Border Gezi, one of Zimbabwe’s national heroes, is buried at Heroes Acre. The former Zanu-PF secretary for the commissariat and minister of youth and employment creation died in a car accident.
Gezi is best remembered as the running mate for ”war veterans” leader Chenjerai ”Hitler” Hunzvi in the 2000 election campaign, in which he is alleged to have engineered about 200 murders. To honour Gezi, the national youth service training camp 250km north of Harare was named after him.
Border Gezi National Youth Camp is where 23-year-old Dumisani Phiri* was trained and now lectures others on patriotism.
Phiri was not forced to don the dark green military outfit of the infamous ”Green Bombers”. It was a career move. When he completed high school in a Harare township, he knew his parents, who live off state pensions, could not afford to pay for him to further his studies. Unemployed, he would drown his sorrows in Harare’s townships. He believed his only alternative was to enlist for the national youth service in the hope of securing a job in the police, army or government.
”That’s why I went kwaBorder Gezi,” he said. His bloodshot eyes and nicotine-stained teeth reveal his liking for Madison cigarettes.
”I had no [political] party, I just enjoyed fun. Like other young men I liked machinja [the Movement for Democratic Change], but I was not committed.”
Border Gezi changed all this.
”Yes, I came to understand Zanu-PF and its principles, why they went to war to fight Ian Smith, why they need to take land now and teach Tony Blair a lesson.”
To visit the youth training camps you have to seek permission from the Ministry of Gender and Employment Creation. As in a prison set-up, a ministry official monitors all interviews and your every move.
I made arrangements to meet Phiri in Harare town. He was frank and forthright in his responses and had very little bad to say about the camps.
He described the daily routine at the camp as similar to boarding school: ”We wake up every morning about 5.30am, go for military drills with instructors — a retired army colonel and a retired major.”
At 6.30am they have yeKenya porridge (yellow maize), followed by tea at about 9am with bread, no margarine, no eggs and no milk. You bring your own toothpaste because the government has no money. ”Those that went to war never had these essentials,” he says with pride.
Lunch is served at 12.30pm, mainly beans, meat, cabbage and, on the odd occasion, chicken. Afternoon is leisure time.
Most of the day is spent in lectures where ”we were taught the background of the Zimbabwe war of liberation, the Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution and the land reform”, he said. He spoke passionately of Fidel Castro, about pan-Africanism, and remembered the dates when the country’s heroes passed away and what they mean to him.
There are no examinations at the camp. ”Your commitment is measured by your discipline, ability to perform military drills and to understand the revolution and land reform. The national anthem we sang in the morning, and late in the afternoon.”
The youth are told that the MDC, acting in cahoots with the British, has a strategy to derail land reform. Phiri is convinced that if the MDC gets to power, the land will go back to whites.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s speeches are printed, photocopied and distributed at the camps, especially his infamous quote at Rufaro stadium in September 2001 where he declared his party would remove President Robert Mugabe’s government ”violently” if he does not go ”peacefully”. Recruits are drilled until they come to believe that the people who vote for the MDC are lost. They feel they are fortunate to be at the camps.
He gave the official line: recruits are taught patriotism, agriculture and military drills — but not violence.
He scoffed at reports that recruits have been harassing civilians in township nightclubs and rural areas where scores of people have been displaced. ”At our training camp, we are never taught to fight others, but are taught self-defence. I don’t know about other camps,” he said.
And on allegations of rape at the camps, he said: ”I was told the police did investigate, but I’m not sure what happened to them. Others we were told were just in love. Some came [to the camp already] pregnant — like the woman who named her son after Border Gezi. It’s not that she fell pregnant there.
”Even during the war there were cases of rape. There is nothing unique about Gezi.”
Harassment, he said, is done to instil discipline. Female recruits get equal treatment.
Phiri said recruits attend national events and, as per their military training, have to salute Mugabe and all government officials, something he will never do for Tsvangirai should he become president. His explanation was simple: ”You should understand he never went to war. We have no respect for someone who never went to war.”
Retired General Gava Zvinavashe expressed the same sentiment prior to the 2002 presidential election. The defence forces, too, are on record saying that they will not salute anybody who did not participate in Zimbabwe’s liberation war.
Another youth-camp graduate, Gift Dube*, is 18 years old. He did his stint at Dadaya National Youth Service from September to November last year and was awarded his certificate from the resident minister, Cephas Msipa. It is proudly displayed in his home in Harare’s Mabvuku township.
Dadaya National Youth Service Training is about 500km south of Harare. It is located next to Five Brigade military quarters. Recruits live with the army, talk to the army and learn military drills at Five Brigade.
Dube did not mention poverty as a reason to enlist, as Phiri did. He had heard that a national youth certificate would be a prerequisite for a place at a training college, and so he signed up. ”I applied and went for training last year. The food was atrocious,” he said, pointing out that he lost 10kg during his stay at the camps.
He does not understand why recruits had to do military drills but ”no mathematics, science or geography. We were taught about globalisation, the struggle, liberation war songs and land reform.
”We were provided just three blankets and would sleep in the barracks,” he said. ”We were barricaded by a big fence and we rarely interacted with women after hours. There was strict military discipline.”
His superiors were the only people with access to the camps at night.
”We were taught in a particular way to hate the MDC … that was the agenda.”
Dube now works at a government office in Harare. He believes he will get a job in the army, police or prison service, and is convinced that with a youth certificate in hand he’s eligible for further studies, which could lead to a job as a lawyer, prosecutor or judge.
* Not his real name