By Martin Mwale-Kamtande

ON a gusty morning of August 15 1971, I woke up feeling tired. I had had a bad night, one filled with nightmares. In the nightmares I was being attacked by dogs that viciously shredded my flesh. I was unsettled as I prepared for class. I was a teacher at Mount St Mary’s Mission School, Rusunzwe in Hwedza. I remembered my uncle at one time telling me that dogs in dreams represented the police. In Rhodesia the police force ruthlessly used dogs on hapless Africans. I was a law abiding citizen, all things being equal, but I was also a freedom fighter. The oppression of my people by the Ian Smith Regime saw me engaging in political orientation of my students. Among my students was the current Zimbabwe Airforce Commander, Air Marshal Perence Shiri. I hurriedly took a bath and forced down a cup of tea, I had not much appetite that morning. When I got into class, one of my students requested to talk to me privately. It turned out to be a morning where more than me was unsettled by dreams of the prior night. For he told me that he had had a dream, in which, I was being arrested by the brutal Rhodesian police. My student advised me to remove and hide my political literature at home. I went back home and took my pistol and Mao Tse Tung’s political literature to a secure place. I went back to class and proceeded with my duties. At exactly 11 am there was a hard knock on the door and as expected, I opened the classroom door for the ‘visitors’. There stood three armed blacks and one Rhodesian. Before I could even speak, one of the black officers slapped me. I never had the chance to ask what was going on as I was brutally beaten in front of my class. The Rhodesian never touched me. He disgustingly spat at me and gave orders to his black inferiors to continue assaulting me. My suffering at the hands of Rhodesians was about to intensify. Someone had sold me out. I was a guerrilla working as a school teacher on a mission to recruit students for military training. I recruited students mainly from boarding schools in Mashonaland East Mashonaland Central and Manicaland. I would give them political orientation then send them to Plumtree where they would meet Joseph Masangomai who would help them cross into Botswana enroute to Mozambique and Zambia. In leg irons and handcuffs I led them to my house. I stood bleeding as they searched the house, but they would not find anything. They searched my house, thoroughly, but it was a waste of time, all the incriminating evidence I had hid. They failed to get anything to link me with any ‘crime’. They pushed me out of the house and took me to the school offices where their jeep was parked. By this time the big boys at Mount Saint Mary’s were fully charged. Air Marshal Perence Shiri organised boys who cut the Cyprus trees at the school and burnt them demanding my release. The Rhodesian fired warning shots in the air, but the students were not deterred. The situation became tense, as the Rhodesian and his stooges were outnumbered. One of the teachers saved them by informing them of a smaller gate that they could use to escape. They swiftly drove away from the charging students. It was not every day that one saw such courage. The Rhodesians were brutal especially to defenceless Africans. And the courage exhibited by the students at Mount St Mary’s Mission School was evidence that my political lessons were not in vain. Later they would come back for me, to arrest me and my experience of hell on earth began. A black Rhodesian policeman told us that the hangman was waiting for us, but I was later sentenced to life in prison. The horrid life at Khami prison is another story altogether. To date the memories still haunt me. Compiled by Emergencey Mwale-Kamtande