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Victimised over army-issue tennis-shoes

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The story of Cde Annah
Sibanda-Mandava

UNLIKE guerillas, chimbwidos did not have pseudo names.
I was now known throughout Chief Mabhikwa’s area in Lupane as a brave and dedicated chimbwido since the early 1970s working with Zimbabwe People’s Liberation Army (ZIPRA) combatants in my home area.
My worst experience with Rhodesian forces came in 1975 when the enemy was sensing defeat.
It was around midday when four heavily armed Rhodesian forces suddenly appeared at my parents’ homestead. Upon noticing them, my mother bolted out of the house and disappeared into the forest.
I was left alone to face the Rhodesian killing machine.
When they arrived, I didn’t know what their mission was, neither did I know what to do, and it was too late to run.
I decided to remain where I was and waited for the horror that would be unleashed on me.
A Rhodie instructed me to come to where they were.
As I was walking to them, one of the soldiers angrily asked why madhindo ebhutsu dzangu dzandakange ndakapfeka ipapo anga akafanana nemadhindo ebhutsu dzemasoja.
Other soldiers joined in the verbal assault, I was speechless.
The soldiers were livid.
My crime was wearing tennis shoes that were similar to theirs.
And I soon realised that I was about to die for these shoes.
The soldiers were frothing at the mouths.
One of the soldiers cocked his gun and pointed it on my stomach, threatening to squeeze the life out of me.
This harassment and brutality took place in broad daylight.
Rhodesians did not regard blacks as people and I knew that death was imminent.
The Rhodies were the law and killing blacks was not a crime but an important ‘national’ service.
Initially I could not find any answer or words to plead for my life, I just kept quiet.
Having been born and bred in the village and encountered various challenges while herding my father’s cattle, I had developed a thick skin.
When a Rhodesian soldier pointed a gun at me, I remained steadfast, just waiting for the next move.
The behaviour of Rhodesian soldiers was unpredictable; more often than not, they were ruthless, especially when dealing with blacks whom they suspected were linked to freedom fighters.
I was slapped around and poked.
They wanted to know the source of the shoes.
I knew they thought that these were shoes from a dead soldier.
They believed that guerillas were so desperate they would rob the clothes off dead Rhodesian soldiers.
But the guerillas were much more sophisticated; they could raid white-owned shops and the daring ones were known to get into Rhodesian bases and help themselves to their supplies.
And finding me with these shoes, they were eager to extract from me their source.
Soon I realised that I had to say something to save myself. I broke my silence and told them that I had not received the shoes from freedom fighters whom they called terrorists.
In fact, I told them that some white soldiers who had passed by our village had been generous enough to donate the shoes.
I told them that the Rhodesian soldiers had felt pity for us after bumping into us fetching firewood barefoot.
After a fairly long interrogation, which seemed to go on forever, still with the gun poking my stomach, the soldiers eventually left my father’s homestead.
This was a surprise and rare moment; they rarely went away without inflicting as much damage as they could, which included killing.
These were the moments when one felt the spirits of the land close and coming to one’s rescue.
Later, when the soldiers had left our homestead, proceeding with their patrol and futile hunt of the guerillas, the villagers who had disappeared reappeared.
They were anxious and expected to find corpses at the homestead.
Their only hope lay in the fact that they had not heard gunshots, meaning no one had been shot.
But again that was no guarantee to life.
Rhodesian soldiers were sadists and a number of them enjoyed using bayonets on helpless villagers.
At homesteads, they could use burning ambers to torture their victims, poking victims with burning logs or pouring hot water on them.
They never hesitated to spill blood in the most brutal of ways.
Cruelty was always displayed to deter others from supporting freedom fighters whose operations were closely linked to the masses.
Every act of cruelty was meant to deter us from supporting the freedom fighters who on a daily basis were proving to be a superior force compared to Rhodesian soldiers.
However, this incident did not deter me from playing my chimbwido role.
This ill treatment increased my hatred for Rhodesians and made me double up my efforts to help dislodge the imperialists.
Compiled by Tobias Manyuchi

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