I was raped by 5th Brigade, while 6 months pregnant: Victim By _ Published: September 16, 2010

By Admore Tshuma

A woman who says was ganged raped by President Mugabe’s murderous 5th Brigade while six-months pregnant resulting in her miscarriage has become the first such a victim to come out in public demanding justice for the horrors suffered by people of Matabeleland during post-Rhodesian war disturbances that blighted the former British colony.

Following a tip-off, this week The Zim Diaspora tracked down the woman, who identified herself as Ms Rosina Ncube (55) and caught up with her in Britain’s St Albans, 30 miles east of the British capital, London.

For the first time in the history of the Gukurahundi memory in Zimbabwe, Ms Ncube revealed exclusive and sordid details on how women were violently raped by the notorius 5th Brigade whose motivation was undoubtedly to exterminate people of Matabeleland to fullfil President Mugabe’s 1980s communist ideology of one-party state.

Ms Ncube of Lupane, Matabeleland North which was the heartland of Gukurahundi operations, was six months pregnant in April 1983 when more than 25 members of the 5th Brigade turned up at her village and gang-raped her. At the same time they also ganged raped her brother’s wife, and her 13 year old niece.



Her life was only spared because the merciless 5th Brigade army “got tired” of killing that day, and, as a result, after being raped despite heavy pregnancy was dumped in the forest of Lupane along Membesi River where she finally miscarried. What devastates Ms Ncube to this day, nearly 30 years after the brutal incident is not only the feeling of being raped, but the idea that her six-month still-born baby boy drowned in bloated Mbembesi river as on that day, soon after the demonic killings “heavy rains pounded Lupane as though God was angry”.

Demanding Justice: Ms Rosina Ncube

“I had wanted to bury my son in a grave so that I would still go back and see his grave as probably a reminder of my persecution and suffering under Mugabe’s Gukurahundi. It is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” said Ms Ncube.

However, Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 clearly states that women shall be protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape, prostitution or any indecent assault.

Ms Ncube added: “When the red-beret 5th Brigade came over, my thoughts were that these people would just respect the fact that I was six months pregnant. But my pregnancy did not even turn them off, instead, my pregnancy worsened my plight as they said I was carrying a dissident’s baby. The first officer to rape me was named Marufu. I heard one of them calling him Marufu and the second one was Mukanya,” she said tearfully.

Ms Ncube who was aged 23 then, had the most horrendous experience when a would-be third rapist pitched up for his turn in the “hell-bedroom” only to find her already bleeding from her reproductive organs.

“This angered him a lot. I was lying down powerlessly waiting for God to intervene. Instead, the officer shoved the barrel of his AK 47 into my private parts saying he wanted to kill the dissident’s unborn baby. When he removed it, I became breathlessly and could see my vaginal blood on the barrel of the gun. This hurt me a lot such that I had some difficult in walking” she said.

“I honestly don’t think that members of the 5th Brigade were really normal people like everyone of us because some of the things they did to us left a permanent scar in my mind. I am sure, wherever they are, they are not alright. They were clearly itching to destroy us as an ethnic tribe and they sounded like having specific instructions to do so. I saw some of them taking turns to rape my 13-year-old niece. For God sake, this was just a child who instead needed their protection. Perhaps what shattered me a lot was that when Marufu finished raping me he went on to rape my brother’s wife,” she said.

Her brother’s wife Diana Masuku later died after suffering “unexplained” mental illness stemming from her gruesome encounter with President Mugabe’s 5th Brigade while the 13-year-old rape victim later died of complications as well.

Ms Ncube, who clearly considers herself as a survivor, said after the rape ordeal they were ushered out of their homestead bedroom only to find several local villagers gathered outside her villager.

“It was a pathetic situation because even some well respected elders in the area were being masqueraded naked, humiliated and clobbered up. Some had already lost their limbs and some were dying right in front of me. Those who still had energy to walk were ordered into the bush. We walked all the way past Sipopoma primary school in Lupanda in gun point where we later stumbled across villagers being forced to dig a huge hole by another group of 5th Brigade. Little did they know that they were digging their own mass grave,” she said.

At this point, Ms Ncube says she could hardly walk as a result of pain says death was something inevitable.

“I was waiting for my turn to die, so was everyone else. I spotted a local party chairman Mr Jastar Malaba who tried to query why innocent civilians were being butchered. For that, they pushed him into the grave and shot him dead in front of everyone,” she said.

After the cold-blooded murder of Mr Malaba who was a fatherly-figure in the Lupanda area, she said, 15 other villagers were also forced into the mass grave where the 5th Brigade opened automatic fire on them, killing all of them at once.

Most of the dead were either her relatives or ordinary civilians who had been earlier rounded up. She said among the dead she knew very well were Dokotela Ncube, Michael Ncube, Mfakazi Ncube, Mafolo Ncube, Luvuno Ncube, Nzunzo Ndlovu, Canaan Ndimande, Timothy Ndimande, Frank Ndimande, McGregor Sibanda, Va Nyathi.

On another nearby mass grave lies Daniel Ncube, Ntando Tshuma, Marikopo Ngwenya, Nene Nkomo and Obert Ndlovu.

“I demand justice for what President Mugabe’s 5th Brigade has done to me as human being. It’s not about what happened but it’s about what they did to me as a human being. After this incident, I was ferried to Bulawayo in a St Lukes Ambulance where I received treatment at Mpilo Hospital. However, I never recovered as I totally lost my sexual appetite and have never had a proper relationship,” said Ms Ncube.

“My life was destroyed by Mugabe when I was in my prime, and since then, I am no longer the same person I grew up hoping to be. For example, when I went to Mpilo doctors said my reproductive organs were permanently damaged and as a result I could not conceive again in my life,” she said.

Ms Ncube also called on people of Lupane to stand up for the 15 dead in a mass grave in Lupanda, near St Lukes. She said it was important that the fate of Jasta Malaba and the 15 dead in the mass graves was acknowledged symbolically.

“We can forgive, but we should never forget,” she said.

More than 20 000 people in Matabeleland and Midlands areas were murdered by President Mugabe’s 5th Brigade which many now say was a crime against humanity. Commentators say the Gukurahundi question is the main reason why President Mugabe would not step down as he fears that he might be prosecuted as it fell in the category of crimes against humanity.

-ZimDiaspora