The Sunday Mail
Last week, Cde JOHN DZINORUMA MUBAKO (JDM) recounted an ugly incident when he was shot and had to be ferried to Mozambique to receive treatment. In this final instalment, he chronicles to our Political Editor KUDA BWITITI the final days of the war before Zimbabwe’s Independence and the joys of attaining freedom in 1980.
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KB : Cde Mubako, tell us about how you managed to receive treatment in Mozambique.
JDM : After my near-death experience during the Battle of Dare, I was able to receive very good treatment in Mozambique that saved my life. Remember, I had lost a lot of blood, so it took me several weeks to recuperate.
The doctors that attended to me did a very good job and I was able to gain full fitness after some weeks. However, due to the fact that the injury was on my right hand, which holds the gun, I could not return to the war to fight.
Cde Mubako during the armed struggle
While receiving treatment in Mozambique, we used to stay at a base called Mashaba, which was a disused camp. Many comrades who were at that camp had also been injured during the war and were undergoing treatment.
To this day, I still carry that injury from the war and my right hand does not function normally.
KB : Given that while you were in Mozambique, the war was still raging back home, what activities were you engaged in, and did you not fear an enemy attack on the base?
JDM : In Mozambique, I continued to engage in political education, teaching new recruits and other comrades. We were stationed in Maputo, which was safer than other areas in terms of attacks from the enemy.
KB : Tell us about some of the incidents that happened during the war while you were recuperating in Maputo.
JDM : The major episode that occurred while I was in Maputo was the death of General Josiah Magama Tongogara.
Our General died on December 26, 1979.
This is a tragedy that still pains me to this day. I had known General Tongogara from the time I was at UNZA (University of Zambia), when he used to come to give us lectures.
This was one of the saddest incidents of the war — to lose such a towering figure of the struggle just before we were about to attain Independence.
As we were in Maputo, we cried a lot as we mourned General Tongo.
Imagine knowing that such a revered commander was not killed during fighting.
He had survived assassinations and live bullets, only to be killed in a car accident.
It was really a bitter pill to swallow.
What made his death even more painful was that it happened just as the war was about to end.
KB : How did you come back from Mozambique?
JDM : After Cde Tongo died, it did not take long for the war to end.
We then came back from Mozambique.
I was part of the team that came with Cde Mugabe, as we made it to the Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield for that historic welcoming rally in the lead-up to Independence.
I was in one of the helicopters that provided security to Cde Mugabe for that historic rally.
We were then paraded to the masses.
What many people do not know is that there was an incident that almost spoiled our Independence.
KB : Please tell us about this episode.
JDM : Just a month or two before Independence Day, General Peter Walls, who was the commander of the Rhodesia Defence Forces, attempted a coup to disturb everything.
He wrote a letter to the then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher telling her of his wish to stage a coup to prevent ZANU PF and our leader, Cde Mugabe, from coming to power.
However, we were later told that this did not work because even Margaret Thatcher herself told Peter Walls to back off.
KB: After Independence, what work were you involved in?
JDM : I was deployed to provide security to nationalist Cde Simon Mazorodze, who was one of the candidates to be a Member of Parliament in 1980.
We campaigned in Mwenezi, and this was the area where I had operated in during the war.
So it was a feel-good feeling to be deployed to an area where I had operated.
Since Peter Walls wanted to engineer a coup, my plan was to return to the same area to fight, if Peter Walls had gone ahead with that. I had the willpower to fight even though I had been injured.
From 1981, I also worked in Chivhu and Gweru, before I was enrolled in the lower structures of Government. I was trained to be a local government employee.
We used to provide training to councillors to enhance their skills when they started work.
This was guided by the District Councils Act.
