I don’t think Chissano liked the idea of us being sent to jail, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Jamangwane was where I was imprisoned for almost three months. That is a place I wish I could forget. The three months I was suppose to spend in prison turned into three years of hell. Of course, I do not know what it feels like to be in hell, but it was as if I was in a hell on earth.
I was tortured, sjamboked and electrocuted by the man who once spied on Chissano, Sergio Vieira. I could not walk because my buttocks were so sore. To be given a hiding was an every day activity. My clothes were torn and I bled profusely.
One day, Vieira and his friends came to the prison where we were. He approached me, pulled my ears and made fun of me. He would laugh and say, ‘You want to sell us to the Portuguese, never Massinga.’ I think this man was trying to protect himself because he was coloured. He feared, that one day, he could be ordered to leave the country and therefore he was trying to gain the trust of Samora Machel. He even reminded me about what had happened at a conference in Ghana, where he said that I tried to take his position. He said that it was his time for revenge. Of course, it was his time.
My knees were no longer functioning well and I lost my memory. I was forced to walk barefoot on a cold floor, and that’s what damaged my feet. Even today, I cannot walk properly. My feet felt like they had been put in snow for some days, and they never recovered. I was given salty food. Imagine one cup of rice, mixed with two cups of salt. I could not eat the food, but in the presence of the guards, I was forced to. There was, however, a security guard who was very kind to me.
He would steal good food for me to eat. Unfortunately, that guard worked shifts, so I didn’t receive decent food every day. Sometimes, when I was given food and left unattended, I would form it into a round ball and throw it through a hole, which opened just below the roof. When the guards came back, they would be happy and said, ‘You see how FRELIMO is feeding you? Nice free food, which you never received during the days of the Portuguese.’ Because of the food I became sick for days and was left unattended. I couldn’t even move to the toilet, which was in the cell. I lay on my belly for 24 hours every day. I wished I could go back to the days of the Portuguese, as FRELIMO was worse than them. I thought of the lady who, at my graduation in Switzerland, had warned me that not every one was going to welcome my ideas. I realized that she was telling the truth.
Vieira and his people would visit frequently to pull our ears, and shock my neck as a form of torture. One day he came to tell us that we were being transferred to Cabo Delgado Prison. I was with 16 other men. We stayed in Cabo Delgado for a month and from there we were taken to Nampula. We stayed in Nampula for a week and were then taken back to Cabo Delgado. After we left Jamangwane, life was better. We were not tortured as much and the food we were given was better.
I didn’t have to face Vieira any more. I spent my last years of imprisonment in Cabo Delgado. In all those jails, we were not allowed visits from our families. Our relatives were not even told where we were imprisoned. I remember one fellow prisoner, Wendi Wenyere, was left sick in his cell, unattended. The urine was burning him and we decided to take care of him, because we knew that it could happen to us.
He recovered but died shortly after we were released from jail. I shared my cell with a friend, Albert Santos, a cool and soft-spoken man. He did not speak much and he never argued. He always had one thing to say, ‘It is now Samora’s time and the Portuguese had theirs, our time is coming.’ I would listen to his statements and I would say to myself, ‘We fought against the Portuguese and now we are in power, yet we are worse off than when we were under our former masters.’ I could not agree that our time was coming.
I was looking forward to the day I would be released from jail. My aim was to escape the country. I never put aside though, the thought that we might be executed. Why? Because one guard angrily told us to stop being stubborn or else we would be killed like Oris Simango. It happened after we had refused to wash dishes after eating. That’s when I knew that Oris had been killed. Nobody else knew and I kept it to myself. Years went by and towards the end of 1985, I was released from jail together with the other 16 colleagues.
In the early hours of a day in late 1985, the security personnel unlocked the prison gates and said in a loud voice, ‘Get out, don’t you want to see the sun?’ It felt very strange, because we had spent so much of our lives in prison. I thought it was going to be the end of our lives. I approached my old friend, Albert Santos, and asked what was going on. He didn’t say a word. He looked very scared like every body else.
We were led outside and there I saw the then Minister of Defence, Chipanda. We were surprised for it was not normal for Chipanda to drive so far. Chipanda welcomed us with a smile. He greeted us and addressed us in a very polite manner.
He said, ‘The FRELIMO government has decided to grant you amnesty and you are now free to go .’ We could not believe it. He continued, ‘Your prison warders will brief you and you will tell them where you want to be taken. Thanks.’
He went back to his car. I was happy to hear that, but the question was, why had we been imprisoned? The day we were arrested, we were not given a reason and the day we were released, there was no explanation. Life was unfair. People could do whatever they wanted to because they were in power.
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