The Sunday News
CDE Elphas Tshuma, recently appointed to the ruling Zanu-PF Politburo by President Mnangagwa as Deputy Secretary for Mines and Energy Development came face to face with the Rhodesian brutality when white police officers (amajoni) thoroughly beat up his mother, Mrs Memory Tshuma (nee Dzovore).
The incident which is still fresh in Cde Tshuma’s mind happened during the school holidays of December 1975 at the now former guerilla’s family homestead in Silobela, Midlands Province. The Rhodesian policemen were accusing Mrs Tshuma of deliberately feigning ignorance on the whereabouts of her husband, Ernest Mgwetshe Tshuma whom they were looking for in connection with a case of assault.
Mr Tshuma had assaulted a white veterinary technician at the village dip tank. In an interview with our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda, Cde Tshuma who operated under pseudonyms Mashoko Nyika and Friday Masimini said watching his mother beaten up by other men drove him to drop out of school at Mpopoma High School in Bulawayo in 1976 while in Form Two and crossed the border to join the armed struggle in Zambia via Botswana.
During the war Cde Tshuma operated as a reconnaissance officer serving under the current Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) commander, General Philip Valerio Sibanda (Ananias Gwenzi) who was the ZPRA Chief of Reconnaissance. Below are excerpts of the interview. Read on…..
MS: Good morning Cde Tshuma congratulations on your appointment to the Politburo.
Cde Tshuma: Thank you very much Mkhululi.
MS: Cde Tshuma may you please take us through your background. Who is Elphas Tshuma?
Cde Tshuma: I come from Silobela under Chief Malisa in the Midlands Province that is where my roots are. However, I was born here in Bulawayo on 6 June 1960 at Mpilo Central Hospital.
My parents were Ernest Mgwetshe Tshuma, my father, while my mother was Memory Dzovore. Although I went to school in Bulawayo, it was a ritual that my father would during the holidays make sure we travel to Silobela to spend the holidays there where my mother was, looking after the family homestead which was how most African families lived.
The men would be working in urban areas or elsewhere while their spouses would be out there in the villages, so our family was not different. For my schooling I did my primary education at Magwegwe Primary School after which I moved to Mpopoma Secondary where I went up to Form Two.
However, I did not even finish Form Two as I dropped out to join the armed struggle. I only did the first term of my Form Two. Sahle sarobhana lo Antony Banda who was my classmate to drop out of school and go to war. That was in 1976.
MS: What drove you to join the armed struggle at such a tender age?
Cde Tshuma: I would start by giving you a brief family political background. My father was not into politics that much but my mother was very active at our rural home in Silobela as a member of Zapu. It then happened that during the holidays that was in December an engine that was used to pump water into the local dip tank broke down.
The veterinary technician or officer assigned to our area then came to assess the situation. He had an impromptu meeting at the dip tank where he instructed men to go and order their wives to go and fetch water for use at the dip tank.
There were grumbles from those in attendance but my father took the lead in opposing the proposal from the white man. The white man was not happy being challenged by a black man and the situation got nasty as the two ended up involved in a physical fight. The white man lost the fight as my father floored him.
On realising what he had done my father disappeared from the scene to avoid arrest. The case was reported to the police who then launched a man-hunt for him.
They arrived at our homestead and asked my mother on his whereabouts and she told them that she did not know where he was. They then accused her of not telling them the truth and went on to beat her up, thoroughly for that matter.
MS: You guys were there?
Cde Elphas Tshuma
Cde Tshuma: We were there and that was very painful. In my life I had never seen my father beating up my mother, but on that day I saw some other men beating her up.
The story of my mother being beaten up spread across the village and a community leader, uMathanda Fuzwayo approached me and said it was time for me to leave the country and join other youngsters in fighting the Smith regime. Mathanda Fuzwayo had correctly read my mind, I was angry, very angry.
However, I returned to school in Bulawayo but my mind was elsewhere. It then happened that my classmate, Antony Banda also wanted to go to war. So sarobhana ke.
MS: So how then did you plan to go to war?
Cde Tshuma: By that time I had moved from the family house in Mpopoma and was staying with my elder brother in Magwegwe.
So just before we closed the first term and we were heading towards the Easter holidays we decided to make the move. It was on a Friday that day, so after school we collected the few items we needed and went to a house in Gwabalanda which was used as a recruiting centre by the local Zapu leadership.
I have forgotten the name of the owner of the house but he used to work for Ingwebu Breweries. When we got there we were told that we were no longer allowed to leave, we were in other words detained there. Of course we had been referred there by some Zapu people who were recruiting youths to go and join the armed struggle.
MS: When you got to that house, how was the situation like?
Cde Tshuma: We teamed up with 11 others, but those people were older than us. During that Friday night we were given National Identity cards, izithupha with 39 that is for Matobo or Kezi district.
That was to allow us easy passage along the way when we encountered roadblocks as the Rhodesian forces would think we were from Kezi, so we were going to our homes. You once wrote about this when you interviewed Rabson Dube, the businessman and former conductor at Pelandaba Bus Service.
Dube spoke about how the Zapu leadership in Kezi and their counterparts in Bulawayo used to fool the Rhodesian security system by harvesting IDs in Kezi and giving them to the recruits who were going to join the war. That was an excellent underground operation that was done by civilians and a leadership using its brains to fight the war.
Those madalas were ahead of the Rhodesian security system. So on that night we were each given an ID card so that we could familiarise ourselves with the document, there was a need to memorise the name, the ID number, village of origin and so on.
The following day, that was on a Saturday we moved to the Renkini Long Distance Bus Terminus. We boarded an Ajay Motorways bus. On the way some passengers started being rowdy as we had been joined on the bus by three policemen in uniform.
MS: Was it a fight…..
Cde Tshuma: Those people were shouting obscenities, inhlamba emapholiseni. I was taken aback. During that fracas one of the policemen told the passengers that they were aware that a majority of the people in the bus were not going to their homes but to cross into Botswana to join the war.
Wathi abanengi lapha bayachapha. I was shocked and started fearing that we would be arrested. When we got to Kezi Business Centre, those policemen ordered that the bus be driven into Kezi Police Station. The three policemen disembarked and later came with six guys taken out of the cells and they joined us in the bus. We continued with our journey without an incident.
MS: Who were those six?
Cde Tshuma: Those six had been intercepted by the police on their way to join the armed struggle a day before. The three black officers then released them. During the war the nationalist movement had sympathisers within the regime forces and some were very daring. We managed to travel up to Makorokoro and by that time it was already at night.
We then sought direction to the border from the villagers who gladly assisted us. We crossed the Shashe River and moved to Selibe-Phikwe.
I think we stayed at Phikwe for just three or four days before we were flown to Zambia. From the Lusaka International Airport we were driven in Zapu trucks to Nampundwe Transit Camp. It was at Nampundwe that it dawned on me that things had changed dramatically. The people there looked just like izipoko (ghosts).
To be continued next week
