
There was, however, an even more important role that he could still play in order to save Rhodesia, his beloved country, from what he calls the “bloody communists.” That was when he first met Nyati, who was a highly placed information officer in the notorious Selous Scout battalion. Story had it that Nyati was in fact, a former freedom fighter who had betrayed his comrades after being offered large sums of money by the Rhodesian authorities.
These synonyms can describe Nyati and Joseph Takundwa: brutal, savage, inhuman, barbaric, barbarous, brutish, bloodthirsty, murderous, vicious, sadistic, wicked, evil, fiendish and many more.
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