Inflicted Ponder

EPISODE 2

CHAPTER 4

“FALL IN!” The order goes, and is concurrently accompanied by the uniform drilling of all the troops around the drenched deployment parade point in rows and files. The dog-faced Commandant does not mince his words as he demands that everyone regardless of ranks and appointments make sure that their combat equipment fighting order is up to date pending patrol orders. It has become a custom that whenever we see a Congolese national leaving the deployment, there would have been some espionage mission accomplished. What exasperates me is. the misleading manner of most of their tip offs, and I hope it is not a recurrence of the same old bullshit this time around. Such selling out of fellow rebellious countryman are rewarded with army dry rations. Like every camouflaged inmate of this Eastern front based cantonment area, I make sure that my CEFO is in place. For over three days it has been raining cats and dogs in this tropical rainforest such that distant patrolling becomes susceptible to default natural regulations. Such hostile weather has since caused the cutting of reconnaissance boundaries thereby leading to a dose of uncertainty as far as detection of enemy presence in the deployment periphery is concerned.

Upon forming up, we are informed of the presence of suspicious elements purported to be insurgents spotted in the nearby village which is about 20 km away, and that being the case, no chances will be taken. Our deployment surrounds one of the five village clusters, with the other 4 being under the microscopic oversight of our forward sentries. The mapping of our boundaries around human settlements is a strategy to guard against random bombing and attacks by the rebels who happen to be, fathers, brothers, sons and cousins of the very same distrusted villagers. Owing to strategy and security concerns, this village cluster had to be strategically cordoned in the guise of protection as we make them believe. It is the village Headman from one of the distant outside clusters who has just left the Commandant’s dug in after delivering the rude awakening call. In no time, the fall in order is issued again, and the response from the extra-vigilant troops happens to be automatic to semi-automatic as we line to get the general and classified operation orders.

Slinging his folded but rifle, the chubby commandant consults with us on the implementation of befitting tactics and

drills ahead of the patrol. We agree on cordon and search as the best strategy. If in social circles time management is linked to money, in military confines, it is not perceptive at all, but a sensitive survival strategy. Yes! You have to be quick to shoot or get shot yourself, retreat before you become the late or prisoner of war, withdraw before the enemy finds out and compromises your safety scheme.  Such military facts render military life not only demanding, but also very unpredictable and dangerous. The suspected guerillas are said to be unarmed, but like in any military patrol, we troop towards our target with all our powerful and dangerous arsenal as we charge in two single files. It is the strategy of most tactical insurgents to infiltrate without weapons to avoid silhouetting. This is also the case with the military reconnaissance patrols. Military conquest being hinged or expertise, weaponry, bravery and strength, we encompass all these in our mission. The rain that had halted a couple hours back resumes pouring soon after our take off. This is a welcome development as it makes our navigation towards this village more effective through its muffing of the movement sound. Battles are fought violently and noisily, but are planned for peacefully and silently. “AVOID BUNCHING!” The order goes as we vigilantly march on.

I was woken up by the ensuing loud laughs of people outside, only to realise that I was in an afternoon slumber. I was not physically in the jungles of Congo as per this afternoon dream, neither was I still having my CEFO, nor still in that order-prone way of living, and not a profession as purported by some. Like my previous dream, this DRC one was given to a past reality either, although the details were not as exact as those of the bus. As I lifted my exhausted figure to a bedside chair, I got inevitably indignant at having such a torturous dream. My involvement in the DRC war is one subject that inevitably brings about frustrating ponder. There is no such thing as dejecting as recalling about experiences associated with deaths, t*****e, endurance and fear in the name of military orders emanating from a Joint Operation Command shrouded in looting conspiracies and hidden state agendas. It would be impossible for me to avoid thinking back every time such memories are relived. That war was not only responsible for triggering my ugly and bitter memories, but also annexable to the record inflation and economic demise that came in its aftermath leading up to now. Zimbabwe’s despicable economic situation has up to now not yet recovered from the gruesome battering it got upon the funding of a war that required more that a million dollars of unbudgeted for money daily. This was coupled by the unplanned payments of gratuities to protesting war veterans who had held the government at ransom over compensation and disability grants they claimed they deserved for their participation in the war of liberation. The then charismatic and focused Minister of Finance was labelled a saboteur for rightly condemning such unbudgeted for expenditure, an honest submission that saw him retiring from his post amid backlash from critics. These are not the only reasons to why I detest to be reminded of that exploitative tour of duty in which a diamond looting syndicate of state bigwigs benefitted from at the expense of the county’s economy, troops’ lives, and generally Zimbabwe’s dignified future. That bygone war, reminds me of the panic-filled sleepless nights I spent on foreign soil in full combat, the perennial rainy experiences I endured in that tropical jungle, not mentioning my colleagues who were killed and crippled there. May their departed soles continue resting in peace! What could be giving them restless peace in their spiritual survival is the failure by the surviving troops whom they were with to demand the 10 000 USD dollars thank you token from the DRC government that fellow Namibian and Angolan troops were not robbed off. Zimbabwean soldiers were never given their bite of that jungle cherry. Thanks to the then General who, on behalf of the looting cartel, ordered and threatened them to be silent over what was rightfully theirs, while the greedy authoritarians purchase fleets of haulage trucks at their timid expense.

As I sat meditating over any chances of economic recovery after such unplanned exploits, I could not help it, but silently ponder over how that war inflicted some level of brain damage on me and other troops involved, let alone meditate over the excruciating economic situation it engendered in our motherland. That war’s memory sparks ponderation over the barbaric and greedy masking of institutionalised looting with hoodwink dogma. On paper, it was a joint operation command of SADC states in support of the assassinated in-coming leader of the DRC. Pragmatically, it was about the death of youthful troops for the benefit of a few government goons whom the late leader granted diamond plundering concessions. Yes! In reality, it was about the annihilation of a disgruntled and cut-off Defence Minister via a stage-managed accident, let alone an irony of diplomacy and democracy as we saw regional leaders uncharacteristically backing a government formed via insurgency and not the ballot. Africa never ceases to amaze indeed!

Two decades after that ponder-sparking looting adventure the very same barbaric looters are still at the helm of our national leadership. Thanks to some brainwashed and hoodwinked citizens who continue to play to their tomfoolery. More thanks to those surrogates who are sponsored by these out of favour thieving goons to continue validating and sanitising their illegitimate legitimacy.