Army documents Zimbabwe war history

THE Zimbabwe Defence Forces is in the process of collecting and compiling data on the history of the Second Chimurenga in an effort to safeguard the country's cultural heritage.

In an interview, the Director for Civil Military Relations Colonel Charles Matema said they were working with the National Archives of Zimbabwe ((NAZ) in the collection and compilation of military history.

"The ZDF has a Civil Military Relations Directorate that, inter alia, collects Zimbabwe's national history albeit with a bias towards military history. In 2012, the Minister of Defence launched an exercise to collect data for the Second Chimurenga history. The exercise is ongoing and the magnitude of resources required for it has inhibited the pace of collection and recording.

"The Zimbabwe Staff College (ZSC) is also involved in the collection of the Second Chimurenga history. As part of the package on low-intensity operations, the ZSC visits Second Chimurenga battle sites where they receive live accounts from participants (former liberation war fighters, the masses and war collaborators). Students record these accounts from primary sources," he said.

"Let me hasten to mention that we are taking the collection of the Second Chimurenga history seriously as procrastinating is no longer an option as some of the participants are dying. The Department of National Archives is urged to take a keen interest in gathering the recorded history for storage."

Col Matema was one of the senior officials who were attending a workshop on the raising of awareness of cultural heritage in times of crisis being sponsored by the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development.

He said the country had been under relentless pressure from its detractors for more than a decade and some of them were keen to destroy the liberation legacy and that they knew where some vital information was being kept at the Department of National Archives.

Ms Rudo Karadzandima, NAZ information scientist and organisation oral historian, implored the ZDF for the mutual relationship that existed between NAZ and ZDF in the collection and preservation of Zimbabwe's liberation heritage.

"The NAZ, ZDF and the National Museums of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) have so far documented battle sites, restriction camps, detention camps and some old prisons that chronicle the liberation heritage of Zimbabwe by actually taking the survivors for on-site interviews," she said.

These included Pupu and Lupanda battle sites in Lupane; Khami, Mlondolozi and Grey Prisons in Bulawayo as well as Sikombela Restriction Camp and Gonakudzingwa Detention Camp.