LAST week Retired Brigadier-General Felix Muchemwa launched a vital book, The struggle for Land in Zimbabwe 1890 – 2010.
He told a story about the black people’s quest for this god-given land called Zimbabwe.
However, there is another story that has never been told.
Researchers and writers have not done the story justice.
It is the story of the ugly side of the liberation struggle and how the Smith regime massacred thousands of people and carted them to mass graves and disused mines around the country.
The Rhodesians made sure that the bloated part of the atrocities they committed against our people should never be told.
This is why they concealed evidence of what they did and tried to justify their heinous acts by rewriting our history.
Today schoolchildren are taught about the heroic exploits of Rhodesian forces against our own liberation war luminaries.
Our children are still taught about the first martyr Gonzalo Da Silveira and they are never taught that these very missionaries had a hand in the killing of Mbuya Nehanda, King Lobengula and Sekuru Kaguvi, among others.
The missionaries played a ‘big role’ when they baptised our ancestors before they were hanged.
Black peoples’ names were changed so they became acceptable to the whiteman’s god.
For instance, when Sekuru Kaguvi was hanged, they changed his name to ‘Dismas’, one of the crooks who was crucified together with Jesus.
This is the tragedy we face today.
However, in trying to tell our story, the Liberation War Heroes Trust has revealed that there are more than 218 mass graves around the country, most containing the remains of liberation war fighters, innocent civilians, women and children who were massacred by the Selous Scouts and Ian Smith’s soldiers.
The identified mass graves are in Masvingo (2), Midlands (5), Matabeleland South (7), Matabeleland North (4), Mashonaland East (46), Mashonaland Central (72), Manicaland (48), Harare (6) and Mashonaland West (23).
The victims were villagers and supporters of black nationalists who were killed more than 24 years ago by special forces units such as the Selous Scouts.
The bodies were dumped in mine shafts and mass graves.
It is also interesting to note that those who preach about the so-called genocide during the Matabeleland political disturbances (Gukurahundi), where they claim more than 20 000 people were killed, would be left with egg on their face as mass graves are dotted all over the country and not only in Matabeleland North Province.
One also wonders whether 20 000 people would fit in the four small mass graves identified by the Trust.
Research by the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) and the Liberation War Heroes Trust, after the Chibondo debacle, clearly shows the brutal side of the Rhodesian regime and how they wantonly killed innocent men, women and children in apparent panic that they were losing the war.
According to information at the National Heroes Acre, as the war escalated in 1976, political activists and others who were convicted of various political crimes were executed at the Chikurubi Maximum Prison and their bodies disposed of in the micro-burn which still stands at the prison today.
The micro-burn could incinerate about six-to-seven bodies a day, but due to the overwhelming number of those condemned to death, it could not stand the strain hence it broke down and other ways to dispose of the bodies were identified.
This led to the use of disused mines and mass graves.
The face of the liberation struggle changed in 1976 as more people trekked to Mozambique and Zambia to join the war.
To frustrate these efforts, the Smith regime started using counter-insurgency tactics.
The Selous Scouts started pretending to be liberation war fighters and in some instances, addressed pungwes in rural areas where they would round up whole villages and massacre them, before dumping the bodies in mine shafts and mass graves.
According to NMMZ chief curator Kundishora Chipunza, 1976 also marked a sharp decline in the Rhodesian justice system where courts were overwhelmed with cases of condemned people who were sent to the Chikurubi Maximum Prison micro-burn.
This is also the time when the dumping of bodies intensified, especially at Chibondo where 60 percent of the bodies were civilians and the rest were either freedom fighters or aspiring youths who wanted to join the war.
Contrary to assertions by the MDC that the people dumped in the mine were victims of political violence, Chipunza said it was evident from research that all the victims were dumped during the peak of the liberation war in 1976 and 1977.
He said some had small pieces of The Rhodesia Herald of 1976 in their pockets, while a pay slip with a 1976 date was found on one of the bodies.
The last layer of bodies exhumed from the mine was composed of women and children, confirming the war had taken its toll and the killings had become indiscriminate.
The second layer of bodies comprised combatants as evidenced by the type of clothing like Chinese and Yugoslav military fatigues.
A 1976 Chitikinyani (a derogatory name for the national identity card used during the Smith regime) of Fanuel Kanhuhwa of Mt Darwin was also found on one of the skeletal remains
The war had also taken an ugly face as the other layer of bodies was of relatively young men and women who might have been intercepted and killed as they tried to cross the border into Mozambique.
Most of the young men had three trousers and other heavy clothing indicating that they were in transit.
At Hebert’s Mine in Mutare, out of the 60 bodies exhumed, 16 were in official body bags confirming they were shot and dumped.
The colonial government’s hand was evident.
However, in trying to cover up for these atrocities the Rhodesian government shifted the blame on the nationalist government.
To date, people still think the bodies in mass graves around the country were dumped by our own freedom fighters.
Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and political parties have also joined in the fray yet it is evident Rhodesians massacred our people.
No foreign-sponsored organisation has dared talk about Chimoio, Nyadzonia, Chibondo and other mass graves discovered around the country.