Interview with Victor Kuretu http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.munoch0007 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Interview with Victor Kuretu Author/Creator Munochiveyi, Munya Bryn (interviewer); Kuretu, Victor (interviewee) Date 2006-08-24 Resource type Interviews Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Zimbabwe Coverage (temporal) 1960-1980 Rights By kind permission of Munyaradzi B. Munochiveyi and Victor Kuretu. Description Interview with Victor Kuretu, Zimbabwean political activist and poltical prisoner/detainee during Zimbabwe's liberation struggle http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.munoch0007 http://www.aluka.org Oral Histories of Imprisonment, Detention and Confinement during Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, 1960-1980 Victor Kuretu, Interviewed and Transcribed by Munya Munochiveyi, Mufakose Township, Harare, Zimbabwe MM: I am speaking with baba (Mr.) Victor Kuretu. He is the national chairman of the Zimbabwe Ex-Political Prisoners, Restrictees, and Detainees Association (ZEPPDRA). As I said earlier, I will start with questions pertaining to your experiences as a political detainee/prisoner of the Rhodesian regime. My first question to you baba, is before you were arrested, where were you living and what was your job? How would you describe your social life before imprisonment: were you married, with children? VK: No, I was not married. I was a teacher – I trained as a teacher in the city Mutare at Mutare Teacher Training School in 1960. After completing my training I taught in a number of schools, including United Methodist Schools in Mutambara, Zimunya, and then I came back to teach in Mutare’s Sakubva African township. Mutare was home for me because I come from the local Ndau ethnic group in Mutambara, which is why our name is Kuretu. My involvement in politics started in the early 1960s, when I was still young and restless. The colonial regime did not want teachers to be involved in political activities, but because of my desire to be in African politics I started in a low-key position. I joined the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1963, and then later joined the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). In those days, parties could not last for more than a year, and so we joined whatever party succeeded the banned one. After ZAPU was banned, our nationalist leaders such as Joshua Nkomo made the pronouncement that there was not going to be another party, except for the underground People’s Caretaker Council (PCC). Between 1964 and 1965, we witnessed changes in the Rhodesian government which brought Ian Smith’s hard-line and racist Rhodesia Front party to the helm of government. The government of Ian Smith first appointed Mr. Dupont as the Minister of Law and Order, but Mr. Desmond Lardner-Burke quickly replaced him. The first thing that Lardner-Burke did was to sign Restriction documents for African nationalists. All of a sudden there were heaps and heaps of Detention Orders throughout the country. This led to the establishment of detention centers such as Wha Wha, where some of us were sent. But before I went there, I had been detained for about six-months in Mutare Central Prison in 1964. MM: Why were you in detention – what was your “crime”? VK: I had been accused of mobilizing people to demonstrate and vandalize property in opposition to the government. MM: In your opinion, how were you singled out as one of the people involved in this mobilization? VK: Oh, oh, things were ugly those days. There were informers who had been planted by the police in all urban African townships. You could not do anything that was not reported to the police by these informers. What happened is one morning in the African township of Sakubva, people woke up and found the streets littered with political pamphlets with political messages intended to mobilize people to oppose the government through boycotts, demonstrations, and the like. Informers rushed to the police and said I was responsible. When the police picked me up, several witnesses were lined up to accuse me of being the one who gave them the pamphlets to distribute in the township. It was difficult to deny these allegations because by that time, I had quit my job and become fully involved in the PCC as an Organizing Secretary. I used to go all over Manicaland Province spreading the political gospel of self-rule. So during those politically volatile times, I was fingered as the one urging people to rise against the white regime. We were beaten, with big logs on our legs and so forth. That was the experience of getting arrested. That was the beginning of my years in detention – I was sent to Wha Wha and then released after three months. Immediately after the white regime declared its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965, I was sent to Gonakudzingwa for detention. MM: And what law did the authorities say you were breaking? VK: It was the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA). That was the law that enabled the Minister of Law and Order to send us to Wha Wha and all other detention camps. MM: Were you tried before a court of law? VK: No, there was nothing like that. We had a lawyer who represented nationalists at that time who tried his best to get us released but he failed because there was no court that could hear our cases. That is why we had to be sent away to detention centers since we could not be convicted in any court of law for any offence. Our only “crime” was that we were regarded as “agitators” and of bad influence to the public. At Gonakudzingwa, I spent about five to six years. MM: And how would you describe the environment of these detention centers? VK: When I went to Wha Wha, the detention area was very small and crowded because that was the time when thousands of people had been given detention orders. When I got to Wha Wha, there were thousands of people. Gonakudzingwa was different because there was a lot of space, but it was a place of banishment, near the border with Mozambique. Gonakudzingwa was very hot and very far from any town. When we went there, we dropped off at a point that was called Villa Salazar, in honor of a Mozambican colonial governor called Antonio Salazar. Gonakudzingwa was near a Mozambican place called Malvernia, so-called in honor of a one-time Federation of Rhodesia prime minister called Lord Malvern. MM: How did you feel the first time you got to Gonakudzingwa? VK: I wondered whether we were still in the same country or not. The place was unbearably hot and we used to pass black sweat during the first days. Most nationalist leaders such as Joshua Nkomo, Joseph Msika, Josiah and Ruth Chinamano, were already there. I stayed in the same camp as Nkomo and I remember he told us at our arrival that we had to run the detention camp along the lines of a “government”. Some of us who had administrative posts in our party were given the task of running the administrative needs of the detention camp. We kept intricate records of every inmate, with details about their names, places of origin and so forth. We generated a number of records that filled books, some of which we received from well-wishers. Those of us who were teachers were further drafted into the education program for detainees. We taught a number of people, some of whom were illiterate but who later came out of detention very literate. Some of the people we taught ended up writing letters to their wives, requesting them to come and visit them. Most could not believe it when they were able to write letters! That is what we were doing in detention. We taught detainees every level of education, depending on what level one had attained before coming to detention. Some even attained higher level education such law degrees and others. I had only reached the Form Two level (Lower Secondary School level) but I went ahead and did my “O” Levels (Middle-Secondary School Level) and even passed courses on the British Constitution, Commerce and Accounts. I would do my own schooling later in the day, after I had taught others doing lower level schooling. We used materials from Amnesty International, Christian Care of Rhodesia, etc. Joshua Nkomo also used to write to other well-wishers to provide us with additional educational material. We accomplished a number of things during those days, even though our lives were difficult there. MM: And this is how you would spend your typical days? VK: We had time-tables of how to productively spend our days.