The Sunday News
OUR Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda continues our interview with Cde Kenny Sibanda aka Dallas Nyamukapa. Cde Sibanda is one of the guerillas who at some point were locked up by their colleagues at Mboroma Camp after being accused of transgressions by the Zipra High Command.
It was during his incarceration that Mboroma was raided by the Rhodesian air and ground forces in Operation Vodka in November 1978. According to the late commander of the Rhodesian Selous Scouts, Lt-Col Ron Reid Daly in a book titled Selous Scouts Top Secret War where he spoke to Peter Stiff, Mboroma was of particular interest to the Rhodesian security forces because it was “reputed to be a prison and detention camp.
Not only was it said to house a number of captured Rhodesian security forces personnel, but it was said to hold a number of Zipra dissidents”. Daly went on: “We naturally wanted to free our own men, but the freeing of Zipra dissidents was also a very attractive proposition, as all the things being equal, they would likely have some interesting stories to tell to aid our war effort.”
However, in today’s instalment Cde Sibanda talks about his training and the problems that Zapu faced, resulting in a split.
MS: How was training?
Cde Sibanda: We started our training by embarking on guerilla warfare and then later on moved to conventional warfare. All in all we were trained for nine months, guerilla warfare six months and conventional three months. When we were rounding up our training then started the internal strife in Zapu which was later called the Chikerema Crisis.
That is when the party leadership was divided with a group led by then Vice-President James Dambaza Chikerema on one side and the other by Jason Ziyapapa Moyo. The divisions at the top cascaded down and it had an effect on us as that was the time comrades like Rex Nhongo (late General Solomon Mujuru) and others left Zapu. But some of us vowed that we will never leave Zapu, we said we left our homes to fight for the freedom of Zimbabwe not to serve individuals. There was a lot of confusion during that time. Even within us at Morogoro there was confusion as at one point we left oMazinyane and others there.
MS: Where were you going?
Cde Sibanda: We were 24 when we left and we wanted to go to Zambia. Among the comrades I was with were Cornelius, Base who later died in combat in Gwanda District. The reason why we left was because there were people who were urging us to join Chikerema, their argument being that Chikerema was elected as Zapu Vice-President ekhaya (Zimbabwe), so there was no reason he could be wrong. People were getting caught up in that confusion.
MS: As for the 24 of you, what was the real intention of leaving others behind?
Cde Sibanda: We wanted to go and meet Jason Ziyapapa Moyo so that he could explain to us what was really taking place. We walked all the way until we reached a place called Iringa. Then we got arrested by the Tanzanians and they took us back to Morogoro. I should bring it to your attention that many of our commanders there were backing Chikerema’s Froliz. I am saying this because when we left Morogoro with the intention of going to see JZ, uTerror as Gordon Munyanyi (Tapson Sibanda) was also called and some of his team followed us, that is when Munyanyi who later on became Zipra Chief of Military Intelligence shot and killed in cold blood one of us, Roy Madlela. Nothing happened to Munyanyi for such a callous act.
MS: Why was Madlela killed?
Cde Sibanda: It was because we were accused of being renegades. However, like I said we had the feeling that some of our commanders were with Chikerema. They were saying we were renegades because we were supporting Zapu. At first many thought Chikerema was right because he was our leader in exile.
There was the 11th March Movement when some Zapu fighters led by the now late Walter Mthimkhulu tried to stage a coup by arresting the party’s leadership. Those were some of the problems that Zapu faced and it almost destroyed the party. However, leaders that remained in Zapu such as JZ Moyo, Edward Ndlovu, George Silundika, Dumiso Dabengwa, Ethan Dube, Akim Ndlovu, Jane Ngwenya and others initiated the reconstitution of a military, changing the name from the Department of Special Affairs to Zipra. It was a painful period because Zapu remained with less 100 fighters. Nikita Mangena became the first commander of Zipra with the Political Commissar being Lookout Masuku. Other members of the High Command were Report Mphoko, Cephas Cele, Gordon Munyanyi, John Dube (JD) and so on. However, there was a strange incident that took place before we left Tanzania.
MS: Please go on, what happened?
Cde Sibanda: After we had finished training among us was a man called Tendai who could have been the oldest in our group and came from Murehwa in Mashonaland East, so he suggested that there was a need to brew traditional beer, saying we had to thank the ancestors for their guidance and if bevumile we will see a monkey within the vicinity and for sure that happened. We were still at Morogoro in Tanzania.
This man had worked in South Africa and Botswana as a policeman and then joined the armed struggle. The following day we were outside after we had finished training, we saw an eagle that was coming from the south and we were all looking at it and then Tendai came out and started clapping his hands saying “midzimu yauya kuzoona vazukuru vayo” and then the eagle perched on a baobab tree on the eastern side of the camp.
At that time one of our instructors, Pondai got into his tent and came out armed with his weapon. He then took aim of the eagle, shot and killed it. Immediately after that his eyes started to become white. Someone then told him that what he had done was wrong. They asked him to ask for forgiveness from our Zimbabwean ancestors, but he dismissed it as superstition.
He later started losing eyesight and they took him to Lusaka where he later died. It was a strange incident.
– To be continued next week with Cde Sibanda talking about his deployment and then arrest by his colleagues. He was subsequently detained at Mboroma.
