The Sunday Mail
CDE AARON MUSIWAVO TOKOYO (AMT), whose nom de guerre was JACKSON CHAMINUKA MUSIWAVO, was among thousands of young men who joined the liberation struggle at a tender age. After witnessing a battle pitting liberation fighters and Rhodesian soldiers close to his village, where the latter were comprehensively defeated, he, along with a close friend, decided to join the war. This week, he narrates to our Deputy News Editor LINCOLN TOWINDO (LT) his journey into Mozambique to undergo military training.
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LT: You can start by identifying yourself and give a brief backgroug yourself.
AMT: My name is Aaron Musiwavo Tokoyo. I was born in Bulawayo on March 7, 1962.
I was born to Nandi Mlilo – my mother – and Stanford Chengetai Tokoyo.
We hail from Mutungagore village in Nyazura, Makoni district.
My parents separated when I was very young, so I was raised by my father, who had taken in another wife.
I studied at St Peter’s Tokoyo Primary School from Grade One up to Grade Seven.
LT: When did you start developing an interest in joining the liberation struggle?
AMT: Sometime in 1976. There was a big battle between liberation fighters and Rhodesian forces in our village.
The Rhodesians were comprehensively defeated.
After witnessing that battle, where the white man was soundly defeated by freedom fighters, I was convinced that I should join the liberation war.
In fact, that particular battle emboldened all the young boys from my village to want to join the war.
Whenever the boys met, all they could talk about was how to join the war.
This other day, a couple of friends and myself made a decision to go and join the struggle. We then decided to go out and look for the comrades so that they would take us to Mozambique for training.
Those days, freedom fighters frequented the main highway that leads to Dorowa Mine, which was close to our village.
They would often ambush trucks delivering phosphate from the mine to Nyazura on the highway.
At times, they would plant landmines along the road just to disrupt the trucks’ movements.
They were, however, based in Mbiriri, which was about 10 to 15 kilometres from my village, and would only come close to our village when undertaking the sabotage missions. Along with a friend of mine by the name of Gwindo, we decided to go to Mbiriri to find the freedom fighters.
We then walked all the way there. After some time, we managed to locate the freedom fighters’ base.
We asked the comrades about what we needed to do to join the liberation war.
Unfortunately, they said we were too young to join the fight and we would not make it through the perilous journey to Mozambique.
Instead, they asked us to join their network of mijibha and carry out spying missions on their behalf.
Deflated, we went back home.
But on our way back, Gwindo and myself decided that failure to join the fight at that particular point would not dampen our spirits. We said we would find another way to join the war. In fact, we became more determined to find our way to Mozambique without any help from the comrades.
LT: Why did the freedom fighters turn down your request to join the war?
AMT: I guess they figured out that, because we were so young, we could not make it to Mozambique on foot.
We then devised another plan. We would travel by bus to Mutare, then proceed to Mozambique on foot. The only problem was that we had no bus fare.
Fortuitously, we lived very close to the highway. Long-distance buses passed through our village and made a routine stop at our local shops to allow passengers to refresh before proceeding with their journey.
We then decided to sell fruits and vegetables to passengers in order to raise money for our bus fare.
Within a week, we had raised enough money to travel to Mutare by bus.
Consequently, I had to notify my family that I was about to leave for Mozambique to join the war.
During that time, I was staying with an uncle of mine.
I went home and told him that I was leaving for Mozambique the following day.
He said that decision was up to me.
He, however, said he was concerned about my age and whether I would be able to undertake such a difficult mission.
From his response, I could tell that he was granting me permission to proceed with my plans.
The following morning, he led us through some traditional rituals to prepare us for the journey.
He then gave me snuff for my protection.
We went to the bus stop, boarded a United bus to Mutare and in no time we had arrived.
However, on arrival, we realised that we had not planned about how we were going to cross into Mozambique.
Fortunately for us, sometime back, we had heard the story of a man who lived in Dangamvura who assisted people skip the border into Mozambique.
We then started looking for him.
All we knew about this man was his name – John.
We did not know where he stayed or what he looked like.
We spent the whole day looking for him all over Dangamvura to no avail.
But I think our ancestors were with us that day.
Unbeknown to us, John had heard that some young boys were looking for him all over the township.
He tracked us down and started trailing us from a distance.
Around 5pm, he approached us.
He asked what we wanted from John.
Because we didn’t know who he was, we refused to tell him what our real mission was. We simply asked him to take us to John.
I think it was easy for us to gain his trust because we were very young.
He then identified himself as the John we were looking for.
John told us to wait until it was dark and then go to his place.
He gave us his home address and left.
We waited for a while until it was around 6pm. At his house, we were taken into a room where we found several other boys who were on a similar mission as ours.
He told us that we could only cross into Mozambique when there were nine of us.
So, we had to wait for a few days for others to arrive.
We spent up to a week at his house.
Since we no longer had any money to buy food, things became a bit difficult for us.
However, we never thought about returning home because things were tough.
In any case, we knew that there was no way we could abort this mission and go back home because we did not have any money to travel back by bus.
After spending seven days at the house, John came into the room and told us that we were finally going to cross into Mozambique later that night.
It was on a Sunday.
He told us to leave behind everything we had on us, including jackets, extra clothes and even money.
I think that is how he benefitted from this enterprise.
Around 9pm, he entered the room again and told us that it was time to leave.
We walked towards the border along the railway line leading to the border post, which, at that time, had been sealed off because of the war.
The whole area had been covered by landmines. The crossing point was on this long electric fence, which we were told could electrocute you in a matter of seconds.
But John somehow knew how to climb over this fence and avoid electrocution.
I don’t know how he knew all this but he assured us that we would be safe.
One after the other, we climbed over the fence into Mozambique, while John remained on the other side.
I looked back to see if he was going to join us, but he just waved at us, signalling that we should proceed with the journey on our own.
Next week, Cde Tokoyo takes us through his journey into Mozambique and his quest to undergo training in spite of his age. Twitter: @kuntowaz
