OF the detainees that struck me the most as they narrated their ordeal, in the middle of Gonarezhou Game Park, where Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp used to be was Jane Ngwenya.
The majority of detainees at this camp were male and the women found there were hardcore politicians.
So ‘vile’ and dangerous was she to Rhodesians that she had to be in that place where ‘guard’ duty was largely left to lions, elephants and venomous snakes.
Straying out of the camp guaranteed a horrific and painful death; Gonarezhou housed the beasts of the wild in abundance.
Moving with the aid of a walker, the 80-year-old revolutionary is finding her physical abilities diminishing but her brain remains sharp and she vividly recalls the moments that saw her not only being incarcerated by the Ian Smith Regime but lose her family.
Politics became the bread and butter that sustained the lady born in the communal lands of Buhera on June 15 1935.
She did not love the adrenalin-filled field of politics just for the sake of it, events forced her to notice the unfairness and injustice of the whites system that totally disregarded Africans.
Her earliest memories that goaded her into politics were those of her grandfather who was harassed for resisting displacement and for refusing to give up his cattle.
The first-born child of Gerald Ngwenya, a Suthu from South Africa, who had come to Rhodesia on as Methodist Church missionary, would not get to experience paternal love and influence as her father died when she was a toddler.
Her education began at Gwebu Primary School, Buhera, where she began to have problems with the education delivery system.
“I remember when we were made to speak English at school which was literally the commencement of brainwashing, subtly and overtly we were taught to like and love everything white and hate all things black,” she said.
“Brutal acts such as the lashing of my grandfather for resisting forced eviction instilled in us hatred of the whiteman and from then onwards I needed a platform to express my loathing.
“And politics became that platform, the fire in the early nationalists stoked the embers that had been burning in me,” said Ngwenya.
A blistering public address by Jason Moyo, Joseph Msika, Benjamin Mudhlela and Lazurus Nkala in 1959 completed her conversion to nationalist politics.
For the first time I heard an African publicly condemn the whiteman, clearly voicing my anger and bitterness and I was moved and inspired to act too. From that day onwards I became a regular at political meetings.
Unfortunately something had to give.
I was an African woman in a patriarchal society; I could not be, in the eyes of the community, be both an ‘efficient’ mother and a politician.
“Unfortunately my husband disliked my involvement in politics,” said Ngwenya.
And in February 1959 she got her first baptism of fire when on a quiet morning boots kicked down her Mzilikazi home door and she was arrested.
She had participated at an explosive political meeting at Stanley Hall.
For three weeks she was the guest of the brutal Rhodesians at Grey Prison spending three weeks there with her three-year-old daughter Elizabeth.
“I had my daughter with me in a small packed space where we used buckets for ablution which were emptied after a day or two. We ate with those buckets by our side.”
“On being released my husband insisted that I quit politics, which meant, to me, abandoning the struggle for Zimbabwe. I was given very clear options by my husband and relatives; I had to choose between politics and marriage.
“I chose the struggle and left my husband,” said Ngwenya.
On New Year ’s Day 1960 Jane was among the nationalists who formed the National Democratic Party following the ban of ANC in Northern and Southern Rhodesia in 1959.
There were only two women Jane Ngwenya and Lizy Ngole in the structures of the party.
In 1961 Jane was sent, together with Jason Moyo and Morton Malianga, to Cairo to represent the party at the All People’s Conference which later gave birth to Organisation of African’s Unity. She became one of the first nationalists to travel to Europe to canvass for support to dislodge the Ian Smith Regime.
While in Cairo she was part of the committee which worked on the constitution of the OAU.
It was also the time she joined other African women in politics to form the Pan African Women Organisation.
During her travels across the world she would get to meet and chat with Major Yuri Gagarin.
Gagarin was the first human to journey into outer space.
Back home in 1963 Jane was arrested again for influencing Africans to rebel against the Smith regime and spent three months at the then Gwelo Prison.
As soon as she got out of prison she was again arrested for attending a gathering addressed by the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo in Bulawayo.
This time around she was sent to Wha Wha Prison and was later transferred to Gonakudzingwa Detention Camp.
“At Gonakudzingwa I was placed in Camp 1, where there the likes of the late Vice-President Nkomo,the late Daniel Madzimbamuto, Josiah and Ruth chinamano and Joseph Msika among others, were.
“During this period I furthered my education and obtained my Ordinary and Advanced Level certificates,” said Ngwenya.
She was released from detention in 1975.
On January 22 1977 Jane was injured after an explosion of a parcel bomb that killed Jason Moyo in Lusaka, Zambia.
She was in the ZAPU office together with the late Vice-President John Nkomo, Jack Ngwenya, Dumiso Dabengwa, Carlos and Din’ani.
Jane Ngwenya still suffers from back pain as a result of the incident.
In 1980 Jane was elected into the House of Assembly for Bulawayo constituency.
She was also appointed Deputy Minister of Labour Manpower and Social Welfare.
Ngwenya today lives in retirement but is active in promoting and pushing for support of war veterans and detainees.
“We should do more to honour and respect our heroes,” she said.
The support and upkeep of war veterans has largely been the responsibility of Government which is currently overstretched due to a liquidity crunch induced by Western imposed sanctions.