WOMEN PLAYED A CRUCIAL ROLE IN LIBERATION STRUGGLE: CDE MAHIYA
3 min read
By Margaret Kamba
ZANU PF Secretary for the War Veterans League Cde Douglas K Mahiya says so much emphasis has been put on the role played by men during the liberation struggle forgetting that women also had a part to play.
His remarks come at a time when the War Veterans League prepares to hold its inaugural conference in Harare from the 8th to the 10th of September.
Of note is that the War Veterans League has distinguished itself in its logo by recognising the role played by both men and women, placing male and female features on both sides.
This is also clearly visible at the National Heroes Acre, where the female representation stands confidently among the men to show her fearless courage which made many women join the struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence from colonial rule.
Some of the notable women who took part in the liberation struggle include ZANU PF National Chairman Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, Politburo members among them Cde Omega Hungwe, Cde Edna Madzongwe, Cde Mabel Chinomona, Cde Monica Mutsvangwa who was part of the Samora Generation and Deputy National Political Commissar Cde Lillian Zemura among others.
It is not only these powerful women but many others dotted across the country who have either shyed away from revealing their liberation war stories for fear of reliving those horrid times. In all my interviews of such a nature, have I ever not seen these men or women slowly drifting away in their minds and narrations with some shedding tears.
It was not easy being away from home and the protection of a mother and father. It was not easy overcoming the fear of watching the explosion of a comrade’s body into pieces when a few minutes before, they had just been talking. It was not easy diving into blood-coloured water as they swam to safety while the colonisers were in hot pursuit. It was horrifying to have sleepless nights as the day’s events came back in nightmares which up to today are so vivid like it was just yesterday.
Many of them suffer from PTSD and in their escape, find ways to cope, which we, who have never seen or experienced what they went through may think are unreasonable. However and in reality, these are the scars of war that each of them have carried from a tender age and must live with, until death.
Speaking therefore during a press briefing, Cde Mahiya noted that the female war veterans also played a very critical role in liberating Zimbabwe.
“The liberation struggle was prosecuted by the young people of Zimbabwe. The children of fathers and mothers of Zimbabwe who are the members who created ZANU PF after discovering the toughness of the enemy when he colonised Zimbabwe and then called it Rhodesia,” Cde Mahiya said.
“They created the army ZANLA and ZIPRA. It is this force that we are talking about. It is the past that the League is committed to unpack and give the correct narrative to the people because it has never happened before, that the war veterans were given an opportunity to tell the nation the journey to and from.
“So the nation will probably have a sketchy idea of what exactly happened, where it happened, how it happened and who did it.
“Here some may think of the male war veterans and yet the female war veterans also played a very significant and important role in the war of liberation.”
The conference is being held under the theme “Force of the past, Power of the present, Inspiration of the future.”
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