via ‘War deserters have hijacked Zanu PF’ – DailyNews Live 2 December 2014 by Fungi Kwaramba
HARARE – A former member of the Zanla High Command Benard Manyadza says opportunists who fled the liberation war are now dictating pace in Zanu PF while bona fide war heroes are being flushed out.
Manyadza, whose nom de guerre was Parker Chipoyera, told the Daily News at his Wedza home, Zviyambi, yesterday, that some people who currently occupied key positions in government were cowards during the gruelling war of liberation.
“When we went to join the liberation war in 1973, we did not know whether there was Zapu or Zanu. What we wanted was to fight in the struggle.
“We were only told that there was a distinction when the Zanu guys told us that they formed the party in order to do away with dictatorship.
“Those from Zanu initially were saying they did not want that ideology which said a leader cannot be challenged. At that time, we did not know we were going to build the same thing because what we are seeing is exactly that,” Manyadza said.
The prominent war veteran, who was trained to be a platoon commander, said he was appointed instructor in 1974 and in 1975 became the head of instructors at the famous Mgagao Camp, whose declaration catapulted President Robert Mugabe to the party’s leadership.
Manyadza said the only people, among the living, fit to be called elders of the war veterans are the likes of Dumiso Dabengwa, Tshinga Dube and Ambrose Mutinhiri.
He lamented the fact that up to today “real” freedom fighters were still waiting for details on how the late Zanu national chairperson Herbert Chitepo had died in a bomb blast in 1975, leading to the arrest by the Zambian government of members of Dare reChimurenga.
“We would like to know how Chitepo died, how general Josiah Tongogara died and even how (Solomon) Mujuru died.
“On Chitepo, they say it’s the enemy agents (who were responsible) but now the question is what led to the arrest of those in the Dare reChimurenga?” he asked.
With birds singing above his home that is literally in the woods, Manyadza, who is not ashamed to shed tears when he recalls the rigours and tribulations of the war of liberation, said the struggle for a better Zimbabwe had been hijacked.
“The struggle was infiltrated. Some of the people who fled Mgagao Training Camp are now setting the pace. There is an anti-movement that is currently going on against bona fide war veterans, and those sentiments are coming from people who fled the struggle,” he said
The fearless guerrilla war commander said a commission of inquiry must be set up to investigate what prompted the Nhari/Banza Rebellion, simultaneously leading to a bloodbath when only 13 people had been implicated.
He said although the Dare had directed that Badza and his colleagues be reprimanded and taken to the rear, the “comrades” executed them, including many others.
“It should be explained why some innocent people, who were not even part of the Nhari Rebellion were executed. From 1974, suspicions became the order of the day. People became even afraid of their shadows,” he added.
Narrating the so-called Vashandi rebellion, Manyadza said the reprisals against those who were suspected of turning against dictatorship in the liberation movement went to the same “madness and murderous” proportions paralleling the killings of the Badza/Nhari “renegades”.
“Pakange paakuita (there was) repression against the so-called Vashandi. Even up to date the issue of suspicions rule the day especially among those from Zanla.
“It was a wave of repression and those who had not gone to school used to say ‘ini handina zvevhorovhoro’ meaning I do not want to be involved. If you asked a question like why there was no food, you were quickly accused of being involved.
“People were dying en masse because of hunger and those who dared ask were labelled. That is the culture that is even there today, where you see even the vice president now afraid that things could turn against her because she knows the history,” he said.
Vice President Joice Mujuru has come under a sustained attack from the State-controlled media, and with her political career under serious threat, she faces an uncertain future, especially given the serious allegations of corruption and treason hanging around her neck.
The evidently poor and unassuming war hero also said soldiers at Mgagao had made a “strategic error” when they gave Mugabe unfettered control of the ruling party.
“We made a strategic blunder. We should have said VaMugabe nevamwe (Mugabe and others), but when we said we shall only be led by VaMugabe who was in Mozambique because he is the one who was in line after we had rejected Sithole, it was a mistake,” he said.
He added that Samora Machel, and former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere questioned how people who had been imprisoned could have settled for Mugabe to be the leader of Zanu when the party had not gone through a congress.
Revealing in riveting detail some powerful persons in the current Zanu PF set-up as double agents, Manyadza said it was time that the true history of the liberation struggle was told “truthfully, with no political massaging”.
“The name Vashandi was turned around and became derogatory as some were of the idea that we should replace the worker/peasant through the creation of a cult led by one person.
“And that was the beginning of pamberi nemunhu one (forward with a single individual), something that has led us to where we are today.
“When the others were arrested, myself and Dzinashe were not arrested, and we confronted general Tongogara and accused him of siding with the secretary general (Mugabe),” Manyadza said.
Referring to Chitepo as epitomising the Vashandi, he said during the liberation war, guerrillas formed an alliance with the peasants and workers, and in war parlance this group was referred to as Vashandi.
COMMENTS
The various accounts need to be authenticated and recorded.
Commander I salute you for saying these things and accepting your mistake of propping Mugabe to the helm yet he wanted ZIPA destroyed. I have on these forums in the past said, the bulk of those shouting in media that they are ex liberation fighters and yet pro Mugabe and not pro Zimbabwe are mercenaries that have hijacked the revolution. Your narrative of the killings in Zanla camps in Mozambique just shows the vampire instincts of Mugabe. This old man and his mercenaries have not only hijacked the revolution but destroyed the country’s economy and its people. Today there are myraids more that have fled the country than those who left to take up the liberation struggle.
One old man and his mercenary gang are unfazed by all this. No conscience, no principles.
One of the first things Mugabe done to silence opposition was to authorize the killing of Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo was lucky enough to have a lot of sympathizes amongst the Shona White and coloured people, some who were in the intelligence services. That is how he escaped the assassination attempt dressed as a woman. He was more afraid to kill Ian Smith because he was not sure what the reaction would of been from the British. If anyone thinks that Mugabe is a saint, think again. Grace Mugabe has just learnt from the cruellest man of them all. Ask the ones he herded cattle with. He already had those serial killer tendencies during that time.
His relative, the late James Chikerema, who grew up at Kutama with Robert, once described the boy’s stubbornness: if anyone argued with him while herding, Chikerema remembered Robert simply detaching himself from the group, selecting his own beasts from the herd and driving them into the hills far away from the other boys. He never sought reconciliation or compromise in an effort to fit in with those around him. His standard response to criticism was to warn that he would get even some day, according to Chikerema.
Chikerema was born at Kutama Mission in Zvimba, in present-day Mashonaland West province; Robert Mugabe, who was his nephew, shared the same birthplace and the two were very close during childhood. He was educated at St. Francis Xavier College in Kutama, and in South Africa. He became President of the Southern Rhodesia National Youth League and in 1956 led a bus boycott by Africans to protest at their lack of political power (the electoral system in Rhodesia made it very difficult for Africans to be eligible).
With Didymus Mutasa, George Nyandoro, Guy Clutton-Brock, Michael and Eileen Haddon, white liberals who donated their land, he helped create Cold Comfort Farm to improve African farming methods and then form the African National Congress.[The ANC campaigned for an extension of the franchise, but was banned within two years of its birth.
It goes on and on. The people that disappeared. Those that were destroyed by this man who finally destroyed his country.
This comrade is one of the combatants who need to get support in writing the correct history of the liberation together with others who are not sucking up to the current leadership in order to feather their nests. Very few ZANLA combatants will want to acknowledgethe truth about ZANU. How long was Mugabe in exile, not more than 4years.There is not a simngle record that he was missed by an enemy bullet in exile.Mugabe generally hates military people and only got to the helm of ZANU because of a power vacuum and his oratory skills.
I went to war late in 1978. I only heard of you comrade after the war. You were my heroes the Vashandi group. You were democratic in every respect. You were not murderers.You were true to the cause of liberation of our people. I salute you.
This monster Mugabe used the less educated in the rank and file to turn agaist everyone and everything Zimbabwe stands for and it’s people. Yes the time to tell our people the true history is now. Mugabe is showing who he really is. He has never been on the side of the peoples revolution. His style has been to destroy till nothing is left to destroy. This will end in war I tell you. Let us keep watching.Finish your stupid congress and let’s see where you will take our country.
We cannot say only Dumiso Dabengwa, Ambrose Mutinhiri and Tshinga Dube are fit to be called the war veteran elders. There are many others like Gibson Mashingaidze, George Rutanhire, Happison Muchechetere and even Axon Chimbudzi in Budiriro.
What a breathtaking,chilling abrutal and account. A serial killer exposed by his own, now relegated to adjacent poverty. Sadly, mugabe has now used all the available options left for him resulting in him seek shelter behind the wife’s vail. Unfortunately for him, the vail is not thick enough to protect him.
The man simply said the ‘elders of the war veterans are the likes ofDumiso Dabengwa, Tshinga Dube and Ambrose Mutinhiri’ he never made an exhaustive list of ex fighters who pioneered the struggle and spearheaded its execution. I take it he was simply setting the record straight about the spurious Matemadanda& friends group that appeared from nowhere and started calling itself the group of elders.
Or @machakachaka are you offended by an ex Zanla commander, making mention of only ex Zipra commanders, which is typical of the Mugabe ideology. From the mid 70’s the struggle was to be be prosecuted by a combined force called ZIPA, but thanks to Mugabe and his like minds that strategy was collapse because it would have never offered them the power they wanted and the ruin they have made to the country in the name of having fought for freedom.Freedom to loot, main, kill and destroy the nation with no accountability to any.