The Sunday News
IN our Lest We Forget column today we depart from the norm where we offer question and answer interviews on former freedom fighters. Instead in this week’s issue we give light hearted incidents which took place during the armed struggle to show that even in a war situation it is not everyday that soldiers fire guns.
To help us capture those incidents is a former member of the Zipra High Command and the last chief of military intelligence Retired Brigadier-General Abel Mazinyane. Below are some of the incidents compiled by Rtd Brig-Gen Mazinyane.
Cde Tankwa got his match in Generalismo Madlezibabayo
SOMETIME in 1972 Cde Tankwa Sibanda was the commander at the Zimbabwe House in Lusaka, Zambia which was the Zapu official residence. Cde Tankwa had a crisis of personnel because residents at the Zimbabwe House were senior party officials like the late Jason Ziyapapa Moyo, senior Zipra commanders and the injured or ill combatants who were there for medical attention.
Cde Tankwa’s duties were to see to it that all those people were properly accommodated, fed, clothed and given all the necessary support. Anyone could be given a task by Cde Tankwa except JZ Moyo who was the only member of the Zapu’s National Executive resident at Zimbabwe House.
However, it was difficult to task members of the High Command because they were always rushing in and out. Most of the combatants coming from the front were either injured or sick, except a few who were considered to have recovered. The other source of personnel were those who were on transit to other areas.
Most of the time Cde Tankwa had to do the cooking. One day the now late National Hero Cde Sikhwili Khohli Moyo (Cde Madlezibabayo) who was based in Mbeya in Tanzania had been called to Lusaka for a briefing. He then came to seek accommodation at the Zimbabwe House.
The next morning Cde Moyo who was through with his briefing was ready to visit some Zimbabweans resident in Lusaka when he was summoned to Cde Tankwa’s office which was under a mango tree and told that he was on cooking duty.
Cde Madlezibabayo complained bitterly, saying he was just a visitor and was not supposed to perform duties at the Zimbabwe House. To that he was told in no uncertain terms by Cde Tankwa that there were no visitors in the armed struggle.
Realising that he could not win, Cde Madlezibabayo went ahead and performed the cooking duty.
Two to three months later a group of comrades left Lusaka for Dar es Salaam on transit for further training in the Soviet Union. The group which I was in was travelling by road to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania via Mbeya where Cde Madlezibabayo was based and among us was Cde Tankwa.
On arrival in Mbeya at around 7pm we were addressed by Cde Madlezibabayo. He briefed us of the command set-up in which he was the commander and told us that he was the “chief of everything”. Even after Independence when Cde Madlezibabayo became the Non-Constituency MP he preferred to be called MP Jikelele (MP for all the constituencies).
The Generalismo Madlezibabayo told us that there were guard duties to be performed. Guess who was given the guard duty that night. Cde Tankwa had all the luck to be anointed to do the guard duties by Generalismo Madlezibabayo. I think Cde Madlezibabayo had the memory of an elephant.
