The Sunday News
IN response to our articles carried out on the battalion that was commanded by the now late Colonel Smile Madubeko Moyo, one of his commanders now Colonel (Rtd) Victor Ronnie Dlamini stepped forward and said he is the one who was in charge of the battalion’s support company.
The Col Madubeko Moyo battalion is the only ZPRA conventional unit that managed to fool the Rhodesian security forces and sneaked into the country without being detected in August 1979. With all its heavy equipment it moved to Butabubili in Tsholotsho District, Matabeleland North Province where it remained dug in until the ceasefire period at the end of 1979. Below Col (Rtd) Dlamini narrates his exploits during that period. Read on . . .
I, Victor Ronnie Dlamini was born in 1963 under an extended family. My pseudonym was Soul Zikhali during the liberation struggle. My brother was a youth chair at the district of Magwegwe in Bulawayo. He encouraged most of us the young military going age to join the liberation struggle. He addressed us, as youth chairman, that we should fight the system which was used by the Smith government. He organised a chicken bus to take the youths where we were picked up at Renkini to Plumtree crossing the border to Botswana via Brunapeg.
It was Monday morning when we were told to organise ourselves and go to the struggle, train and come back and fight the system which was used by the white to oppress black people. At Brunapeg near the border, we found a road block that was mounted by the Rhodesian forces, everybody was to get down from the buses. All military going age were told to go to the military trucks. Three of us went back and we were told to come back, not to go forever.
We did not have any problems on our way to Selukwe Pick-up to Francistown and Selukwe which was transit base for refugees. When we arrived we were interviewed and selected according to our ages. We looked very young and we did not stay for long, at most three weeks, we left the refugee camp to Zambia by plane.
We were welcomed into Zambia and were taken to ZPRA base which was called Nampundwe. The same evening when we arrived at Nampundwe camp we were told to dress well because we were going to see the Zapu president Mqabuko Joshua Nkomo. Everyone was very happy to be meeting the president. The parade was called early in the morning. The man who addressed us was called Teddy. He told us to all lie down and roll. We rolled until the instructor was satisfied.
From Nampundwe transit base we went to different areas for training. I went to Mudunguswi Camp were we were trained by the Zambian military instructors. The Zambian instructors were many and only a few of our own instructors. We had three commissioned officers. The commander was Gate Marshall Khuphe. Most of the non-commissioned officers were Zambians.
The training went on for almost a year. After the training, almost 300 recruits graduated. That is when I was selected to go to Russia which was Soviet Union by then. I was trained as an artillery commander or BTRY commander which included artillery and weapons. We passed the infantry training school for three months. We went from artillery to Black Sea were we trained for six months.
From the Soviet Union we went for deployment where we went to Zambia at Mulungushi Camp while organising our battalion camp. The battalions were composed of: Battalion command – 60, Commanding officer rank of Colonel, Battalion z/c- Major, Chief of staff- Major ADJT, Logistic officer- Captain, Signal officer, Regimental Signal Officers, Regimental Sargent Major and companies were commended by five officers Rank of major.
So we had almost three battalion commanders, Lt Col Madliwa, Lt Col Makanika and Lt Col Madubeko Smile.
The battalions were formed and commanded by three Comrades. During the forming of Battalions the Rhodesians bombarded the Mulungushi camp. The battalion which I crossed with was led by Col Madubeko Smile which crossed at Livingstone, Zambia.
