“I was part of the platoon that went to Nyadzonia immediately after the Rhodesian Security Forces attacked the camp in 1976. For me, the most enduring image was the little girl sitting against a tree, with a gaping machine gun hole through the chest and her small heart showing. I could not understand how she had not died a long time ago. ‘Will I survive comrade?’ she asked calmly. I was dumbfounded. My heart tore apart and I looked the other way. I cried, trying to come to terms with the anguish of the war. When I eventually turned, the little girl had died.” – Cde Alexander Kanengoni

THIS year’s Defence Forces’ Day fell on one of our martyrs’ days, August 9, the day we remember the heroes who perished in the Nyadzonia massacre on August 9 1976.
The confluence of these important national days is very special, so a special message for our Defence Forces.
Exactly 40 years ago on August 9, something horrifically evil was meted out on the children of Zimbabwe for a ‘crime’ they hadn’t committed.
Their supposed ‘crime’ was that they had a rich, beautiful country which the British coveted and had taken at gunpoint.
For their part, the owners of this great country had said: No, we want it back.
For this reason, mothers and the babies on their backs, fathers, toddlers, little boys and girls, grandfathers and mothers were mercilessly slaughtered without compunction.
Not many would paint a better picture with a pen, a more accurately vivid narration of this tragic day than the late Cde Alexander ‘Gora’ Kanengoni, in one of his chilling accounts of the Nyadzonia massacre from which we borrowed the opening paragraph of this article.
In that entrancing narration, Cde Gora says it all, the brutality was excessive; no-one with any grain of humanity can commit such a heinous crime and celebrate, lying that they had killed ‘gooks’, their name of contempt for the freedom fighters – but the Rhodesians did.
Yes, this was a holding camp for ZANU, but it was not a training camp for guerillas; there were no guerillas here, but helpless civilians, unarmed and they were slaughtered like sheep without a shepherd.
Morrison Nyathi and the Rhodesian commandos he had led to slaughter the people he once commanded had a field day; there were no barricades, nothing between the bullets and those eyes that closed still unbelieving the treachery, those closing eyes which moments before had looked on with such trusting innocence.
How does a comrade give the order to fire on other comrades?
During the struggle, on Nyadzonia Day, as on many other special days on the ZANU calendar, we would gather beneath the big leafy trees and hear the story of Nyadzonia recounted.
The children among us who had survived the Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Tembwe and Pasichigare attacks would relive their nightmares, but it also was a healing process for them.
When we heard about the revolting brutality of the enemy, our only consolation, after we shed tears for our comrades who went through such hell, was our resolve and commitment to end this brutal bandit occupation force and replace it with our own.
It haunts you for the longest time to hear small children; five-year olds, six-year olds, recounting the horrors of that day, how they had all hastily gathered on the parade ground at the sound of the emergency whistle, so full of expectation, perhaps a visit from the leaders to brief them about the war, perhaps some reinforcements of food and clothing, perhaps a contingent of comrades from Chimoio just to keep their morale high in those trying times, perhaps some camaradas on some errands of mutual interest and while they were thus so expectant, the order to fire was given by none-other than their commander.
Only until that last moment did they know he had turned traitor, a Judas who came to show the enemy where to find and butcher them.
It defies the imagination what went through each comrade, the shock and horror, all in one blow.
How does adrenalin work in that frozen moment?
How do you manage to switch from being at peace with and full expectation from a comrade to being his hunted victim; in that same moment can you run, can you find shelter, can you escape?
They were shot at point-blank range; many died right there on the parade ground, many others within that radius, pursued by hell in its fury.
The Unimogs drove over bodies, ensuring no-one would escape or survive, that no-one should stumble to safety.
They kicked the bodies with their boots and at any sign of life they emptied magazines into the whimpering bodies, the blinking faltering eyes, the limbs quivering in pain, they crushed the twitching heads with the heels of their boots.
Why are we recounting these horrors year-after-year?
Why do we keep writing about Nyadzonia, Chimoio and Mkushi?
What is the point?
Has the point not been made?
When that little girl asked Cde Kanengoni: “Will I survive comrade?” he looked away and wept and asked himself in anguish why he had ever joined the war.
Perhaps we keep repeating these stories for the same reason that Cde Kanengoni and others joined the struggle.
Perhaps it is to say this is the cost for us having our country back; to say our people accepted the worst brutality in their path to reclaim their land – in their quest for Zimbabwe they gave their all.
And now that you know the cost you dare ask: So what?
And now that it cost so much what does it say to you and me about this country?