Oral Histories of Imprisonment, Detention and Confinement during ’s Liberation Struggle, 1960-1980

Oliver Muvirimi Dizha, Interviewed and Transcribed by Munya Munochiveyi, Murewa Rural Area, Zimbabwe

MM: I am talking to baba (Mr.) Oliver Muvirimi Dizha. My first question for you is before you were arrested for political reasons in Rhodesia, where were you living and what was your job? How would you describe your social life before imprisonment: were you married, with children?

OMD: Yes, I was married with children and I was staying in Mbare African Township.

In 1963, I became a branch secretary for the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) party. There are several factors made me politically conscious and that subsequently drew me into African politics. The first time I saw a white man was when I was a young man in my rural area in Seke. They were forcing people to construct madhunduru (contour ridges). A young white man talked to me directly and used language that infantilized me and made me appear as if I was a boy to him. I turned to my grandmother and I asked her why this young white man was talking like that to me. She just told me that, “Ah, those are the ways of varungu (white people)”. This was my very first encounter with a white man and this encounter made my heart very restless. This white man was much younger than I was and yet he wanted me to defer to him as if he was my elder. That troubled me very much. Also, the reason why we were made to construct these contour ridges was that some of our land was being appropriated for white settlement. Later, white people took some of our land and we had to move. This pained me so much. After my education,

I went to to look for a job. I had done my education up to Form 4 (Middle-Level High School Diploma) at Emaphandeni School and we were some of the first Africans to reach that level. Our teacher was Enoch Dumbutshena, who later became a Supreme

Court judge in post-colonial Zimbabwe. My first job in Harare was as a mabharani

(Supervisor) at Central Dry Cleaning in the light industrial area. My white boss liked me so much because I was more educated than he was. But what troubled me was the way he treated other black workers – he held them in contempt as if they were dogs. I quit this job, and already I was a branch secretary for ZAPU.

MM: And how did you join ZAPU in the first place?

OMD: What happened is I heard these men, including , addressing a certain rally in a way that touched my heart. was there too. I was impressed by the fact that these men talked against white minority rule, and that resonated with my prior thinking about the evils of white rule. That made me join the party, and within three months I was chosen for a secretary position at the branch level of the party. With time, I learnt that there were police officers from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) who already knew our activities and had our names. I had taken up a new job as a

Supervisor again at Andrew Fleming Hospital, a government institution. I used to drive government vehicles and yet at the same time I was deeply involved in African politics. I used to drive top health officials such as Dr. Gelfand, and even though I liked my job, a thought kept on nagging me as to why I was driving around white people and not vice- versa. As I was working at that government hospital, the police came after me saying I was a government employee and yet I was involved in political activities against the same government. I quit the job and joined another company that specialized in cleaning services. I continued with my involvement in the party and I was later elevated to work in the party offices typing party documents. I was one of the few people who knew how to use a typewriter. I had bought a car then, and I felt that I had to do something practical towards our demands for self-rule. I joined and led a group of colleagues who were trained as saboteurs and my car became very useful in all the bombing activities that we later carried out in Harare. Some of my colleagues included Oliver Bwanya, Mabhachi, and others. From my home base in Mbare, we used to go to the outskirts of the city of

Harare in Seke, where we made bombs at a hidden spot along the river bank of

Masikandoro River. We made petrol bombs at that spot and then later took them back into the city with my colleagues. We executed many of what we called “actions” in the city of Salisbury, such as bombing places like the Red Fox and other places that went unreported in the public media of Rhodesia. We believed that sometimes it was government policy not to report these “actions”. We bombed such places as Red Fox in

Salisbury which was a white people’s playground, a hotel of some sort where many white people congregated. The bombs destroyed that place to smithereens. This was in 1964.

We used to do this almost everyday, and the CIDs began investigating. One day gava rakadimbura muswe (Shona idiom meaning “something went terribly wrong”). It so happened that one day in that same year, 1964, we went as usual to that bomb-making site in Seke and made about twelve petrol bombs. My rural home was nearby, and after making the bombs, some of my colleagues said I should probably go and visit my rural home and rest a little bit since we had been performing “actions” every night. They offered to go with my car and perform the “actions” while I rested after making the petrol bombs. At first, I was worried that my colleagues could not perfectly do this job on their own but they assured me that they were going to be fine without me. Usually I was the one who performed the “hit-and-run” with my car and I was worried that my colleagues may not do it as well as I usually did. But they insisted that one of the boys called

Mabhachi could do it. I went along with their wishes and they made their way back to

Salisbury without me. On approaching Salisbury, however, they saw a police road-block ahead of them near Manyame River (At various points, the Rhodesian police mounted road-blocks in major highways order to search for weapons and other illegal material in cars coming into the cities). The petrol bombs were in the trunk of the car. One of the things that we had agreed from the beginning of our sabotage works was that if ever the police were discover any one of us in possession of a car with bombs, that person had to flatly deny owning that car. Our plan was that that person would claim to be a mechanic and say that he was just test-driving the car, and he does not know the owner of the car. If the police were to ask the owner of the car, he would also claim that he just left the car at a garage for repairs and that he has no idea how the bombs came to be in that car. So when these boys arrived at the road-block, the police discovered the petrol bombs in the trunk. The boys implemented that plan and claimed to be mechanics and that they just took the car from the garage to test-drive it. When the police asked them about the bombs in the trunks, they professed ignorance and denied any knowledge of the origin of the bombs. The police took them into custody. The following morning I made my way back to my home in Mbare, oblivious of whatever had transpired the previous night. When I got home, I asked my wife why my friends had not returned my car, and she just said she knew nothing and had not seen any of my friends. I felt my hair raising my friend, and I feared that those boys had been caught! I had no idea what was going to happen, in case they were in police custody. I did not know whether to go to work, or to our ZAPU offices. I just shuddered and did not know what to do. I later decided to go to Oliver

Bwanya’s workplace – one of my colleagues who were with my car – but his fellow workmates told me that he did not turn up for work that day. Late in the day, I met a friend who came to me and said he had seen my car parked at the police station. I stammered as I asked him if he knew anything about something in the trunk but he knew nothing. I just went back home and slept the whole afternoon. At around 16:15, top police officers from the CID section came to my home. I knew their names as Sam and

Magama, both Africans. They told me that they wanted to take me to the police station to answer some questions. I already knew the issue and so I went with them to the Main

Charge Office in Salisbury. I was put in a room and later some police officer whose name

I have forgotten but who had big and protruding teeth came into the room. He just came straight for me and punched me in the face with a fist.

MM: Was he white?

OMD: No, he was black. White officers were sitting somewhere watching. This is why we tell young men that when it comes to our former white oppressors, the only good whites are those who died. A white person would just be sitting somewhere, but he would send an African. Others joined in the beating until I asked why I they were continuously beating me. They then took me to some other officers so that I could make a statement.

They asked me where my car was, and I told them that I left it at a garage and that actually I was intending to go and check on it that day. They told me I was lying and asked me to explain the petrol bombs that were found in the car. I professed ignorance and maintained that I was nowhere near the car since I was home and the car was at the garage. They concluded that I was being difficult and they took me to a white police officer. I think his name was Scott. He spoke to me in a very nice way, unlike the African officers, but I continued denying everything. He then asked me if I knew a person called

Oliver Bwanya, and I told them that I only knew him as the mechanic at the garage where

I left my car. The police officers winked at each other and perhaps decided on some plan to make me confess. They put me in a very dark cell and as the door was slammed shut, I saw what I believed to be a huge snake coming towards me. I should say that before this happened, I had heard from some information from other police officers who were talking to themselves that Oliver Bwanya, my colleague, had been sentenced to death but had been released because he was underage. I also heard them saying that perhaps the owner of the car is the one who was going to be executed. When I was forced into that dark room, I thought to myself that since I was going to be executed, it was better for this snake to kill me. I went straight for what I thought was the neck of the snake and began struggling violently with it. I wriggled and struggled with this ‘snake’ on the floor and the

‘snake’ wound itself on my body. This continued until after some time when the police opened the door and that thing that I thought was a snake receded to wherever it had come from. I looked at the palms of my hands and all I could see was that all the skin was gone and there was just blood and flesh. As you can see, my hands have these nasty scars

(he shows me). I then later realized that what I thought was a snake was actually an electric cable made in the likeness of a snake. So all that time that I thought I was struggling with a snake, I was actually holding an electric cable which was electrocuting me. The police later placed me in a cell and I stayed there for two weeks with no treatment to my badly hurt hands. The police later transferred to the Salisbury Remand

Prison, and I spent two months there, again with no treatment. I just used to smear salt in my hands so that the wounds could dry up. The police told me that I was going to be sent into detention at Gonakudzingwa, but this was later changed and I was sent to Marondera

Prison where I spent nine months there. The prison was heavily fortified with three security fences and guarded by askaris. The living conditions there were very appalling.

Everyday at 1600 hrs, we were put into our barrack-cells with tins to use as toilets. The food there was very coarse and difficult to digest such that within four hours of eating the food, you began running to the tin seeking to relieve yourself. In most cases, the tin got full and excreta would overflow onto the floors. For this reason, we once staged a sit-in at the prison and complained that we were not convicted prisoners and yet we were being treated like bandits. During that sit-in, I was sitting in the front row of the protesting detainees and the response of the prison officers was nothing but to lash us with rubber- baton sticks. One of them hit me on the back and I became very angry and just rose up and hit that prison officer on the chin with my head. He fell to the ground and I started kicking him until he reached for his gun at his waist and shot in the air. The other officers stopped beating detainees, but some detainees had actually started attacking these officers and others and destroyed one of the fences surrounding the prison. That chief prison officer that I had fought with later called me to his office and asked me to consult with other detainees on the things that we were demanding. Apparently, this officer now feared for his job after having instigated this near prison chaos that had led to the destruction of prison property. So in order to mollify us, he acceded to our demands. My friend, we started eating rice, steak, and other nice foods for the coming nine months that

I was there. After nine months, I was given a 12 month Restriction Order to go to my rural area and given orders not to go beyond a radius of 12 miles. The police used to come to see whether I was still living there or not. After those 12 months, I applied for a job and was allowed to work. I got a job as an accountant at a company called William

Kenyon in Salisbury. After just two weeks on that job, the police picked me up and briefly detained me at Salisbury Remand Prison. After a few days, they took me to my rural home, and told me to collect all my belongings. I was subsequently bundled to

Gonakudzingwa Detention camp. This was now 1965. At Gonakudzingwa, we were involved in organizing for the escape of many detainees. By this time, the detention area was fenced and guarded, but on occasions, we were allowed to go out to look for firewood. We would walk to as far as a place called Villa Salazar, near the border with

Mozambique. It was near this area that we helped most young men to escape into

Mozambique. I think I managed to aid about 42 young men to escape detention. Most of the young men would cross into Mozambique, whilst others would end up in Botswana.

We did this because our leaders in detention at that time had resolved that guerrilla war was the only alternative to useless negotiations. We detainees were the first to plan the liberation war whilst we were in detention. In fact, the young men that we helped to escape formed some of the first people to go for military training. We told every visitor who came to see us that they should go and tell rural chiefs and elders that we were sending our youths out of the country to train for the liberation war. We had our bases in Zambia and other surrounding countries and we always knew all the information from our bases in countries such as Zambia even though we were in detention.

MM: How did you manage to establish those communication channels?

OMD: There was a Swift van that used to bring us food from Zambia that was donated to us by our people there. So we used to smuggle letters into this van when it was going out, and the people in Zambia did the same. We stuffed inside food items, and information was relayed both ways. We knew about plans to send people for military training to places like Romania, Yugoslavia, and other countries. We detainees organized the people that are called war veterans today. You cannot tell me that these young men just went our of the country and then ended up holding a gun. We were the ones who made that happen, right from jails and detention centers.

MM: Who else do you remember who was there at Gonakudzingwa when you arrived?

OMD: Our leader Joshua Nkomo was there, Josiah and , Joseph Msika,

John Nkomo, and others whom you do not know. The ones I mentioned are the prominent nationalist leaders that you know. Others included many of my students that I taught there in detention. I taught accounts to many detainees. I taught effectively because people outside sourced educational material from donors which we used effectively for our education in detention. I taught accounts from the elemental stage right up to the advanced stage. I taught even people who are now higher up in the current government. Many people with various educational diplomas today who passed through detention centers obtained those diplomas in detention.

MM: Tell me how you were living at Gonakudzingwa. I know that you lived in separate camps at Gonakudzingwa, and I want to know what criteria was used to separate detainees.

OMD: When we all arrived at Gonakudzingwa, we were placed in what was called Camp

3. After careful selection, those who were “hotheads” were placed in Camp 4, and then others were placed in other camps. Camp 2 was there for our meetings with visitors. But we used to co-ordinate, especially when it came to organizing for the escape of young men. If you know this Chenjerai Hunzvi (the late chairperson of ex-guerrillas), I am the one who arranged for his escape from Gonakudzingwa to go for guerrilla training.

(interruption)

MM: You were telling me about the environment of Gonakudzingwa…

OMD: Yes, at Gonakudzingwa we used to get raw food, which we later prepared ourselves. We organized ourselves into cooking groups and helped each other to prepare the food. MM: Okay, I remember from what I know that Gonakudzingwa was a place in the wilderness, and its environment was very harsh since it was unbearably hot and inhospitable. How did you survive in that environment?

OMD: Exactly, that place was very hot to the extent that you could easily add tea leaves to the tap water and drink hot tea! The water there had what we thought to be lime-soda because after bathing, your whole body became whitish. So you could have taken a bath but you ended up looking worse off. Gonakudzingwa had all sorts of wild animals such as lions, and we would hear the lions roaring. So if one thought of going out alone, most certainly lions were going to eat you. Perhaps the Smith regime put us there because there were lions in that area, which also acted as our “guards”. If the lions were going to eat us,

Smith would certainly be absolved and say maybe we were trying to escape.

MM: And what was your relationship with the detention guards?

OMD: Most of the guards were from the riot-control section of the police. These people were trained to strictly follow orders such that most of them were just aloof and only interested in following their orders. Of course, there were one or two guards who appreciated that we were detained for a noble cause.

MM: For the record, when did you come out of Gonakudzingwa?

OMD: In 1970. MM: Okay. So, how did you keep it touch with the outside world – did you have radios in Gonakudzingwa?

OMD: What happened is we had a person that we called kashiri (literally means “little bird”) who clandestinely listened to radios for news and other information. We smuggled most of the radios into Gonakudzingwa. Our visitors concealed most of these radios in various ways and passed them to us. So all the news that people outside listened to, we also listened to those news, even from stations such as the BBC. Not everyone listened – there were special people who listened to the radios and then later told us the important stuff. In our camp, Nkomo and Msika were the ones who listened to the radios.

MM: Okay. And was there some sort of political education in Gonakudzingwa?

OMD: Everyone who was detained in Gonakudzingwa was a political activist and so we were all capable of discussing African politics. What we used to do is we had political meetings where we discussed our political ideas and so forth. In our spare time, we did things like kuridza ngoma (drumming) and other activities.

MM: You can continue on that point and tell me how you spent your leisure time…

OMD: Some of us liked to play ngoma (the African drum) on Tuesdays and Fridays. We also played the mbira (Shona traditional musical instrument). I was one of the people who played the mbira. I went to see Vice President Joseph Msika this other day and he said to me “Dizha, are you still playing the mbira?” He still remembers how I used to play mbira in detention. There was no room for elaborate sporting activities such as playing soccer.

MM: Okay. I wanted to ask that when you came out of detention in 1970, were you ever re-detained/re-arrested again?

OMD: No, that was the last time I was ever detained. I got a job and started working.

MM: And, what was the impact of your incarceration on your family – I imagine that you were the breadwinner?

OMD: Yes I was. But we sought for some welfare funds to look after our families. My family used to receive food items and other things from welfare organizations that looked after families of detainees. But our families suffered all the same. If you notice one thing, children of ex-detainees are not that educated. We had no money to send our children to school. Our children just stayed at home without going to school. Even some of us, our education was interrupted, but now people who were never detained, who got educated when we were fighting this struggle, now want to get ahead of us.

MM: So what was the reason for your release in 1970? OMD: My detention order had expired. The order said five years and after those years elapsed, I regained my freedom.

MM: How was your life after imprisonment, considering that the Rhodesian economy was not doing well because of sanctions? Did you immediately find a job?

OMD: No, I never even bothered to look for a job at first. I went straight to my rural home because my family had been evicted from our Mbare Township home and were now staying at our rural home. I looked for a job in 1971 and worked for a white person who never knew that I was once a political detainee. He only knew about this after I had quit the job and opened my own firm in 1987, well after the end of colonial rule.

MM: So, unlike other ex-detainees, you never really found life after detention that hard?

I am asking this because there are other ex-detainees who told me that they failed to get jobs because no employer wanted to give a job to people involved in politics.

OMD: Perhaps some of the people you are talking about openly declared that they were in prison for political reasons and that is why they could not get jobs. As for me, I kept it a secret and never told my employer that I was once a political detainee.

MM: And did you continue being involved in political issues after 1970? OMD: I actually intensified my involvement in politics. ZAPU structures were still there even though the party had been banned. We used to call the party with the code name

Zee. I actually took up a post as a district official of the party. I later found another house in Mbare Township and moved back to my old neighborhood. Before that, I used to come to my Salisbury job cycling all the way from Seke.

MM: Okay. I have a couple of post-colonial questions. Firstly, what were your aspirations as an ex-detainee at independence in 1980?

OMD: Well, all we wanted to see was the liberation of everyone from colonial rule. But more importantly, I would argue that when nationalists went to negotiate for independence at Lancaster House in Britain, all they brought back was “one man, one vote”. They did not bring back our nyika (meaning land). Land remained in the hands of the white people. My aspiration was to take all the land for the benefit of the black majority, just as it is now as I am on this farm (Dizha is a beneficiary of the Mugabe regime’s controversial land reform program). The only sector remaining now is the industries.

MM: So in your own opinion, and with hindsight, how was your life affected by detention/imprisonment?

OMD: Well, my children never did any significant schooling. Also, my wife developed hypertension problems. My livelihood was destroyed and that eroded my previous lifestyle. Detention robbed us of our lives. I was a person who lived a self-sufficient life and always worked hard for everything I earned. My life was held back because of staying in prisons and detention. I do not regret it however, because now ndiri muvhu (I now own a piece of land). Everything else comes later, but ivhu (land) is number one.

MM: So considering the way in which government recently gave you life pensions as recognition for what you did during the struggle, do you feel that you have been adequately recognized by the government for your sacrifices?

OMD: Well, the government recently took the initiative and started giving us a small financial pension, although we are still negotiating because this money buys nothing and does not help a lot. But at least, the government now knows that were are there.

MM: Okay. I think I have exhausted my questions. Thank you very much.