Noah Pito Features Correspondent
It is a fact, historically, that the shooting down of an Air Rhodesia plane, Flight 825, by ZIPRA forces in what today is Hurungwe West, on September 3, 1978 and the same year another Salisbury-bound Vickers Viscount from Kariba destroyed over the Sengwe community marked a major change in the area. Freedom fighters also stormed the Lonrho-owned Shamrock Mine in the remote parts of Hurungwe North. Shamrock Mine is a stone’s throw away from the western banks of Angwa River.

The river marks the natural border between Hurungwe and Guruve.

At peak production Shamrock Mine was as big as Mhangura Mine with a 500-strong workforce up to the time it closed down.

It is almost four decades since Shamrock Mine was closed when the guerillas told the bosses to vacate, yet the infrastructure is still intact.

The former copper mine has been operating as a safari area.

The roads are still intact with the tarred driveways looking even much stronger than some of Zimbabwe’s highways.

Mr Tinos Handiseni of Chikova area under Chief Kazangarare worked at the mine since it opened in 1970.

He was an employee when it closed at the end of September of 1978 and vividly remembers the chilling nocturnal visit by the guerrilas that brought the flight of the white bosses in less than 24 hours.

“Just some few days before the guerillas came to the mine to deliver the marching orders, we had witnessed another hair-raising experience in which a lone man had arrived at the mine running on bare feet and gasping for breath.

“The white man, who had no shirt and appeared terrified, was later whisked to the bosses’ houses but we knew something had gone wrong.

“We later discovered that the man was a driver of a Road Motor Services (RMS) truck that had been blown up by a land- mine planted by the guerillas.

“The RMS vehicle was delivering food rations to the mine when it was blown up at Nhiti, about 12km from Shamrock,” Mr Handiseni said.

He said many wondered how the man had survived the attack which had reduced the truck to a wreckage.

“In fact, during that time the guerillas had set their base at Nhiti and had banned all vehicles connected to the white regime from using that road.

“Even United Bus Company (now ZUPCO) had been banned and the only bus company allowed to ply this route was Matambanadzo (Imbwa yaKachuta) Bus Company owned by a black person.

“So after the attack, the man who travelled 12km on foot, the guerillas paid our bosses a nocturnal visit around 8pm.

“Some of the mine workers were underground on night shift while others were drinking in the mine bars.

“The freedom fighters, who numbered more than five, cut all telephone wires to the main telephone room switchboard.”

Mr Handiseni recalls the guerillas visiting the bar at the mine and later compound leaving messages for the bosses to leave the mine.

“This was followed by the deafening cracking of guns everywhere. They randomly shot into the air and everyone ran helter-skelter for dear life.

“They never harmed anyone. Even the white surbubs were spared for the guerillas were in good books with the mine boss called Kangelapezulu.”

Mr Handiseni said Kangelapezulu and his colleagues made arrangements for a quick evacuation.

“By noon the next day all the whites had left leaving and we were stranded. There was an aerodrome and some of the bosses were airlifted while some escaped by road,” he said.

Kangelapezulu, according to Mr Handiseni, had come from Zambia’s Copperbelt to manage Shamrock Mine in 1970, and he respected guerillas.

Most whites from Zambia understood the basis of the Zimbabwean struggle.

“Kangelapezulu sometimes sent us to Nhiti to deliver overalls and food rations to the guerillas. At times he even used his Land Rover vehicle to deliver the supplies.

“It was for this reason that the guerillas only ordered him and his team to walk away without harming them.”

Chikova village head Mr Luke Zvinyenye said workers were given an option to join other mines in the country.

Mr Zinyenye lived at the mine with his brother who was a cook for the bosses.

“The workers were given the option of either going to Muriel, Shamva, Arcturus or How Mine. Some accepted the offer while some chose to go back to their rural homes,” he said.

The majority who came from surrounding areas like Chikova, Dete and Kapiri chose to go back to their rural homes.

The workers were afraid of staying at the mine after it closed and they abandoned everything in haste.

“A supermarket full of groceries, butcheries with meat, canteens and bars full of liquor, a clinic with all the medicines and the mine storeroom were left intact as workers left” Mr Zinyenye said.

He, however, added that people started vandalising property at the mine around 1983 when the war was over.

“It was in 1983 that local white farmers Brown Brian Mackay and Jim Barker started having a field day on the mine equipment.

“They deployed their guards there under the guise of protecting the property but in the process looting the equipment.”

He said the white farmers looted materials that included window frames, doors, roofing sheets, generators, water pumps, engines, pipes and wheelbarrows.

“They used the building equipment to construct houses for their workers and other materials in their farm operations,” Mr Zvinyenye said.

However, Hurungwe Rural District chief executive Mr Joram Moyo thought the place could be resuscitated.

“We still hope investors will be forth- coming one day and bring life to this mine that has the potential to create many jobs for our people,” he said.

Hurungwe North MP Reuben Marumahoko said Shamrock Mine was still critical for the development of his constituency.

“We have had some visits by some Chinese investors who have shown keen interest in resuscitating operations at the mining venture.

“Some have cited problems of dewatering the shafts but we hope something good for the people of Hurungwe is in the pipeline since the mine closed down at the time it was producing high copper-content ore unlike the case of Mhangura Copper Mine,” he said.

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