Mukiwa (click here
for Amazon link) - which is Shona slang for 'white man' - although teaching
in a Ndebele speaking area for six months, children there would initially just
shout "Mukiwa" at me - is a beautifully written, often amusing, very
moving account of growing up and at the same time becoming increasingly aware
that colonial life was in its death pangs. From the very start of the book
(Godwin's first childhood memory is of a neighbour with a knife sticking out of
his chest) it was apparent that, even though he and his family were liberals,
conflict was unavoidable. Ironically, Godwin was to miss hearing the declaration
of UDI because he "got into a scrape with Fatty Slabbert".
Peter Godwin served in the
Rhodesian army as the war was becoming increasingly
intense. His book charters the change from the initial times when the first guerrillas
were turning up, noting their intimidation, and the killing of ‘sell-outs’
to the late 1970s (1976-77)
when in one skirmish in which the guerillas (a ZIPRA unit, who had conventional
training) caused a degree of surprise at not
immediately melting away into the bush. " “Those ones,” said my corporal,
"I think those ones have been to battle school also,” and he shook his head in
admiration."
"It was the first time that terrs had not fled from us."
The guerillas were now better trained and armed, there were more of them, and almost no information
was being gleaned from locals. “I
think we may have lost this area now – for good.”
Godwin had been conscripted
into the BSAP, on his graduation, initially preventing him from attending
Cambridge University, but after numerous actions in Rhodesia, his petition to
leave was eventually accepted.
Even in the early stages
of the war, looking at an intelligence manual ‘ZANLA and ZIPRA
Tactics and Modus Operandi’ – which was saying that 99% of Operations were spotted in hours,
Godwin first
saw the phrase ‘liberated areas’, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the struggle could not be overcome as
simply as the Rhodesian media initially maintained, although Sgt-Major Gondo was
saying the guerrillas were cowards,
communists being used by Russians – ‘I am professional soldier, it is my
job. I leave politics to the others, to the politicians.” Godwin was very
aware that, despite obeying rules imposed by politicians, servicemen were able
to exploit rules of engagement with little fear of reprisal - trained as a
police officer (where three challenges had to be issued before they could
legally open fire) they learnt to "speed shout" I'm plice
officerstostotop" to be able to shoot legally in something under two
seconds.
But by then the methods of war
being waged by the Rhodesian forces were increasingly causing Godwin to question the
struggle - whether it was the shooting of a curfew breaker – who turned
out simply to be an old man on a bike, to the way in which he he tried to
make amends for the destruction caused by an RLI stick
– burning huts,
beating people up, and destroying any possibility that the group (who were
actually Shonas, from ZANLA - this, in a ZIPRA area, which meant that local
support for the army would have been probable without the RLI actions) leading Godwin to question a piece of graffiti he saw
"Hate us and see if we mind". By then, he was becoming aware of
standard army practices - using local Africans to protect against land
mines by forcing then on to buses, and penning Africans inside a circle of claymores to
deter from attacks, a practise initially established in Vietnam. On
returning to Rhodesia following his sister's death in a friendly-fire incident,
Godwin was again forced into uniform.
After
the war (with a law degree from Cambridge), he returned to Zimbabwe. On joining
a firm in the capital, he began defending `freedom fighters' of the Matabele.
The new Mugabe government, dominated by the Shona, seemed to ignore Matabele
involvement in the struggle, seeming to be moving against them. Now working as a freelance journalist, writing for the Sunday
Times, Godwin was one of the
first to make public the Fifth Brigade's
actions in Matabeleland, sent there by a witness who refused to be identified - saying simply that the killings in Matabeleland had started again. The North
Korean links had been apparent from the start, aided not only by the different
feel to Bulawayo - more like occupied territory than Harare - but by the initial
sculpture on Heroes Acre, where the victims all looked strangely oriental. Then,
being told by a padre who, having lived in Austria during the Second World War,
said that there was nothing the
Gestapo could teach the Brigade. After further investigation - and attempts by
the Zimbabwean government to corer up the story, by getting The
Observer newspaper to rubbish Godwin - (The Observer was then owned by Tiny
Rowland - one of his companies, Lonrho, had major investments in Zimbabwe), the
Zimbabwean government resorted to more devious tactics - a number of white
CIO officers had toured the area, posing as journalists. Eventually, Godwin had
to flee Zimbabwe.
But
on a return to Zimbabwe, one meeting was with a man who had been on the opposite
side of a skirmish both had participated in - this seems to inspire hope for the
future.
Click here
for an update written by Godwin for the 2000 Zimbabwe election.
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