The Sunday News
I AM Wison Shoko, the third son of the late Chief Mapiravana of Mberengwa District in the Midlands Province.
Below is my story, very briefly, what I recollect during the armed struggle in my home area Mberengwa West constituency. I would like to mention my political mentor as the late national hero and distinguished commander pre-independence and post-independence, Brigadier-General Charles Gumbo, who befriended me when I was just a kid. RIP Cde Charles Tigwe as that was his Chimurenga name.
In my home area the war started earnestly in 1976, our area being somewhat hilly on one hand with dense thickets was most suited for bases, yet there are areas close to us which did not have active warfare until late 1978. Our area lies in a zone where both Zanla Sector 2 and Sector 3 confluenced. The very first group of guerrillas to arrive were those of Sector 3.
The group had people such as Cdes Majaravanda, Garai, Chaka Mupengo, Tsuro, Mutahera, Toro Majakujaku, Sekuru Chirombo and others. A few weeks later we saw the arrival of Sector 2 guerrillas who came in large numbers, fighters such as Charles Tigwe (late Brig-General Charles Gumbo), Sango Demadondo, Bushmen Tapedza, Patrick Gondoharishayi, Willie Deveteve, Paradzai Zimondi, Peace Muchineripi, Lobo Tapfumanei, John Chitepo and many others.
The type of weapons they carried were mainly AK-47s, mortar 60, RPG2 (bazooka), few RPDs and SKS with grenade launchers. One of their first activities was to provide medical care to the masses and political ideology teaching.
Scholarly characters like Charles Tigwe would request novels to read, I remember I was on the series of James Hadley Chase and we shared these until we exhausted the five series. Events of war don’t always announce themselves, while some of us adventurers found new heroes while at the same time there were individuals who, for the love of money, took heed of Ian Smith’s call to report any guerrilla sightings for a reward.
One such person was a man by the name of Muriwo. This man went to a Rhodesian army base at Nyala one sad weekend late 1976 and brought with him a number of soldiers. We had in the base at that time Majaravanda, Garai and a few others. In the early days Kanindo music used to be played at full volume and that gave away our location to the Rhodesians. Four civilians on their way to the base were ambushed and killed a few hundred metres from the base.
That ambush was the first sound of gunfire in Mberengwa West. The sell-out led the soldiers to another base near the homestead of the Gumedes, at this base five guerrillas perished and their bodies were laid at the homes of people perceived as strong supporters of the struggle as a way of scaring them from participating in war activities. They were eventually buried. It is for this reason I wish that all these fallen comrades be documented and identified for the benefit of their families, someone’s brother, father, uncle is lying in an unmarked grave somewhere.
Needless to say the gullible Muriwo started bragging about setting fire at the base and was apprehended. He was the first sell-out to be executed for all to see. Mberengwa is an area where people are mixed in terms of ethnicity, Ndebeles, Karangas, Shangaans and Vendas. So in early 1977 a new group of guerrillas arrived, the Zipra forces, among them were Gaddafi, Tempeli and others. Their method of basing was not the same as Zanla. They would find a place near where they could get food and set up their base, without involving many people. They would eat and move on as they headed south. Zipra carried mainly RPDs and AK-47s and moved in units of not more than seven. After a while we began to see combined Zanla and Zipra. We had people like Garikai, Joseph Maphosa and a few Ndebele speaking guerrillas.
As civilians with no arms we had to give support to both groups. In 1977 Sector 3 saw the arrival of Tangeneropa whom I later got to know as Happison Muchechetere, Yasser Arafat, Stopper Chiridza, Toto Murefu weHondo, Gamatox and many others. It was recruitment time and I could not make the grade because I was only 14 and skinny and boy didn’t I cry when I saw my big brothers leave to join the struggle! I remember all the big boys on parade ready to go, singing “sabhuku mugariro wako nevamwe, kuita seuneurema nourenje!” That was a memorable time.
Soon enough the people organised themselves into structures and duties were allocated through traditional leaders as to who would be on duty to cook when the guerrillas arrived. We were also trained as collaborators, how to spy on the Rhodesian soldiers. As war would have it renegades started emerging, Chapungu left other Zanla guerrillas and started operating alone, making a nuisance of himself at Chegato boarding school where he was ambushed and killed with a few students perishing in the crossfire.
On the Zipra side Samson stole a cache of weapons and trained his own militia, he would come to Wanezi Mission in Filabusi where I was a boarder and he is the one who closed the school in the first week of February 1978. As for 1978, it was the year when the war escalated to another level, Selous Scouts began infiltrating. They had in their ranks deserters like Geos Tafirenyika who knew where most bases were and they would be on Observation Points (Ops) on high ground and call in fire forces to attack the bases. This was a period when I had assumed leadership of ana mujibha and we had our work cut out for us. Confusion came into our ranks thinking some among us had sold out.
Selous Scouts would lay an ambush against Zanla and discard a magazine inscribed Zipra forces, finding this, in the simplicity of things people started implicating Zipra, so counter ambushes started happening in Mberengwa West, Marirazhombe became an area where pitched battles were fought on suspicion the other group was selling the struggle and fighting the other.
The Selous Scouts would add to the confusion, ambushing Zanla and dropping the orange Chinese magazine popularly used by Zanla and to them it would appear Zanla was responsible for the attack. This sad period of the struggle would rather be forgotten because a lot of lives and material was lost brother fighting brother.
To their credit there is a group of Zanla and Zipra who saw through the Selous Scouts’ ploy and collaborated to launch strikes against Rhodesian forces at an airbase, Base Cold Storage Farm Maphuma. If I had gotten hold of my fellow Cde Nzima before coming here for the story he would have given me the names of this group of fighters who rose about group affiliation and conducted the struggle sharing information and fighting combined battles.
In 1979 we started that year wiser but the Selous Scouts had not gone away, the Rhodesian forces could no longer venture into Mberengwa in broad daylight. With new operators in the area Angeles Muparadzi, General Chaminuka, Haze Munyaradzi, Blood Taster and others sought out ways to bring the Rhodesians out to fight, the area was liberated and we could play football in the open, that was when I also did TPY training, a paramilitary training programme for the Cubans as we were called. Basic tactics, weapon handling, ambushing and tactical movement was what the training was about. It was exciting to hold a weapon and know the power and responsibility it carried.
So in order to bring the Rhodesians to the theatre many plans were put into action. One such was to cut power to Mnene Hospital, most electricians were white so they had to come and fix power stations, there to accompany them were Rhodesian forces and there to meet them was Angeles and company, at Bara Farm, that ambush which let the Electricity Supply Commision vehicle pass, the escorting army vehicle hit with a bazooka.
Another ambush plan involved Angeles hijacking a bus into Chomukoto, the Rhodesians had to come fetch it and we had five days of happy contact in the jungle called Chomukoto. It was more like the stuff of the movies when at one point Angeles highjacked another bus, those familiar with York’s Store, there was any army roadblock there, right at the junction to Masase, he drove the bus through that roadblock and stopped at the main store.
Angry soldiers ran to go and punish “this foolish driver”, four guerrillas who were hiding among the luggage on top of the bus opened fire on the unsuspecting Rhodesians at close range. One last adventure towards the ceasefire happened when I was part of a raid at Costas Raft Mount Belingwe Store. We had Angeles and Genral Chaminuka in command, we hiked for two days and arrived just after 9pm, I suspect up to seven Rhodesians were based at the facility.
This raid was about getting new supplies, clothes, food and beverages. We started with small arms and got the attention of the Rhodies who targeted bushes and anything that could present cover. We had the recoiles deployed for the first time, I carried Angeles spare equipment as he was the one firing the M90, events of that day are still fresh in my mind. Needless to say the Rhodies ran away and we helped ourselves to new clothes, I changed and left my rags on hangers.
Some like Pedzisayi Hondo were partying in the liquor section of the shop. After collecting bales of blankets what we needed was to retreat and the Rhodesians had regrouped parking a Land Rover with headlights cutting across what they meant to be a killing zone. We had one Bofu Ratsikasadza with what we called “ranza” a rifle grenade and the Land Rover was a sitting duck which was there to be dispatched, that was duly done and I and Angeles were the last out of the place.
I hope Angeles can read this and reflect on the past war adventures we shared in the course of liberating Zimbabwe.
Mr Shoko spoke to Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda about his role in the fight for independence as a mujibha in Mberengwa District, his home area.
