Gonakudzingwa ("where the banished ones sleep") Restriction Camp in Southern Rhodesia near the Mozambique border, was set up by the Smith regime.[1]
African nationalists detained there included Josiah and Ruth Chinamano, Sydney Joseph, Joshua Nkomo and Joseph Msika [2][3][4][5]
African Nationalists who were detained at Gonakudzingwa also include Robert Mugabe, Edgar Tekere, Leopold Takawira, Maurice Nyagumbo, Naison Kutshwekhaya Ndlovu now the deputy president of the senate of Zimbabwe under the government of national unity, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu,Charakupadenga Hunda, Kissmore Benjamin Kaenda,Jane Lungile Ngwenya,Tumburai Matshalaga, Isaac Chakanyuka and many others.
Detainees were only allowed to walk 4 miles west of the camp towards the cleared land and miles kilometres eastwards towards uncleared game land. They would met the wrath of marauding lions and elephants in the game reserve if they tried to escape.
They were organised into groups of seven and they would prepare food for themselves for fear of being poisoned by the white settler regime authorities.
Most of the detainees where ferried to the restriction camp by train and a few were ferried by an aeroplane popularly known as Dacota. The detainees would be under armed guard and always on iron legs. Life was not easy for the detainees. Their relatives could only visit them after getting clearance from the Special Branch of the Police in then Salisbury now Harare.
As a way of pleasing whites, the black Police officers stationed at the detention camp at times twisted facts as they translated the content of letters written by the relatives of the detainees.
Detainnes would discuss current political issues every Sartuday and Joshua Nkomo normally addressed them. Concrete slab remnants where the zinc barracks of the nationalists used to be erected are still in place at the former detaintion camp located in the notorious Gonarezhou national park at Sango boarder post between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Gonakudzingwa was used by the colonial regime to silince dissent by means of diffusing the influence of nationalists by isolating them from the masses. This however worked in the opposite direction. While in detaintion the nationalists became more organised and crafted strategies of fighting white domination in Rhodesia.