“WE were young, very young, and we could not tolerate that a foreign white race should come and declare ownership of our Zimbabwe by force of arms. We were full of energy, so strong, our will power was as strong as the walls of the Great Zimbabwe, we knew nothing could defeat us, our minds, our hearts and our hands were strong enough. We were invincible, we would end the rule of the white man, we would repossess the land of our fathers, our very own land.”

When Rhodesians in 10 UNIMOG and four Ferret armoured vehicles drove into Nyadzonia Camp on August 9 1976, disguised in the colours of Frelimo, they knew they were gunning for unarmed civilians. 

Morrison Nyathi, who led them into the camp, had recently defected from ZANLA, had also been commander in this camp, so the Rhodesians were fully briefed about Nyadzonia. It was not a guerrilla camp as they claimed, but a holding camp for ZANLA refigees.

Fathers, mothers, children, grandfathers and grandmothers were gunned down at point blank range as they stood to attention at the parade ground after Nyathi had blown the emergency whistle, urgently summoning everyone to the parade ground.

Alexander Kanengoni (2004) describes this holocaust:

“The survivors’ torn clothes, their lacerated bodies, the terror in their eyes and the ghosts that their faces had become told the grim story. 

And the corpses had all sorts of mutilations; decapitated heads, shattered jaws, crushed or missing limbs, disembowelled entrails, scattered brains, gouged eyes, everything. 

There had been a total disaster.

Others had their limbs crushed by the rumbling steel-belted wheels of the pursuing armoured vehicles.” 

At least 3 000 people were brutally murdered at Nyadzonia

But of all the horrors of this nightmare, what shook Comrade Kanengoni’s spirit, broke his heart and brought tears to his eyes is what he describes below:

“A small girl of not more than eight whose chest had been ripped open by a machine gun with part of her lung now exposed asked me as she calmly sat in a donga: “Do you think I will survive comrade?”

Strangely, all through that nightmare, I had not cried, not a single tear. 

I stood up, looked away and wept for something that was much, much more than the tragedy of the little girl.

Why had I ever joined this war?

Why, why, why? I kept asking myself.

When I at last turned, the little girl had died. 

And then something inside me went out like a flame in the wind. It was as if she was waiting for someone to be close by to die.”

Why had he ever joined this war? 

Why did we join this war, why did thousands ever join this war?

Why, why, why… as you held a dying comrade bleeding in your arms; as you buried a comrade in a hole because there was no time to bury your beloved compatriot decently; as you collected the bodies of little children massacred by cluster and napalm bombs … there is a sea of memories, the memories of sobbing shadows refusing to be left behind at Nyadzonia, and so many other places.

“There was nothing to understand…,” wrote Comrade Kanengoni, who was among the first group of 30 dispatched from Chimoio to Nyadzonia Camp soon after the news of the attack was received.

There were very strict values that drew our hearts and souls to the struggle to liberate the country. 

We were defending the truth, that we are a people like any other, second to none. 

Whiteness did not make the white race better than us.

In the struggle, we were guided by ‘Nzira Dzamasoja’.

“No adultery in the war of liberation

Speak to the masses with love and respect

Do not take things from the masses

Return all things borrowed from the masses

Return everything taken from the enemy

Pay for all things fairly 

Do not mistreat prisoners you have captured…”

Thus, to be a comrade was not, and is not, a badge of honour. It was, and still is, a duty, a responsibility, a total commitment unto death, to be a liberator, a helper, a protector and nothing less. 

These are the whys Cde Kanengoni was struggling to come to terms with: “Does it have to be this harsh even unto children?” His heart bled. 

These are the whys we grapple with when we remember Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Mboroma, Mkushi, Freedom Camp, Kamungoma and all those places where thousands of sons and daughters of Zimbabwe perished for their land.