The Sunday News
WE continue our interview with former Zpra Deputy Chief of Engineering, Lieutenant-Colonel (Rtd) Binoni Benjamin Dube pseudonym Cde Velaphi Nyoni. In our first instalment last week, Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube spoke about his early political activities in his rural home of Gwanda District, Matabeleland South Province.
When the political temperature started rising, Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube and other youths from his home area who were in the Zapu structures, decided to cross the border into Zambia via Botswana, to join the armed struggle and that was in 1974.
From Zambia, Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube was sent to Morogoro in Tanzania, from where he was sent to the then Soviet Union, for specialized training in military engineering.
Today, he picks up the conversation with our Assistant Editor, Mkhululi Sibanda (MS), by narrating about his deployment as an instructor. Below are excerpts from the interview. Read on…..
MS: Last time you spoke about your group of 28 returning from the Soviet Union and then being ordered to undergo guerrilla warfare training. Let’s pick the conversation from there.
Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: We returned to Tanzania in 1975 and like I said last time, instead of being deployed to the front, we were ordered to go for guerrilla warfare training for six months.At that point, we were covering the Zpra syllabus. After that, I was deployed into the instructors’ pool at Morogoro, where there was a group of 137 undergoing training.
In the middle of their training then came the formation of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa), which was the integration of Zpra and Zanla forces. Some Zanla cadres were then brought to Morogoro, which was the Zpra camp.
I was then withdrawn from Morogoro and sent to Zambia to be part of the instructors, to train the Group of 800 that was at Mwembeshi. However, we didn’t stay long at Mwembeshi as we were told that we couldn’t proceed as there was a directive that we should go to Tanzania and join Zanla at their training camp at Mgagao.
MS: Take us through what happened in that period.Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: When we got to Mgagao, the situation was very tense. There had been disturbances at Morogoro, the Zpra camp where Zanla had sent its cadres also as part of Zipa.
Unfortunately, some Zanla colleagues had lost their lives there and when we got to Mgagao, some within Zanla were inching for revenge. The leader of our group was the now late, Cde Sam Madondo, an intelligence officer. Besides myself, other instructors were Stanley Gagisa, Richard Mataure, Kwela (late Colonel Chitambo) who came from Mutare, Lemmy and others.
Then one day on a Sunday, things turned ugly when we were attacked by our colleagues from Zanla. The spark to that had something to do with food at the kitchen, we lost about 47 cadres. Although we were unarmed, we managed to get out of the camp, thanks to our training methods, we used the ground, nothing else to escape from Mgagao. Among the recruits, we had about 12 females and lucky enough, they all survived.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Rtd) Binoni Benjamin Dube
It was us instructors who led the recruits out of the camp and we were to re-group the following day. All along, we had arranged some gathering points (GP) if things went wrong.
MS: But how was the relationship between the leadership of the two forces, I mean you as instructors?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: We related well, on a personal note, on the day of the conflict, I had sneaked out of the camp with Perence Shiri, who was one of the Zanla instructors at Mgagao, to look for beer at some Tanzanians’ homesteads. We were good friends and spent the day drinking with Perence after sneaking out of the camp, just the two of us.
When we returned to the camp, Perence went his way while on that day I was supposed to be the duty officer, or man on duty as it is called, so I went to check the situation.
When I got to the kitchen I was attacked, someone tried to bring me down with a panga, but I ducked and the person missed me. I then heard ‘tha tha, that’ which were gunshots from an AK-47 rifle.
I called out to our soldiers and they reacted to the call swiftly and we started moving out of the camp. In fact, the group I moved out with had two girls, one was Grace, but I can’t remember the second one. That’s how our joint training with Zanla at Mgagao ended, it suffered a stillbirth.
MS: From there, you were to continue as an instructor and you specialised in engineering. May you take us through military engineering, which is a specialised part of the military.Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: There are four to five areas of military engineering. I will break them into stages. Firstly, military engineers deal with explosives. Explosives cover everything and they are deadly.
As the military and in our case as guerrillas, we were looking at the demolition of enemy structures and in the case of the Rhodesian government, we intended to demolish their infrastructure such as bridges, buildings and railway lines.
So, in teaching the guerrillas, we would create a target similar to what we will be planning to destroy, or come across in the operational field. When placing an explosive, let’s say for example the target is a bridge, the guerillas were supposed to consider the strength of that particular bridge.
They had to consider the material that was used to reinforce that particular bridge or structure. The aim in that case would be to know the type of steel that was used in the construction of the bridge and that would determine the type of explosives to be used, as the impact they would have is very critical.
Suppose you want to destroy a railway line, which is all steel, you say for example, let’s place a 200 slab of explosives. In such attacks, you also consider the result, which is either to cut it off completely or leave the target in a bent shape, which will be as good as useless.
So, what it means is, it’s important to study the target first and then come up with plans and then execution. The second aspect of military engineering, which I took our guerrillas through was the issue of landmines, which guerrillas used a lot during the war, especially in their ambush missions.
MS: Unpack for us on the use of landmines.
Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: On the use of landmines the targets were enemy vehicles, their tanks and also the person himself, as there is the anti-personnel mine. So, when a guerrilla is planting a mine, targeting an enemy vehicle, he had to consider whether the vehicle has armour.
When planting the landmine, it is important to consider the pressure of the mine, and whether it would be effective to both the vehicle and the occupants, who in that case would be the enemy soldiers. If the mine is not properly reinforced, the vehicle might be hit and damaged to a certain extent, but the occupants would not be affected.
The other thing is that the person who will be placing a mine should be good at camouflaging it, to fool the enemy. There should be no difference in the soil or the spot where the mine has been planted.
Good soldiers can read that the ground has been tampered with, so what it means is that if one places a mine, the grass which was very green can show signs that it was tampered with, by changing colour.
So, one has to try by all means to keep the vegetation or the ground in its original state. The best would be to plant the mine a few hours before the target reaches the spot where it is being ambushed.
MS: You also mentioned the anti-personnel mines, tell us about them.
Lt-Col (Rtd) Dube: The anti-personnel is for soldiers on foot. You ambush them through small or narrow paths they will be following when patrolling. If a soldier steps on it, the ignition would be removed and explode on him. There are also booby traps and then there is another part of military engineering called field fortification.
You know, when trenching that is defence pits, soldiers don’t just dig a pit. There are some calculations involved, the trench should have proper measurements to allow the easy movement of the soldiers in those trenches.
Even the size of the soil that is used to give cover to the soldier should be measured, to avoid the bullets piercing through. In short, those defence pits or trenches you see are technically done, and that is part of military engineering.
To be continued next week with Lt-Col Dube talking about sabotage missions and other aspects of military engineering.
