The Sunday Mail
CDE Pepukai, born Nyembesi Judith Tsodzo, left school in Rushinga in 1974 to join the liberation struggle. She was 15 years old and had just completed her Grade 7. Three years later, on November 23, 1977, she — and thousands others at Chimoio — came under the callous attack in what the Rhodesians called Operation Dingo. As this was her first time to see a parachute, she stood mesmerised by the falling object, momentarily forgetting she was under attack. But she survived that attack, which claimed thousands of innocent lives, to narrate her ordeal in this final episode of her conversation with GARIKAI MAZARA.
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Q: Would you have any encounters that are still fresh in your memory, from the years that you spent at the front?
A: Oh, Chimoio. I never mentioned Chimoio in our discussion? Let me show you the wounds that I got during the Chimoio attack, some of them are in places that I am not comfortable showing you. I nearly lost this right arm. Here on the legs, these are all wounds from that attack.
Q: Tell us about Chimoio, what happened?
A: Remember, I said we believed in traditional spirits?
Q: But before we get to Chimoio, probably if you help us understand how you got from Tembue to Chimoio?
A: Transfers were very common. Remember, we had Tembue, Doroi, Chimoio, Nyadzonia, (and) Chibawawa. These were all in Mozambique, not to mention Chifombo in Zambia. Chibawawa and Doroi were refugee camps; Tembue was a training camp, we used to call it “chikoro chedu chehondo”; Nyadzonia was a refugee camp; and Chimoio was mixed, training and refugee camp.
Q: OK, let’s talk about Chimoio.
A: The previous night, a young boy had been possessed. We believed so much in spirit mediums for we had spirit mediums like Sekuru Chipfeni and Chidyamauyu, who were consulted from time to time. The boy said people should move from the camp to behind some hill near the camp. So he was dismissed, as there had been so many similar “prophecies” and people were saying, ‘We are tired of these prophecies, instead tell us when the country is going to be free rather than telling us about these attacks.’
Q: This boy, was he known as a spirit medium, or rather a known spirit medium?
A: No, he was just an ordinary boy. Then the spirit went on, ‘You have refused but the body in which my spirit is speaking through, I am taking it away from here.’ That boy, the following day when the attack happened, was away from the camp.
There were many bases at Chimoio: Headquarters, Chitepo, Chaminuka, Nehanda, Parirenyatwa, Takawira 1 and 2, National Armoury, National Stores. I think there must have been 11 bases and people used to stay in thousands, not hundreds, in each of these bases. Chimoio was a farm that had been donated to ZANU by Frelimo, and by the time of the attack, it was almost like a town.
But when this boy’s spirit spoke, and if he had been listened to, maybe the injuries would have been minimised. Not that the attack was not going to happen, but we could have contained the numbers of the injured or dead.
Q: Do you know the name of this boy, who was he?
A: I don’t know him because he came from Takawira 2 and he wasn’t a common person, and I was at Parirenyatwa. It had been almost a year since I got to Parirenyatwa.
Q: What were you at Parirenyatwa?
A: I was a medic. So the boy was harassed and told not to lie to comrades. So he left the camp and went to Chimoio town, some 30 or so kilometres away. And in the morning, the planes came and they were in groups. Chimoio was bombed left, right and centre within minutes. Stores and national armoury, they are the only two that were not attacked, maybe because they belonged to Mbuya Nehanda, but all the other bases were attacked.
It was a day-and-night attack. My colleague, Cde Shingi, she came from Chiswiti and I am not sure if she is still alive, she called out to me and said, “Cde Pepukai, we are under attack”. I answered her casually, “Iwe attack yei; hondo inoiziva here iwe?” And just as I was saying that, the Mirage planes — I think that is what they were called because they would bomb, spin and disappear within minutes — were bombing Chitepo and were now bombing Parirenyatwa.
Parirenyatwa was near a small river, and Cde Shingi and myself ran towards that river but we made a mistake because as we sought cover, little did we know that in their planning, they knew we would run there, so they were also bombing along the banks of the river. And I don’t know how we lost each other with Cde Shingi but she didn’t die in that attack, as I met her at Manyenye Assembly Point later on.
What I remember were our last words to each other: she called out to me to look into the sky and there was this falling object. We stood there looking at it and we hadn’t seen a parachute in our lives; we just stood there mesmerised. The attack was in November, so as they were bombing the camp, they were also dropping paratroopers. The ground force would burn the grass and follow after the fire.
So we were forced to go back to the river where we had retreated from and I hid under a rock — that was the nearest thing I could get to. Then came a mercenary, covered with hair all over, am not sure where Ian Smith got those people from. He was so huge and was holding his FN rifle. He came walking towards me and I assumed he had seen me and was coming to finish me off. I said my last prayers, called out my parents’ names, telling them I had finally died at Chimoio.
The previous day, as fate would have it, I had a discussion with my uncle, Ezikiel Tsodzo, who lies buried at Mapinga after his wife refused to have him buried at the National Heroes Acre, and we had told each other that if either of us is to die during the war, the surviving one will say I lost the other at Chimoio. For some reason, I didn’t scream because if I had, that mercenary was going to kill me.
About five metres away from me, he called out to his colleague, I cannot remember if it was John or Jimmy that he called. Then he came and stepped on top of the rock I was lying under and he started urinating. Up to now I don’t know how he failed to see me. Probably my spirits didn’t want me to die during the war. After passing water, he and his colleague started walking away.
I remained under that rock until it was dark. My hand was swollen and numb. Imagine all those hours under a rock. Ants had a field day on my wounds. I tore my skirt and dressed the wounds. I started walking towards the nearby Mudzingadzi River and I think because of the gun powder, my mind was semi-conscious. When I got to the river, I mistook a water pool there for a rock and decided to take a rest on the rock. And I almost drowned in that pool. When I pulled myself out, I eventually slept by the side of the pool, too tired to walk any further.
The following morning, little did I know that I was still within the war zone, within the attack radius. As the sun was rising, the second wave of attack was coming and I just said to myself I will keep on walking. I acted as if I was looking for firewood. Luckily for me, the rescue operations had started arriving from Chimoio town and an ambulance stopped for me and took me to hospital.
But my wounds were so severe I had to be transferred to Makuti Hospital in Beira, where I spent about two months.
Q: How were you injured?
A: I don’t even know but by the time I got under the rock I was already injured. I was later told that I had initially been listed as “dead” during the attack. At Makuti Hospital I met several others who had been injured. After I was discharged, I fully recovered at Chibawawa refugee camp.
Q: Geographically, where is Chibawawa?
A: It is in Manica, just before Chimoio if you are coming from Forbes border. Then came the announcement that Zimbabwe was now being ruled by a black man, the days of Abel Muzorewa. So one day planes came to drop propaganda leaflets, that we should abandon the struggle and come back home.
I think if it was a race, I should have won by a margin and half, because as soon as I heard the plane engines, I started to run — the memories from Chimoio were still fresh. I think by that time, I could hear planes when they were still by the border. For a week, they would send messages that I should come back, that it was not an attack.
Q: Where had you gone now, where had you run to?
A: Makanja, among the villagers. It is along the Beira road. Mind you we had been trained to mix with ordinary people and it was very easy for me to assimilate into village life. I showed them my wounds and told them I had been injured in the Chimoio attack and they equally shared their stories from their conflict with the Portuguese. Many messages were sent for me to go back to Chibawawa. I was part of the administration (logistics) at the refugee camp because I had trained. Only trained people ran the administration.
Q: So you deserted the war?
A: Who didn’t desert the war? That was all part of the war strategy: In surprise attacks you would hit and retreat; you didn’t wait for the enemy to hit back at you. Our friends, the Rhodesians, had enough resources and if you attacked them, and they called in their reinforcements, they would drop a rope into the enemy zone, our zone, and ask you to take the rope. It was a question of life and death, and if you took that rope, it was not because you would have sold out, but you will be looking at the options available to you.
Q: Back at Chibawawa?
A: Yes, they had to send in people to collect me back to Chibawawa because I was now needed at Chimoio. Our camp commander at Chimoio, Cde Bethune, was a very good commander. Anyway, I could not refuse an order that had been sent by my camp commander. I was at the detachment level and he was a member of the general staff.
That was now in 1978 and I was chosen into a group that was to deliver supplies to the front, Gaza Province. Then at the last minute that decision was reversed because Gaza Province had so many challenges, especially for us female combatants. The weather was hostile and the journey also included navigating the Gonarezhou game reserve. So we would take the supplies to a certain base and the male combatants would take over.
Q: And when ceasefire came, where were you?
A: When it was announced, I was now back at Chibawawa. The place was now packed to the rafters with refugees and when the ceasefire was announced, most of those who boarded the first buses back to Zimbabwe were the refugees – those who had not yet been trained. Most of them could not be trained because the influx was too much and the resources had been stretched. As for us the trained, we had so many questions, especially around our security and welfare. The first batch of our comrades went to Toronga base and some to Manyenye, Dendera in Murehwa, Rushinga, another one in Guruve. There were so many assembly points dotted around the country.
In the next instalment, we talk to Cde Rex Bongozozo, husband to Cde Pepukai. Did they meet at the front? How is life like for two soldiers living in the same house? Don’t miss the story of Isaac Amon Marisa Chidhakwa and how he left the country to join the liberation struggle.
