The Sunday News
THE attainment of the country’s independence in 1980 saw the flushing down of a plethora of evil machinations that were practised by the racist Ian Smith regime. The colonial government was reputed for its discriminatory tendencies and the workplace was no exception. Such unwarranted tendencies by the colonial government saw many young people leaving their jobs to go and join the armed struggle either in Zambia or Mozambique. One such patriot was Cde Lindiwe Sam Jacobs Phuthi. Our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) spoke to Cde Phuthi who narrated how bad the situation was at the workplace during the Rhodesian era. Cde Phuthi saw discrimination first hand as he worked in the country’s hospitality industry after graduating from the Hotel School at the then Bulawayo Technical College, now Bulawayo Polytechnic College. Below are excerpts of the interview.
MS: Cde may you please give us a brief background of yourself.
Cde Phuthi: I was born on 20 December 1950 in Bulawayo with my home area, that is in the rural areas being Lupane’s Nokwane area, that is in Matabeleland North Province. I did my primary education at Nokwane between 1957 and 1965. After that I proceeded to do my secondary education at Hope Fountain Mission, a London Missionary institution on the outskirts of Bulawayo and then later on Mzilikazi High School and that was between 1966 and 1969.
MS: After secondary education what did you do?
Cde Phuthi: I joined Radiator and Tinning Company here in Bulawayo which was into manufacturing car radiators and petrol tanks. That was in 1970. In 1971 I moved to Riscosteel (Ziscosteel) and the following year I was at the Rhodesia Milling Company, working in the flour mill section as a laboratory assistant. I had done well at school with good grades. Then in 1973 I decided to go back to school. I went to Bulawayo Technical College to do Hotel Management and Catering. After that I joined Marandellas (Marondera) Hotel as a trainee caterer. My career in the hospitality industry had kicked off, but that is where I came face to face with racism.
MS: Are you referring to particularly the place where you were racially abused?
Cde Phuthi: From Marondera I moved to the Southern Sun Hotels Group now Rainbow Tourism Group and my first port of call was the Wankie (Hwange) Safari Lodge. From the Safari Lodge I moved to Bulawayo Sun Hotel (Rainbow Hotel), then to Victoria Falls Hotel and later Elephant Hills Country Club. I started working as a waiter and also had stints as a chef and switchboard operator. While it was worthwhile working for such a big hospitality company the conditions were not conducive because the authorities were practising naked racism. Inequality because of one’s skin colour was taking its toll on me, it was frustrating to see my former European classmates at the School of Hospitality earning treble to what I was getting. To make matters worse I had done better than them during our training at the School of Hospitality, I had good passes compared to them. It was because of such conditions that I thought of leaving the country to join the armed struggle.
MS: So you were driven to join the armed struggle by what you had been subjected to at the workplace?
Cde Phuthi: Yes, yes. There was also the issue of being forcibly conscripted into the Rhodesian army, what was commonly known as Call-up. I was on the verge of being called to join the Smith’s Rhodesian army, to serve for six months I think, so as to get a decent salary and I could not fathom that. So I found it logical to go and join the armed struggle instead of serving the Rhodesians and fighting my brothers.
MS: Tell us how you left for the war.
Cde Phuthi: I had come to Bulawayo, so I teamed up with a friend, Soziwe Nyakura. We walked all the way from Bulawayo to Botswana as we were afraid that we might be intercepted at roadblocks by enemy forces. That was in 1976. We finally arrived in Francistown where we did not stay long as we were flown with others to Zambia. I commenced basic military training in December 1976 at Kaunga Chipekete Area under the tutelage of Sam Madondo, Boston and Makanyanga. We were 50 or so. Then in January 1977, two life changing events in our liberation struggle happened. There was the assassination of Zapu Vice-President Jason Ziyapapa Moyo through a parcel bomb sent by the Rhodesian agents and that was big knock in our armed struggle, particularly from the Zapu side. JZ was a force to reckon with in the armed struggle. The other incident was the mass recruitment of pupils from Manama Mission by the guerillas. That shocked the world and made headlines all over the world. Automatically Zipra gained ground through that massive recruitment, it changed things. The numbers were growing. We were now compelled to prepare vigorously. We were then mixed with the Manama boys and we trained together at CGT1 and we could have been around 1 700 recruits. I remember two battalions were formed each with five companies. I was in the First Battalion Company E, platoon A and section B. I was made section commander. But once the training got into full gear I was given the rank of company commissar.
MS: What was the command structure of the camp like?
Cde Phuthi: Our camp commander was Cde Ananias Gwenzi, the current Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander, General Philip Valerio Sibanda. PV was nicknamed Saigon by the guerillas. Saigon was the northern Vietnam capital and remember there was a bitter war there in the 1970s. The camp political commissar was Gedi Ndlovu (late Colonel Richard Dube). The chief of staff was Godfrey and also there we had comrades like Sam Madondo, Makanyanga and so on, these formed the top command element of the camp. The rest of the instructors were Velaphi, Chikerema, who was my company instructor. There was also Goronga, Motto, Elias, Taurai, Busobenyoka and Hungwe, the pharmacist.
– To be continued
