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THEY COME FROM THERE . . . Village head Zondai David Chemwanyisa points in the direction of the Mozambique border with Zimbabwe from where rebels entered the village

Tichaona Zindoga Features Writer
THOSE that romanticise about pre-colonial African history, which was characterised by idyllic seamlessness among peoples in terms of geography and cultures, often mention with regret the advent of colonial borders.
Colonial borders divided African peoples and made artificial boundaries, the nostalgic point out, and for the most part, interactions between peoples immediately across national borders have continued nevertheless.

However, people on the Zimbabwean side of the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, which runs some 800 kilometres from the south to the north, are no longer at ease.

The news of a rebellion in Mozambique by the Renamo rebels, which began two months ago, has meant that the people along the border from Chipinge on the southeast in the Manicaland to Mudzi in Mashonaland East and Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central, are living on the edge.

The porous nature of the border and the free movement across now presents a grave danger as Renamo rebels have little barrier to march into Zimbabwe to kill, loot, rape and torture.

Renamo rebels, also known as “vanaMatsangaise”, wreaked havoc along the border from 1979 when the rebel movement was formed and sponsored by the Smith regime and apartheid South Africa to destabilise Mozambique until 1992 when they signed a peace treaty with their government.

They killed, maimed and looted in a campaign of terror that is still fresh in the minds of the people.
Seventy-eight-year-old Richard Muyambo of Village 8A, Himalaya Estate in Chimanimani district of Manicaland, lost his wife and a young child to Renamo rebels in 1987 and he was himself lucky to escape death by a whisker.

“The news of the new insurrection greatly disturbs me because I lost my second wife and her child in that war,” he told The Herald.
The child, whom he said was called Maemu, was just six months old.

After spending the day in the fields with his polygamous family, he had never imagined the worst, although the rebels were ravaging the villages from just across the border – less than 10 kilometres away.

“We had had a long day and when we came home I instructed the women to cook the evening meal together and as they were cooking sadza suddenly eight soldiers, seven of them armed with guns, came,” he recalled.

“They tied our hands. They made me taste the beer that they saw in the house because they always feared we could poison them. They ate the sadza and chicken that my wives had prepared. We did not eat that night.

Valuables
“After that, they took away all the valuables in the house in terms of food and clothes and used us as porters. We carried the loot with our hands tied. My junior wife had the child strapped to her back,” he recalled.

Along with other villagers, they were force- marched to a base called Bonde.
The rebels had to cover their tracks, and they did it in the most horrific fashion.
“After we arrived, one of us, Rukandire, heard the rebels speaking in Portuguese that we had to be killed,” recalls the wizened one.
“When he tried to protest he was shot and killed. Thereafter, the rebel leaders at the base ordered that we be driven away from the base and killed.

“Six people were killed, including my wife and child. I don’t know how I managed it but I ran into a nearby river and escaped,” he says.
“I should not have lived: my ancestors protected me.”
It would not be the end of the story.

The rebels came back after two weeks and looted the village again until the military came to the rescue of the village and secured the border.
“We do not want those days to return,” mourns Muyambo.

This is the prayer that also emanates from the lips of another villager, Livingstone Matanda (40), who recalls the dark days when villagers would sleep in the bush, condemned to the mercy of the elements, as their homes became dangerous at night when the rebels raided at night.

Their property was at the mercy of the marauding visitors.
He counts himself lucky he survived the period, what with the incident one day when a landmine was planted in his field by the retreating Renamo rebels when they had come under attack from Zimbabwean soldiers.

“The rain came that night and washed out the rebels’ tracks and in the morning we were surprised when a cow was blown up by a landmine. That could well have been me,” he said.

The head of villages 8A-9A, Zondai David Chemwanyisa, who recalls the brutal slaughter of 13 people at Hamch Farm, fears for his subjects.
The peace of the Himalaya, its natural beauty and its irrigated agricultural economy is at stake.

The people live anxiously and uneasily fearing the fateful day when Renamo will make its deadly export of war and carnage.
In Chief Chikukwa’s area in Chimani- mani, where Renamo rebels also unleashed terror, Chief Chadworth Ringisai Chikukwa believes Zimbabwe’s security services will be up to the task.

Sawmill
His homestead is just 10km from the border, and has five village heads on the Mozambican side that are under his jurisdiction.
“There has been talk of war on the Mozambican side, we don’t want that and we hope soldiers will be deployed at the earliest sign of trouble,” he said.

War will disrupt progress on the Zimbabwean side, he said of the area whose backbone is timber production – the traditional leader owns a small sawmill – and agriculture has been thriving.

In Chipinge, in areas like Mutsvangwa, Rusitu, Ndima, Paidamoyo, Tamandai, Mapungwana, Gwenzi, Muzite, Musikavanhu and Mahene villagers are also fretting over Renamo.

One man, Sani Bumhira, the district vice chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, who was an army corporal during the erstwhile insurrection, believes the Renamo threat is real – and must be nipped in the bud.

“This is presents a grave danger because the rebels kill and maim people. It is a threat and the rebellion will disturb the economic interests of Zimbabwe,” he said.

“We don’t welcome the development and Sadc should step up and intervene. We also fear it is a strategy to destabilise Zimbabwe and its diamond interests by some countries that have been supporting Renamo.

“We know that these rebels were being funded by such countries as the United States of America and America has lately been hostile to Zimbabwe,” he explained.

He said diamonds are Zimbabwe’s lifeline and instability must not be allowed to creep into the area.

Diamonds
It is feared that bloodshed between Zimbabwe and the Renamo rebels in Manicaland province, home to a reported quarter of the world’s diamond reserves, could lead to the suspension of Zimbabwe’s gems on the international market.

Diamonds mined in conflict areas are classified as “blood diamonds”, which stakeholders do not welcome on the legitimate market.
Bumhira, a veteran of many an engagement with Renamo, recalls some disturbing scenes from the war.

He believes Renamo must be halted.
Government is, however, on the lookout.
Recently, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi revealed that security services were training an eye on the skirmishes in Mozambique.

“As the disturbances occur,” he said, “we are likely to see an influx of refugees here, an influx of undesired elements into our country and it is my belief and trust that we will take care of that.”

No official engagements with, or sighting of Renamo rebels or refugees have been recorded as yet.
But, according to Bumhira, the rebels can be anywhere and anyone given the porous nature of the border and the social relations around the border, which have even seen some people having homes on both sides of the frontier.

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