The Sunday News
We continue with our interview with Cde Thodlana on how irate guerillas locked up commanders at Zezani
MS: Then run through other battles.
Cde Thodlana: Ok. Forget and I were sent to go and get ammunition by Ellington in Botswana. We found Cde Cleopas with about 30 guerillas who were going for deployment. We got a landmine, bazooka shells and myself a Germany Democratic Republic (GDR) combat and kit bag. On our return which was not smooth for me as I fell ill, we deciced to raid Anderson Farm where enemy forces used to launch their raids from.
Before we went for the raid we planted the landmine on the road leading to the farm so that whoever came to rescue them or in the morning if they wanted to leave they would be hit by it. So we approached the farm at night and there was serious contact there. We then waited for days for the landmine to hit the target and nothing happened. Chirisa then suggested that we destroy it with explosives and many agreed with him. However, I refused and volunteered to dig it and they allowed me to do that. I successfully did that and everyone started saying “Hughes manjinela, Hughes manjinela”.
We later discovered that we had properly set it when we spoke to some MK guerillas they told us that it was one of the latest mines and they showed us what to do. Another battle was when we ambushed the Rhodesians between Manama Mission and Ngurukuda at about 3pm, it was a revenge attack on the deaths of Dry Gin and Bheli, we hit a Puma there. We followed up with another ambush at Bethen and Gwanda where two Rhodesian trucks were hit. I was to be part of the unit that destroyed equipment at Colleen Bawn.
I was then moved up north to operate in areas around Glass Block, Matshetsheni, Stanmore, Dambashoko, Lumene and so on. I was also promoted to the rank of sectorial commander as Gwanda District had been divided into sectors. On our arrival in Gwanda that is when we almost came face to face with Kaizer and Madabudabu, the two I had left in Beitbridge.
MS: How and what happened?
Cde Thodlana: All along we thought either they had been Selous Scouts who managed to breach the security vetting and managed to train or they were captured after I left them in Beitbridge. Anyway what happened was that while at Dambashoko we were told of the presence of a guerilla unit, which had mostly Nguni surnames and that on its own raised suspicions. The villagers told us that among those there was a Cde Khumalo who spoke SiNdebele with a Venda accent and their description fitted Kaizer, who originally was from Beitbridge and the other one called Mabhena just fitted Madabudabu.
We were told that those people had destroyed a dip tank and later on were attacked by a helicopter, which they fired at in broad daylight. That happened within a village, the helicopter flew away from that barrage of fire. Those pseudo guerillas then told the villagers that they were very serious in executing the war, to us that was being dramatic in a bid to fool the masses into believing that they were genuine freedom fighters.
When we sent word to them that we were coming to meet them they vanished from the area. We continued with our operations, laying ambushes and going on attacks. We once laid explosives at Lumene-Nsimbi railway line where a goods train was hit. We repulsed a number of Rhodesian attacks on us as they were either coming from Bina or then Balla Balla (Mbalabala). By 1979 we had stopped the Rhodesians from just roaming in the villages, we were in total control. We had also been reinforced by units that kept on coming.
At one point in 1979 I came to Bulawayo with Cde Muridzi for a reconnaissance mission as we wanted to hit the fuel control tower at the railways. We sneaked into Bulawayo and also sneaked out undetected. We were brought by our contact from Gwanda and kept at my brother’s home at BF. It was a closely guarded secret. I had grown up in nearby Mzilikazi and being close to my family especially my niece uPriscilla, uNaka Japhet, the popular gynaecologist here in Bulawayo.
MS: How did you deal with sell-outs?
Cde Thodlana: Sell-outs were dealt with in an appropriate way.
MS: Meaning?
Cde Thodlana: You know that some parts of Matabeleland South we had Zanla forces, although we never carried out joint operations with Zanla, if someone sold out a Zanla unit to the Rhodesians we dealt with that person and the Zanla forces also did the same, if they learnt that a Zipra unit had been sold out by so and so. Appropriate action befitting a war situation.
MS: After the ceasefire where did you go?
Cde Thodlana: I was one of the last units to get into the AP, which in our case was Zezani in Beitbridge District.
MS: I understand there were problems there over payment of allowances.
Cde Thodlana: Zezani was a unique AP, which housed both Zipra and Zanla forces. There were also Umkhonto WeSizwe cadres there as we had joint operations with them in the southern front, in fact most Zipra operations in Beitbridge District were carried out jointly with MK. At Zezani there was Bromberg Store that was always guarded by the regime forces and there was also a clinic or hospital that was staffed by white doctors and nurses among the staff there. Our food supplies were brought by Wards Transport.
So what happened was that when we started receiving our $100 allowances there were comrades who were not receiving their money as the pay corps would have run out of cash. I think that went on for about three months and the comrades who were being affected were the same and there were quite a number of them. So on that fateful day when they were told that the cash had run out they became violent.
At the APs guerillas were armed, so they beat up the pay corps who were from Zanla, Zipra and the Rhodesian army into submission and locked them in the guardroom. They also went for the doctors, nurses and any staff deemed close to the authorities and locked them up as well.
MS: That was tricky and so what happened next?
Cde Thodlana: They started phoning KGV1 in Harare and they spoke to Zipra commander Lookout Masuku who told them to stop that with immediate effect and release those affected, but guerillas being guerillas started hurling insults at General Masuku, such vulgar language that cannot be repeated in a family newspaper like this one. Gen Masuku then warned that he was sending jet fighters to come and bomb the area and they told him that khuluma usenza (back your words with action). I think it could have been the following day that a member of the Zipra High Command, Tjaloba arrived in a bid to diffuse the situation and he too was manhandled and locked up.
Two other senior commanders also arrived and they too met the same fate. Then came the Zipra chief of communications, Embassy (Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube), he was treated the same although his situation was different as guerillas had been impressed with his address when he visited the camp. He had spoken so well and called for discipline urging veteran guerillas such as Sinametsi, who went on to become a member of Cool Crooners not to lead the young boys astray. Sinametsi had been captured in the Hwange area in the 60s and locked up at Khami.
Then we saw a spotter flying around the camp and after 30 minutes it landed with trunks of money. On board that aircraft was DD (Dumiso Dabengwa), Tshangane (late Maj-Gen Jevan Maseko) the late former Air Force commander, the late Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai, who was a senior Zanla commander and Sandy Maclean of the Rhodesian army. DD then gave a sugar coated speech and asked those who had been mutinying not to move as there was something for them. Indeed a convoy of vehicles came and on board were regime soldiers and since those comrades were no longer armed they were easily rounded up and taken to Khami Maximum Prison.
I was also arrested in the follow-up investigations although I was not part of the mutinying group, I was suspected to have been a big influence. So we were to be spend some months in prison and after our release I was moved to Gwayi Assembly Point.
