The Sunday News
Last week we published in an interview with Mr Jaconia Nkatha about the battle of Ndungwane in Gwanda District, Matabeleland South Province, which took place in 1979. The interview generated a lot of interest with readers especially those from Gwanda phoning and giving what they knew about that famous battle. One of the people with information about the battle is prominent educationist and historian, Mr Ezekiel Hleza. In a bid to tap from Mr Hleza’s knowledge we asked him to give his own perspective of the Ndungwane battle. Below is what Mr Hleza wrote:
It was soon after 8am in the morning on Sunday of 22 September 1979 when two Rhodesian Army trucks turned westwards to Makokwe at the Mawaza-Mbizo-Gungwe-Makokwe road junction at Malitou. One member of the Youth Front, a girl with a bright and lively face of about 17 years of age whose homestead was close to the main road quickly took a bicycle and followed the trucks but from a safe distance.
At the Makokwe-Malitou-Mathengwane Road t-junction on the northern side of Mareko Mangisi Tlou homestead, which was destroyed in early 1978 by the Rhodesian Army because of his son, Mdubani Tlou who was operating in the area as a Zipra guerilla with the whole family including Mdubani’s wife moving to Botswana, the trucks turned southwards and moved past the Ndungwane Road junction at the Notho Maratha Ndlovu homestead where they pulled off and parked at the roadside. That was to allow the heavily armed Rhodesian forces to complete the final journey on the Ndungwane mission on foot. However, the girl who was following the trucks from Malitou turned along the Ndungwane small road and had by now taken the lead from the Rhodesian Army.
On that Sunday morning I had decided to go on a guinea fowl. The place where luck seemed to favour me was about 2.5kilometres from home, Malipuluhulu, just close to Dalaye Nyathi’s newly cleared field, on the northern side of his homestead, which was about a kilometre from Makokwe Primary School-Ndungwane Road. I started setting my wire snares about a hundred metres from where the guinea fowls were resting. Just as I was working on my third trap a sudden burst of machine gun fire shattered the tranquility of the country side.
I did not have doubt that the gunfire was coming from Ndungwane. This was just about three kilometres from where I was. The time should have been around 10.30am. I just felt it was no longer safe to be in the bush. I did not know what the whole picture of events was like. The last gunfire around the community had been way back on 25 June 1979 at the Mbizo-Manama-Kafusi junction when Zipra ambushed a Rhodesian Army truck in the morning from Kafusi Rest Camp to Manama.
This was in retaliation for the injury of one Zipra guerilla in an ambush by the Rhodesian forces at Makhurane line, just about three hundred metres from Makhurane Bus Stop in early June 1979.
The terrific sound of automatic gunfire was reverberating from the direction of Ndungwane. First it sounded one sided and shortly afterwards it became an exchange of multiple small arms fire punctuated with heavy booming explosions. The AK-47, the LMG, the FN 30, the G3, the Brengun and the heavy bazooka and the rifle fired rocket launchers intermingled in a deadly cacaphony. The gunfire exchange lasted between 10 to 15 minutes and then died down to sporadic fire until total silence.
After the gunfire had ceased I proceeded to my friend who was also a member of the Youth Front, Paulos Tshabutshi Moyo who was helping at the Cleon Makhurane family home. From him I learnt that there was a group of guerillas in the village. Due to the security developments that were taking place the group had camped away from any homestead which was very unusual. When we got there we found that they were more than 20 guerillas. There was Dilawoga who was carrying the LMG, resplendent with the red bullet belt covering the upper part of the body. Because of his height and general stature, it was the LMG, the PK, the Gorenoev, the Bazooka and even the RPK that suited him, not the AK and worse if it was the folding butt which looked like a pistol when carrying it. Lovemore was also there. I was told Lovemore was celebrating, whistling and praising his comrades who were in battle some 10km kilometres away.
After some consultations with the guerillas we were cleared to go to Ndungwane. We avoided using the straight route. We took a meandering route. We went to Makokwe mountain and just before we reached it, we took we took a westwards direction, avoiding any open route.
Just after Mathengwane we came across a spoor of military boots which we concluded were those of guerrillas from Ndungwane. We followed the spoor until we got to naMkhalanga homestead (Mgobo homestead) where the first contact had occurred. There were a lot of people although the atmosphere which normally would have been celebratory befitting of the lobola ceremony was rather subdued. We learnt the boy who was also a visitor there had been injured when the Rhodesian soldiers opened fire. On seeing the guerillas he had called his mother who was also a visitor and shouted; “mama woza ubone abantu ongabaziyo”. Then all hell broke loose and he was injured on the leg and the head. The guerrillas just vanished into thin air although in hushed tones an AK-47 had been picked.
This led the Rhodesian soldiers to radio their colleagues at Engotsheni with the trucks to come to Ndungwane via Makokwe Primary School.
Meanwhile, a well-planned ambush was waiting for them, just about six hundred metres down south.
The northern side of the battlefield was where the Rhodesian forces had taken their positions. The Zipra forces who had laid the ambush had taken the southern flank as well as the western flank. The open eastern flanks was where the community borehole and the Ndungwane Dam slightly up north east. Zipra had made an L battle formation, kind of.
The distance between the two antagonists was roughly a hundred metres owing to the poor cover during the late September season. The last Zipra position on the western flank was uncomfortably close to Mr Plazi Maratha Ndlovu’s homestead, just a few metres away. The last Zipra position on the southern flank was close to a small stream which like the Ndungwane Dam was just dry.
This position was assigned to Cde Mzitho or uMtshayazafe.The cover for this position was an umkhaya tree while others had taken their positions behind the mopane trees save for the one next to useka Eva’s or Plazi’s homestead which was also an umkhaya tree which gave more cover than Mzitho’s.
We entered this battlefield Paulos and myself at around 2pm, almost two hours after the battle and spent almost an hour moving from one position to another and picking up spent cartridges selectively as they were too many. We could not tamper with the Bazooka shell that was lodged up one of the mkhaya tree. It was a bone marrow chilling experience for us moving in the fresh battle field, looking at the mopane and umkhaya trees that resembled the effect of a lightning bolt, the result of not being able to take cover.
I froze as I moved around this place of death at the thought of being close to a person carrying a gun which I had taken for granted from 1977 to 1979 including carrying Cde Mahefu’s AK from Malipuluhulu to close to Mafuku sometime in 1978.
There were some places where the Rhodesian forces had taken their positions where the dry mopane leaves on the ground were burnt.
The six Zipra positions where a lot of fire was coming on the two flanks were characterised by the loose earth, leaves and grass that were cleared in a very nice circular pattern from the fanning pressure from the barrel of the firing gun. Even the battle manoeuvres like crawling and rolling as well as the withdrawals were marked on the ground.
We also noticed that when Cde Mzitho got injured from his position on the south eastern flank he moved from his position and took a new position under a thick and thorny branch of the umkhaya tree that had fallen just close to his ambush and cover position. During withdrawal he used the dry stream route.
While the Rhodesian fire was divergent, the Zipra fire was convergent, coming from the south and the west, meeting or crossing each other on the Rhodesian position. After getting the very vital information about a sick guerilla from Kenneth Mabheka Ndlovu and the driver of Mr Enock Moyo’s truck which had been kept by Mr Mpho Nyathi, Mr Dalaye Kgwatalala’s son, the Rhodesian forces vowed “lowo sifuna ukumbamba ngezandla”. It was the letter that led to the battle of Ndungwane when Kenneth Mabheka Ndlovu was being forced, dressed in a Rhodesian army uniform, to lead them to where the sick guerrilla was which made him to pass by Eckem Mlilo’s homestead, leading to Eckem sending his nephew, Ebby to go to Ndungwane and inform the guerrillas that the Rhodesian forces were on their way.
But already the girl with a bright and lively face had done the trick. Kenneth tried all the tricks to lead the Rhodesian forces on a wild goose chase. He avoided leading them to Mabheka Ndlovu, useka Thembeni’s homestead, his home, where the guerrillas with their sick comrade were and decided to take them where a lot of people were gathered for the lobola ceremony, at naMkhalanga’s homestead where by some stroke of fate another group of guerrillas was just arriving.
After all, the Rhodesian soldiers had not been fooled because they found the guerillas and also collected a prized AK-47.
We met the group that had been attacked at naMkhalanga homestead on the following day, on Monday, 23 September 1979 in Malipuluhulu.
They spoke about that experience. Apart from one comrade who had flu and confessed that it had been induced by the grenade smoke from that encounter there was also one comrade who looked miserable, he was the only one without a gun although he had two hand grenades.
Ironically we were at the Tshabangu homestead, Tshabangu’s wife Gatsheni Hleza or unaka Vele, my paternal aunt. It was here where sometime in late August the irritability of Cde Knox Ncube due to his illness had manifested itself on me. It was his illness that had led to the battle of Ndungwane and the unfortunate experience of one of the comrades we had at the Tshabangu homestead or konakaVele. Most of the comrades and my fellow members of the Youth Front let alone the elders were not happy with what had happened to me.
Later after the battle of Ndungwane a rumour circulated that Knox had died from that illness but that rumour was laid to rest when towards cease fire we saw a very strong and healthy Cde Knox. He spoke to me about that incident and we laughed it off.
As the war train precipitously and precariously moved towards its halt and the palpability of caution very evident on the battlefield Malipuluhulu was rocked by an unusual explosion on 8 December 1979. There was no Zipra and no Rhodesian army in the village on that day very late, almost towards evening. The explosion had come from Cleon Makhurane’s cattle kraal. Unbeknown to most of the elderly and the ever alert and vigilant members of the Youth Front in the village, a TNT grenade detonator had been an object of amusement to the innocent young rascals from from Cleon Makhurane’s homestead. These included his sons Proud(6),Prince(2) and his grandchildren from his daughter Judith Makhurane and Kephas Mlilo,Ndabezinhle(6),Themba Honest(5).
Zipra had alerted the village that they had lost a metallic object and if found a report should made to them, they stressed that it was dangerous. The four little ones where on the dark periphery of such information. They picked the object and kept it their closely guarded secret at the cattle kraal for a deadly two weeks.
They had discovered through practice that when the object was handled in a certain way it would breathe and hiss and they had also learnt how to control its breathing and hissing. In Isindebele they said “kuyaphefumula” and in SeSotho they said “tshiya fema” and so kept their phefumula and fema object for their entertainment. Each time they wanted some amusement they went to the cattle kraal to play with their thing. A pathway had developed, it was very clear and could easily lead even a stranger to the object.
That pathway, however, was only noticed on 8 December 1979 when the entertainment practice had gone beyond the limits. The object went further than the usual hissing and breathing and started burning whereupon the handler threw it away and it exploded, leaving the four little children looking pale and ghosty.
Just like what could have been had Kenneth Mabheka not taken advantage of the confusion at the naMkhalanga homestead and bolted in his unfamiliar Rhodesian army garb and had proceeded with the Rhodesian army soldiers to the battle site where the mopane and umkhaya trees which did not know how to take cover became a sorry sight, I just wonder what could have been had the little innocent rascals been playing with an intact hand grenade, not its detonator. Some things are better left unimagined.
Be that as it may, that letter that did not reach its destination just like that letter from Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet that did not reach its destination simply because “ a greater power than we can contradict has thwarted our intents” makes the deadly game between Zipra and the Rhodesian forces follow the path taken by Kenneth Mabheka Ndlovu and Eckem Mlilo and his nephew, Ebby and the 17-year-old girl with a bright face and lively eyes, on Sunday 22 September 1979 at Ndungwane.
