Alexander Kanengoni's Echoing Silences is probably the most engaging and brutally frank account of Zimbabwe's guerrilla war to be narrated quasi-fictionally. Published ten years ago, it unravels the war's ugly underbelly: regular torture and killing orgies sanctioned by kangaroo courts, raging male sexual predators targeting junior female combatants, indiscipline and betrayal among fighters.the list is endless. What strikes me about the book though is none of this. Kanengoni makes a spot on diagnosis of one of independent Zimbabwe's terminal ailments:

27 years into independence and the wheels of state have come off, it seems to me that the 'culture of silence' among many Zimbabweans-especially those who absolutely should have spoken- is a key factor to the crisis. I'll come back to this later.

In the last chapter of his book, Kanengoni captures a fictional rally addressed by Herbert Chitepo and Jason Moyo, a rally where 'fundamental policy changes to the struggle' are supposed to be announced. Although located in the theatre of struggle, the issues raised there describe a post-independent Zimbabwe.

He writes: 'the Chairman (Chitepo) talked angrily of a series of monumental historical betrayals and he said he and a few others were the living examples of such betrays; and Jason Moyo wondered how politics, the wealth and the economy of the entire country was slowly becoming synonymous with the names of less than a dozen people and he asked how in such circumstances the struggle could not be said to have lost its way.'

Wallace Chuma used to work as a journalist for the banned Daily News in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted at [email][email protected]

The full review can be read on NewZimbabwe: http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/indepex22.16293.html