The Sunday Mail
THE Second Chimurenga had two main antagonists, the black nationalist movement fighting white colonial supremacy. However, caught in that web were black nationals serving white Rhodesian interests, collaborating white efforts to suppress the black majority through acts of commission or omission. Whereas zanla represented Zanu militarily, zipra stood for PF-Zapu, the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) fought on behalf of the Rhodesian Front, Ian Smith’s party. In this first part of a two-part instalment, cousins Samuel Shereni and Stephen Mugwagwa speak to GARIKAI MAZARA on why and how they joined the RAR to fight their kith and kin.
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Q: Maybe if you give us some background?
A: My name is Samuel Shereni, though our actual surname is Watambwa. It is just that our father was raised by his maternal relatives, hence he used their surname, otherwise we are originally Watambwas.
I was born on September 12, 1958 in Manyene, Chivhu and spent about two years there. My father was always working on farms as a tractor driver and he moved from farm to farm.
My mother is from around here (Gavhunga area of Mhondoro) and when we wanted to go to a rural area, we would come to our mother’s village. Growing up, I always wanted to be either a policeman or soldier.
Even at school, when we were asked “what do you want to do when you grow up”, my answer was always ready: “when I grow up I want to be a policeman or soldier”.
So in this area, soldiers would come frequently for training, especially in the farms and this only heightened my interest in becoming one. During one of their training sessions, I saw one soldier who was way slimmer than me and mentally I challenged myself that if this one could become a soldier, then I could also be one.
In 1978 we came for Christmas holidays, I was working for Lobels Bakery in Harare.
I met my cousin, Stephen Mugwagwa, who was working as a soldier and I asked him what I could do to join the army. After some discussions we rode back to Inkomo Barracks where he was stationed and I made my application to join the army.
They took down my details and said they were going to get in touch in due course.
I came back to finish the Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays. Just after New Year, I was called to Inkomo Barracks.
We were trained for six months and as we were about to finish the training, I was chosen among a group of 23 to go to Mbalabala Barracks to be an instructor. I was an instructor for about one-and-half years then I asked to be moved.
To me being an instructor was as good as being a recruit because when the recruits woke up at 3am, you were the one to wake them up.
All the drills that the recruits did, you also did. To me this was tiring and I wanted something different.
So I was transferred to 2RAR, that is the Rhodesian African Rifles, in Masvingo and I stayed there for some time. In fact, even when I was integrated into the national army after independence, I stayed in Masvingo.
Q: So which areas did you operate in during those days?
A: I operated mainly in Masvingo province, the whole of it, part of Mhondoro and part of Matabeleland. My platoon commander was Mudzingwa, he was one of the first Africans to be an officer.
During integration, I remember freedom fighters were more friendly to us, the black RARs than the white ones.
Q: Let us rewind a bit, when you said growing up, you always wanted to be a soldier, didn’t this worry you, that you were becoming a Rhodesian soldier, to fight your own brothers and sisters?
A: Not a bit. This was always my wish so it was never heavy on me. Plus, my aim was not to fight anyone, but just to join the army.
I was fulfilling my dreams, that of becoming a soldier, not that I was worried about fighting anyone. My dream was just to become a soldier.
Q: Understood. But why not join the liberation struggle on the other side, say that of Zanla or Zipra, as some boys and girls your age were doing at that time?
A: In our area, here in Mhondoro, there are very few who might have gone to join the liberation struggle on the zanla or zipra ticket because we never saw much of the war.
The war only got here when it was about to end, we only heard about war in Centenary or Mt Darwin. Otherwise, truly speaking, many of my age never saw freedom fighters during that time.
Probably the closest they did was to hear that freedom fighters had passed through a certain place. So it was difficult to join the liberation struggle.
Who would you approach and that time it was dangerous to approach anybody.
What if you approached the wrong person?
So in my mind, I wanted to become a soldier, whichever way. I remember once, we stayed at a farm and there was this white man called Makomo.
We had a disagreement once and I stormed off, in fact, I quit work there and then.
He came to my father and warned him to be wary of me, as he thought I was politically charged.
Q: Looking back now, does it not look like you sold out? Black man fighting another black man for their own country?
A: It might look like that, but that is a choice of life. Like now we are always discussing about our children, some who are losing their lives in collapsing mine shafts as they engage in gold panning.
That is a choice of life, because there are some children who chose not to go there, who are concentrating on their books. So the choices that we make differ.
Moreover, the person who inspired me is the one I grew up with and seeing him in a camouflage hardened me, made me want to join the army.
Remember growing up, we would fight as boys herding cattle. So imagine seeing the person I used to beat in those fights being a soldier, this gave me the inspiration to join the Rhodesian army.
Q: You touched on integration, how was your relationship with the freedom fighters during this time?
A: I can’t speak for others, but personally I never had any problems. I was at Tandahwe assembly point and on three occasions we were called back after the group that had replaced us had clashes with freedom fighters.
The other group had a white leader and the freedom fighters said they wanted our group back as they had become used to us.
We had to be called back from our off days to go to assembly point.
Q: Did you have any contacts during your deployment with the RAR?
A: Yes, we had a number of contacts.
Just after training, our first contact came soon after Chibi turn-off, while we were going to Chibi office.
It was a new thing to us, just after we had trained.
We were in a Puma truck and one of my friends, Lovemore Murogori, was injured in that attack.
We didn’t fire back and received reinforcements from Chibi office.
Then came the Berejena contact and another one in Boli, that’s in Chiredzi.
The Berejena one was not a contact as such, but it was an attack.
They came and fired bombs and two of our soldiers were killed.
I remember one of them was Zenzo Sibanda.
We took the dead ones away and they were buried.
Then the Boli one, we lost Corporal Shereni, not that we were related, he was just a namesake.
Q: What happened to those who were killed at the front? Did you bury them there and then or?
A: Like those who were killed at Berejena, the attack was towards sunset so we guarded their bodies overnight and the following morning a helicopter came from Masvingo.
They were then taken to be buried in their respective rural areas.
We didn’t leave soldiers lying unburied, they were buried with full burial rituals at their homes.
Q: Probably make us understand, how did you relate within your rank and file, did you discuss that you wanted to kill these “terrorists”? How did you feel as black Rhodesian soldiers fighting the guerrillas, those who were fighting to liberate your country?
A: During war, there are two things: either you kill or you are killed.
Even if you have a good heart, your enemy might kill you all the same.
When in a battle, it is usually one-on-one.
Even if you do good, it might be for or against you.
It is like when you get a job, you don’t get there and change the rules.
If they have meals at a set time, you follow those times.
There were times when we did patrols, some soldiers were in the habit of wantonly beating villagers, but personally I felt that was wrong.
These hands are clean; they never did anything wrong.
Q: Let us talk about the cause, that guerrillas were fighting to liberate this country and you were fighting them?
A: That is true, but we were working.
I had two motivational centres: one, to work and earn money and second, to be a soldier.
Remember that it was always my dream to be a soldier.
What I really wanted to be was a policeman, but when I went to the station to look for employment, the policeman who attended to me asked me why I wanted to join the police, what with all the war that was going on in the country. I knew about the war, but my concern was being either a policeman or soldier, and not about the war cause.
Q: Independence in 1980, what did it mean to you?
A: I was happy for sure. Yes, I was in the war on the other side, but I never had intentions of killing my countrymen. That is why we made easy friendships with the freedom fighters during ceasefire . . .
Q: They didn’t take you for sellouts?
A: No, they didn’t. Even back here it was known that I was with the Rhodesian army and there was no harm that came to my family.
Freedom fighters came here and they never did anything to my family. My parents lived a normal life.
Even during the war, I used to come for my off-days here and spend time with my family.
Back then we used Kadhani buses and I would board them, come here and be with family, say for two weeks’ leave and then go back.
But like I said, the war did not get as intense here as it was elsewhere. If I am not mistaken, my parents said they only saw freedom fighters once, they were passing through and needed something to eat.
As it was late at night they were given mahewu and they went.
In the next instalment, we talk to Stephen Mugwagwa, the cousin who motivated Samuel Shereni to join the Rhodesian African Rifles. He delves into the Morrison Nyathi character, “as we stayed with him at Inkomo Barracks for several months when they plotted the Nyadzonia attack”. He gets a bit deeper . . . that the Nyathi who was killed at independence might not be the real one. Don’t miss . . .
