Cde Peter Clever Musanhu, aka Cde George Rutanhire, who died at Karanda Mission on Saturday, August 19 2017 in Mount Darwin District, Mashonaland Central Province, at the age of 68 was a monumental figure in the liberation struggle.
He was a member of the ZANU PF Politburo at the time of his death.
Cde Rutanhire was one of the earliest ZANLA freedom fighters, still alive, who together with his fellow comrades kicked off the decisive phase of the Second Chimurenga between 1970 and 1972.
He was born on April 15 1949 at St Albert’s Hospital.
Sixteen years later he had begun revolutionary politics at St Albert’s Mission.
But earlier, Cde Rutanhire had trained as a Roman Catholic catechist or lay preacher and operated in the Zambezi Valley of Mt Darwin in areas bordering Mozambique.
When early freedom fighters like Mayor Urimbo, Joseph Chimurenga and Solomon ‘Rex Nhongo’ Mujuru, among others, entered the area where Cde Rutanhire was preaching, they persuaded him to join the liberation struggle.
And so on November 5 1972, Cde Rutanhire together with his wife Susan went to join the liberation war, starting at Chifombo, ZANLA’s major transit camp in Zambia on the border with Mozambique, north of the Zambezi River.
From Chifombo, Cde Rutanhire was sent to Tanzania where he received military training at a ZANLA camp called Mgagao near the town of Iringa.
After Cde Rutanhire finished his military training, he went back home to fight in July 1973.
And Cde Rutanhire, who had specialised in commissariat work, began teaching the masses politics.
While fighting in the battlefield in Mt Darwin, Cde Rutanhire got injured and was sent back to ZANLA’s rear camps in Zambia to recuperate.
After he had fully recovered, he began concentrating on commissariat work full time, especially after 1974 when he had been promoted to become a member of the ZANLA General Staff.
And it was when he became a top political commissar that Cde Rutanhire excelled in that area and also became well-known throughout ZANLA structures.
As far as commissariat work in ZANLA is concerned, it is impossible to talk of the setting up of commissariat departments as well as carrying out of commissariat work at various camps without mentioning Cde Rutanhire.
At camps like Tembwe, Chimoio, Chibawawa and Mavonde, among others, Cde Rutanhire was always involved in the setting up of the commissariat departments as well as carrying out commissariat work dutifully. It is important at this point to look at what people like Cde Rutanhire and his comrades taught ZANLA cadres who attended their political lessons.
Furthermore, the importance of those lessons to us in Zimbabwe today.
When a recruit joined ZANLA, the first thing he/she was taught was politics.
In Shona, ZANLA political commissars called it ‘Kugadzika munhu pasi pomuti’ (giving someone political orientation).
This political training, which could go on for even a month depending on the situation, covered areas such as ‘pouring out of national grievances, the people’s army, the people’s war, teachings of Mao Zedong, Lenin and Marx’.
Under the ‘pouring out of national grievances’, people like Cde Rutanhire taught that our land had been usurped by whites and needed to be returned to us; that there was a bottleneck in our education system where a very small number of Africans was allowed to proceed to tertiary education while white children could go to college without any problem.
When it came to jobs, they taught that there was what was called ‘job reservation’ where good jobs were reserved for whites, while blacks were restricted to menial jobs to serve the white master.
The above situation was unacceptable, Cde Rutanhire and company taught.
They went on to teach that under the cruel ‘maguramiswe’ practice, black people’s cattle had been stolen by whites and as a result, black families had been forced to keep very few cattle for themselves.
It is pleasing to note that the great work which people like Cde Rutanhire did in teaching freedom fighters about ‘national grievances’ struck a rich cord with guerillas to the extent that when the liberation war was won, it was the same freedom fighters who had learnt about the stealing of our land by whites from people like Rutanhire, who once again spearheaded the fight for the acquisition of our land from the colonial master in an exercise which became known as the Third Chimurenga.
That Third Chimurenga was a huge success. Happily, Cde Rutanhire himself realised the fruits of his teachings on this particular national grievance when he in the end, acquired a farm called Tizora in Muzarabani District, Mashonaland Central Province.
Cde Rutanhire, as political commissar, also taught freedom fighters about the people’s army. He and his colleagues drew most of their lessons from the Chinese revolutionary leaders like Mao Zedong who led the Chinese revolution.
There is a fundamental issue which Cde Rutanhire always encouraged ZANLA cadres to always bear in mind in fighting the war as well as after winning it.
This question is one which Mao Zedong himself had emphasised as being one of the most important questions, if not the most important one in all revolutions.
Below is Mao Zedong’s explanation of what he called the most important question of the revolution.
“Who are our enemies?
Who are our friends?
This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. The basic reason all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies.
To ensure that we will definitely achieve success in our revolution and not lead the masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies.
And to distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must always analyse the interests of various groups in our society.”
Now here comes the following questions.
Who are our real enemies in Zimbabwe today? And who are our friends?
The reason ZANU PF succeeded to be the governing party since 1980 is because we have all along always paid great attention to keep on asking the important questions:
“Who are our enemies?
Who are our friends?”
As taught to the ZANU PF Party by great political commissars like Cde Rutanhire, ZANU PF has always taken time now and again to analyse the Zimbabwean society as well as the international one and have always succeeded in distinguishing between their real enemies and their real friends.
That is why it is befitting that Cde Rutanhire was the director of Chitepo Ideological College, an institution devoted to imparting ideal ideology to guide the rulling party.
Contrary to the teachings of the MDC, madzakutsaku and fly-by-night political parties who have preached that, the former colonial masters are good, ZANU PF has always been able to see that the former colonial master, his godfather the imperialist West, non-governmental organisations, so-called civil society groups and their fellow travellers are their real enemies.
These people are wolves in sheep’s clothing masquerading with false smiles as real friends of the people when in fact they are their enemy number one, bent on luring the revolutionary party into their dirty armpits so that once they are stuck there they stab them in the back.
ZANU PF has always united with their real friends, the people, fellow Africans, Chinese, Russians and other ‘suffering’ people of the world against their real enemies mentioned above.
This is what has made them succeed general election after general election.
There are further lessons which people like Cde Rutanhire and his fellow political commissars taught ZANLA cadres which are still useful to ZANU PF as a ruling party in Zimbabwe.
For instance, ZANLA cadres were taught some of the following things by Cde Rutanhire and company:
l Never to take or demand anything from our oppressed masses.
l No freedom fighter was allowed to ill-treat the masses.
l Taking of liberties with women was strictly forbidden.
The above teachings are quite relevant to our law enforcement officials across the board in Zimbabwe today.
It is important that they should not take or demand bribes or ill-treat members of the public which is what made ZANLA cadres succeed always.
In celebrating the life of the great hero Cde Rutanhire, we would like to encourage ZANU PF to stick to the wise teachings of the likes of Cde Rutanhire if they want to keep on succeeding.
A departure from these great teachings is unacceptable.