The Sunday Mail
FOR the next few weeks, Cde DANIEL SIGAUKE (DS), a former ZANLA freedom fighter, will be taking us through his journey from Highfield, Harare, to the warfront and refugee camps in Mozambique, where he was one of the many ZANLA cadres who contributed to the war effort through teaching.During the liberation struggle, the ZANU education department laid a strong educational foundation whose benefits Zimbabwe is still enjoying today.Our Senior Reporter TENDAI CHARA (TC) spoke to Cde SIGAUKE on this subject and more.
********************************
TC : Cde, kindly introduce yourself to our readers.
DS : My name is Daniel Sigauke. I was born in 1956 in Mabvuku, Harare. My mother’s name is Debra Sirayi Huni and my father’s name is Albert Manditeya Sigauke. My father came from Guhune in Chimanimani.
We were eight children in our family and briefly stayed in Mabvuku before relocating to Mbare. In Mbare, we lived in the area called Beatrice Cottages. This place was commonly known as kumaMatariyana because it used to be a holding camp for Italian soldiers who had been captured during the Second War.
The camp was later turned into civilian housing units. From Beatrice Cottages, we then moved to Highfield. This high-density suburb was then commonly referred to as “The Dark City”, because electricity was not connected to the suburb, hence it was always dark.
For my primary education, I attended Chitsere and Nyandoro primary schools before moving to Highfield Secondary School.
During my high school days, the political situation was tense in high-density suburbs. This was during the 1960s and black people who lived in urban areas were becoming more politically conscious and active.
This period marked the founding of political parties such as National Democratic Party (NDP), Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). The white Rhodesian government’s brutal treatment of the black majority, to a larger extent, fuelled political consciousness within black communities.
TC: How were blacks ill-treated in urban areas?
DS : I will use one clear example: The case of my father. One day, he was forcibly taken to Ruwa, just outside the city, to forcibly work a white man’s farm.
After working the whole day, my father was then told to leave. He was told that the farm owner could not provide transport for him to Highfield. He had to make the long walk from Ruwa to Highfield.
However, after walking for a few kilometres, my father was arrested by Rhodesian police. He was accused of loitering and trespassing. He was taken to a police station where he was severely assaulted and then driven and dumped in Highfield. Police assaulted him using barbed wire, resulting in his back and buttocks being mutilated.
For two weeks, he could not leave his bedroom as he was being nursed. My parents did not want us to know what had happened to our father. We only discovered the truth when our aunt came from the rural areas to visit her badly-injured brother.
Also, during that time, nationalist leaders were being rounded up and taken to restriction camps such as Gonakudzingwa and Sikombela.
During that period, stone-wielding black youths often clashed with Rhodesian authorities. Although I was young, I already knew how to diffuse a teargas canister.
These events made us die-hard supporters of liberation war movements. Like I said earlier, we were exposed to teargassing and beatings at an early age. That time, the Rhodesian government deployed its Special Branch to harass and intimidate blacks. Many families were broken, with some sent to detention camps as Rhodesian forces descended on blacks that were providing resistance to colonial rule.
TC: At what age did you start taking political activism seriously?
DS : I started being politically active in high school. As youths, we started mobilising and engaged in acts of sabotage. The likes of late national hero Cde Morton Malianga often came to Highfield and gave us political orientation.
There was this sad event that forced us to go to Mozambique for military training.
In 1975, black political activists gathered at Machipisa Shopping Centre in Highfield.
Edison Sithole, one of the ZANU leaders, was addressing the gathering when Rhodesian soldiers descended on the crowd with vicious dogs. Gunshots were fired and some activists killed. Many were injured as they tried to scale the Highfield Secondary School security wall, which was crowned by sharp pieces of broken bottles.
TC: Where you present during the attacks?
DS : I was there at the gathering. I was staying in the Engineering Section of Highfield and our house was not far from the venue. Many people that I knew were seriously injured during the Rhodesian onslaught.
We decided that it was time to act. Meetings were convened at Mushandirapamwe Hotel, where plans to go to Mozambique for military training were discussed.
About five or six youngsters from our neighbourhood skipped the border to Mozambique.
The first group that went to Mozambique included the likes of Mao, Shango, Toshack, George, Solo and Noby. They all lived in Old Highfield.
Our group, which was made up of six, followed some few weeks later.
TC : Take us through your journey to Mozambique.
DS : Leader of our group was Stenard Chitombo, who was from Mutare. I met him through Gift Mukandatsama, with whom I attended the AFM church and we were both members of the church choir. Chitombo knew the route that we used since he was from Mutare.
We boarded the train and left on a Friday. We did not tell our parents what we were up to. We, however, lied to some of our friends that we were headed for a wedding in Mutare. We had saved money for the journey.
When I was on the train, I wrote a letter to my parents advising them I had gone to Mozambique for military training. I posted the letter when I got to Mutare.
Before we left Harare, we were advised to be alert, as Rhodesian Special Branch officers patrolled the area. We were told that the majority of them wore white tennis shoes.
From Mutare, we went to Chimanimani where we dropped off at Melsetter Junction (now Chimanimani Junction).
We then got into a lorry that was transporting bananas and we were dropped off at Mutambara Mission. We saw people whom we suspected to be members of the Special Branch. Luckily, they drove away without incident. The Rhodesian government had deployed several security agents in border areas.
From Mutambara we went to a place called Mataure near the Mozambique border. We went straight to a nearby grinding mill to ask for directions to Mozambique. The man who operated the grinding mill knew the route and he showed us the way.
Fear gripped us when we were told Rhodesian soldiers had earlier been spotted in the area.
We then headed for the nearby Guhune Mountain, where we got lost and loitered aimlessly for a long time. Although it was in June, it started to rain. Mukandatsama, one of the youngsters that we were travelling with, got very sick.
After finally finding our way, we then crossed the border and spent the night in an abandoned mud-and-grass thatched hut.
Don’t miss next week’s edition as Cde Sigauke narrates the journey to join the liberation struggle in Mozambique.
