By Bongani Nyamweda

It was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that we were fighting for our life after being betrayed by the very same people we had put our lives on the line for.
Those were my thoughts as we exchanged fire-for-fire with the Rhodesians, one hot afternoon, in Nyombwe, 1976.
My name is Bongani Nyamweda.
I was born at Harare Hospital in 1958 and grew up in Mabvuku.
It was while doing my primary and part of secondary education when I heard whispers of vana mukoma and left to join them.
During holidays I would work part time at Chocolate Log in Salisbury where I witnessed the whiteman’s racist and cruel treatment of blacks, sometimes by young white males towards older black men.
It was even more difficult to swallow considering we were the owners of the country whose life was being made miserable by vauyi.
Therefore in 1974 I left to join the liberation struggle.
We arrived in Mozambique early 1975 together with Cde Granger, Cde Broson Charles, Cde Mazoda and Cde Solo Gonye.
Our journey to Mozambique was so tough that at one point we got lost then spent eight days without food and water.
We got there nevertheless and I received military training at Tembwe and assumed the Chimurenga name Chamu Hapati.
I was deployed to the front in 1976 and operated in Tete Province, Nehanda Sector covering Dande and Nyombwe areas.
When we crossed the border into the then Rhodesia we were 150 ZANLA cadres.
Fifty comrades were to go to Dande, the other fifty to Centenary and the other group to Nyombwe.
Soon after crossing the border we split into smaller groups of operations.
In my group was Cde Gandamuseve, Cde Chipwanya Nemafuta, Cde Paradza and Cde Kuenda Mukwashawezuva.
One day a villager sold us out to the enemy
A mujibha came to our base and warned us of an imminent attack.
That information saved our lives as we quickly laid an ambush for the on-coming Rhodesian soldiers.
Fighting an enemy you knew was coming was always better than a surprise attack from the enemy and getting engaged in a firefight you had not initiated.
The enemy came in three trucks.
The biggest weapons we had in our arsenal was 60 millimetre mortar and three RPG7 bazookas.
In no time the enemy was in our ‘killing bag’, a zone we could effect maximum damage.
Ben Kayambo, the detachment commander fired the first shot which signalled the beginning of the attack.
We took the Rhodesians by surprise, they obviously had not expected us to initiate the battle.
Instead, they expected to butcher us like sitting ducks.
For a good five minutes we pumped ammo into the hapless Rhodesians, the adrenalin pumped into our systems made us forget about our hunger and thirst.
Their attempt at returning fire was feeble as they were more concerned with getting out of the killing zone alive.
In a space of five minutes, in typical guerrilla style, we had foiled the Rhodesian mission.
This was my first contact with the enemy at the front.
It was a great victory and morale booster for me.
Although we were hungry, we walked for more than 30 kilometres because we knew the Rhodesians would come for revenge.
To our surprise the Rhodesians only came to collect corpses of their fellows.
They never launched any attack.
I went on to engage the enemy in many battles in the Nehanda Sector, some were successful and some were not, it was war but one never forgets their first encounter.
This was one of the many battles that eventually culminated in us winning the war and attaining self-rule in 1980.