The Sunday Mail
written by Tjenesani Ntungakwa
Until the emergence of ZANU and ZAPU in the early ’60s, Zimbabwe’s nationalist politics had travelled a long way from the time of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress. The efforts towards decolonisation inevitably got involved with organisations as well as personalities.
To this day, there are some whose names have been forgotten in the scattered historical accounts of Zimbabwe’s struggle.
Before 1963, there were some other nationalist organisations that did enjoy a short shelf-life in Rhodesia.
One was the Zimbabwe National Party, led by Patrick Matimba. It started as a rival to the National Democratic Party, which became prominent from around January 1960.
Another contesting outfit was the Pan-African Movement led by Paul Mushonga.
The formation of ZANU in August 1963 resulted in some commotion across the country, changing the terrain of the struggle’s duels against British colonial rule.
By 1962, ZAPU had made every effort to ensure that its organisational effectiveness was felt in the British settler colony of Rhodesia.
Considering that ZAPU had been the third organisation to emerge after the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress, which originated in the mid-fifties, it had attained the ideological prerequisite of resorting to armed struggle as a means of entrenching majority rule in Southern Rhodesia.
After the split, some became attached to ZAPU and some went with ZANU.
An interesting spotlight was the countryside around Chikore, Chipinge and Mt Selinda Mission.
Among the youthful crop that remained in ZAPU after the formation of ZANU were the likes of Arthur Jonah Chadzingwa. Chadzingwa was brought up in the Railway Compound in the Eastern border town then called Umtali.
The Railways workers’ facilities had for long been associated with the name Joshua Nkomo.
Nkomo had been engaged as a social worker in the Railways welfare system.
And the colonisers seemed to have learnt a lesson from the general strike of 1948.
The protest paralysed movement of trains and almost rendered Rhodesia ungovernable.
Thus, the post-1948 scenario saw the establishment of the Railway Welfare Association. It was in that background that some energetic trade union activists became the critical mass aligned to ZAPU before and after 1963.
The contradictions of the day were such that the whites had come up with their own artisans’ grouping in Rhodesia’s rail sector.
They subscribed strongly to the concept of “Job Reservations for Europeans” and entertained some amicable gestures towards the Rhodesian Dominion Party.
As it turned out, the Dominion mindset was the forerunner to the rightwing Rhodesia Front which won the 1962 elections and subsequently made the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.
The Dominion Party had been formed in February 1956.
It gained some cumulative ground in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Some of its figureheads were RO Stockill and MFG Van Eeden.
Inevitably, the mainly African membership of the Welfare Association became a foundation of ZAPU’s following in the province of Manicaland.
Among the notable unionists at the Railways who were linked to ZAPU was Dick Gezana.
Gezana had joined the Railways after the end of the First World War in 1919.
Having studied as far as what was generally referred to then, as “Junior Certificate”, he was considered to be a “well-educated African”.
People like Gezana, Moses Mvenge and Arthur Ndoro were part of the group that attended the early NDP gatherings in Sakubva when Michael Mawema was its president.
Even though Mark Nziramasanga came from Zvimba, he was a leading member of the NDP branch in Sakubva.
One of the teachers at Chikore Mission was Oscar Mashengele.
According to Chadzingwa, Mashengele came from Bulawayo and seemed to have been constantly in touch with the South African ANC guerillas who passed through Mozambique into the surroundings of Chikore.
Mashengele became a ZAPU youth chairman after the emergence of ZANU. He worked with some elders like Tennyson Murire, Marshal Mlambo and Fred Sithole, the last ZANU Ndonga MP after Zimbabwe’s attainment of self-rule.
The aftermath of the split was such that ZAPU maintained some influence in Chikore and ZANU made inroads into the locality of Mt Selinda.
Individuals like Arthur Maramba went over to ZANU and made some attempts to penetrate Chikore, which remained a ZAPU fortress.
Chadzingwa explained that Maramba was one of the ZANU fighters that fell in the Sinoia battle at the end of April 1966.
Chipinge also became an area of ZAPU activism.
Before the split, some in the ZAPU leadership like Leopold Takawira had on several occasions advised their supporters in Chipinge not to lie idle especially after the ban of September 1962.
Takawaira, who was also known as “the Lion of Chilimanzi” became the first Vice-President of ZANU.
In vying for territory, violence erupted and pitted ZANU and ZAPU followers against each other.
Consequently, the young black nationalists were not immune to the heavy atmosphere of 1963.
To be continued next week. . .
Tjenesani Ntungakwa is Project Advisor of the Revolutionary Research Institute of Zimbabwe, an initiative involved with documenting and disseminating the contributions made by PF-ZAPU and its military wing, ZPRA, to Zimbabwe’s liberation
