1/10 @HeraldZimbabwe article about Cde Chehondo underlines the enduring validity of the maxim, ‘journalism is the first rough draft of history’. It also reflects the power of social media influencers, posturing as patriotic amateur historians, to misinform followers. @rangamataire https://twitter.com/HeraldZimbabwe/status/1253465709817982976

2/10 Cde Chehondo’s memory is failing or he is an ignorant person. Interviewees often get events mixed up, more so when the subject is something that happened 4 decades ago, so I’ll cut Cde Chehondo some slack & say his memory is failing. Why? @bhebhiNyarai @stanleykwenda

3/10 Cde Chehondo claims General Peter Walls was present at the AP. But Walls did not visit any APs during the ceasefire because he was not a member of the Ceasefire Commission. Walls began visiting APs after the ceasefire, in his capacity as chairperson of the Joint High Command

4/10 Cde Chehondo claims BMATT officers were also present at the AP. This, too, is failing memory. BMATT did not exist during the ceasefire. It came into being after independence. @michaelkaliika

5/10 When Nhongo visited the AP his message was that, with the advent of the independence election, the Commonwealth Monitoring Force (CMF), which managed APs since December 1979, was now withdrawing from APs, & the Rhodesian Army would replace the CMF. @TichZindoga

6/10 Zanla had, after initial distrust, come to accept the CMF but there was, understandably, bad blood with the Rhodesians who were moving in. Nhongo’s task was to introduce the Rhodesians & announce their takeover of the AP. This was the import of Nhongo’s address.

7/10 If one views the entire footage & understands Nhongo’s address in its full context (see documentary ‘Pamberi ne Zimbabwe’) Nhongo did not need to be reminded of the need to safeguard Zimbabwe because he combined his address with the ditty ‘nyika yedu ya baba’

8/10 Nhongo, in very subtle ways, delighted in his guerrillas’ show of defiance towards the Rhodesians. For example, each time Zanla growled in disapproval of Rhodesians' entry Nhongo looked back at the Rhodesians, with a crafty grin, which said: ‘see, you never defeated Zanla’.

9/10 Its odd that @HeraldZimbabwe makes great play of Cde Chehondo’s cameo because the real star in the course of Nhongo’s address was Cde Chinx, crooning ‘Maruza Imi’. Cde Chinx was the real highlight of that pre independence election address. @RangaMberi

10 Events are complex. @HeraldZimbabwe article lacks context to contain complexity & it doesn't corroborate accounts. Folks also need to be more critical of influencers posing as patriotic amateur historians - reasonable people are giddy about a faulty account devoid of context!