The Sunday News
WE continue our interview with Cde Ralitali Ngwenya Qondani pseudonym Cde Hussein Menemene who as a Highlanders Football Club junior player with 12 other teammates left the country to join the armed struggle towards the end of 1976. In the process they took the team’s kit and crossed the border to Zambia via Botswana. In our last week’s edition, Cde Qondani spoke about how he played a crucial role in organising the journey as the crossing point they used was near his home area of Seula in Kezi. Today he tells our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) how they managed to find their way into Botswana, later on to Zambia and then to Angola where he received his military training under the Cubans. Below are excerpts of the interview . . .
MS: You are speaking of crossing the border into Botswana, take us through what happened after that.
Cde Qondani: Across the border in Botswana we got to Bonong and we were still carrying the Highlanders football kit, everything including the soccer balls. Later on we were taken to Selibe-Phikwe and when the authorities asked us where we were going, instead of saying we were going to Zambia to join the armed struggle, we said we were on our way to Tanzania. Being youngsters, we were just fascinated by the name Tanzania and the authorities started having doubts about us, they thought we were not being genuine. They suspected us of being enemy agents, so we found ourselves isolated from other people who had also come to join the armed struggle. We were locked in separate cells and
I think the Botswana officials were pondering on what to do with us. As days went by, they started relaxing their mood, allowed us to play football with a prison team, which we walloped. We were also being allowed to do some exercises and we would be wearing the full Bosso kit.
Being soccer players and coming from Highlanders, which is also popular among the Tswanas made people love us. Now the prison officers were organising more games just to watch us. It was around that time that students from Manama High School arrived in Botswana and it was January 1977, remember as for us we had left the country in December 1976. With time we became fed up with just being kept there for football, so one day we staged a hunger strike and demanded that we be sent to where others were being taken to as we had left the country so that we receive military training in order for us to fight the Smith regime. We boycotted breakfast, lunch and supper and the authorities were taken aback. They then communicated with Francistown and a troop carrier was sent to come and pick us up. That is how we left Phikwe. In Francistown we did not stay long, in less than a month we were flown to Zambia. From Lusaka International Airport we were driven in trucks to Nampundwe Transit Camp and we arrived there around 7pm. What struck me was that it seemed people were always arriving at Nampundwe in the evening and that was a daily occurrence because the camp was receiving recruits on a daily basis.
MS: You spoke about suspicions that you faced as a group, what became of that?
Cde Qondani: They just fizzled out with time and by the time we got to Zambia we were treated just like any other recruits. However, back home my father got into trouble after we left because Sikhulu’s sister told the police that I was the one who had influenced her younger brother to leave for the war. So, they came for my father, heavily tortured him and was later thrown into Wha Wha Prison where he was detained until the ceasefire period in 1979. He was accused of recruiting terrorists. Then back in Zambia, the 13 of us were still together.
MS: How did you find Nampundwe?
Cde Qondani: That place was something else. When the trained personnel were picking up recruits at Lusaka International Airport, everything seemed okay. However, things changed when you were ordered to board the truck covered by iseyeli (canvas material). The moment you got into that truck as a recruit all your freedom or rights were taken away. As a recruit you were not allowed to peep through as you were immediately accused of being a spy, ufuna ukubonani (what do you want to see).
So, when we got to Nampundwe we heard people chanting slogans and we were dropped at the parade square. We were then taken to a spot behind a very long barrack where our details were recorded by comrades from the department of personnel. Some interrogation was also taking place when those guys were getting our details as there were operatives from the military intelligence. It was during that time that one was ordered to surrender things like money and valuables such as watches. To me having your things taken away was not harassment, but part of the initiation process into the armed struggle.
Then we were told that if you hear the sound of the whistle or clapping of hands the following morning we were not to rush to the parade square like others. The following day as the new arrivals we were taken to a separate place where we were told that early the following morning the Zapu leader, Dr Joshua Nkomo was coming to meet us, so we should dress in our best attire. We were very excited to meet Dr Nkomo and the following day, at around 4am we were made to do a short march to a hill that was about between 500 and 600 metres from the camp.
Instead of meeting Dr Nkomo we were introduced to the toyi-toyi, chanting of slogans and being made to climb that hill several times. We were also made to do number 9 (frog jump) for a distance of about 200 metres. I felt sorry for those who had been working in South Africa, injiva as some of them were dressed in three-piece suits and 10-gallon hats. They removed those fancy clothes and left them there, obviously the instructors like Teddy and Finish helped themselves to those clothes.
After going through such rigorous exercises, we were led to a muddy place where pigs loved to spend their time. We were made to roll on the mud and came out looking like spooks, people just looked the same whether one had been wearing white, blue or yellow. That was life at Nampundwe and how the new recruits were fooled into thinking that they were going to meet Dr Joshua Nkomo. From Nampundwe we were moved to Freedom Camp and I was part of the advance party of those that were taken to Angola for training at Boma. We were driven in yellow Cuban trucks that had come to Zambia to deliver supplies to the camps.
MS: Tell us about the training under the Cubans and what about your colleagues from Highlanders.
Cde Qondani: All the 13 of us and some of those Bosso juniors that followed us later were part of the first group of Zipra to be trained in Angola. The first group had more than 2 000 men. We had 12 companies and myself I was in company nine, which specialised in artillery. I was one of those who were thoroughly drilled by the Cubans in the use of Gun-75 and mortar 82mm. The training that we did in Angola under the Cubans is what is called advanced guerilla training. Advanced guerilla training is different from the usual guerilla war tactics in that instead of hitting the enemy and quickly withdrawing, you have to ambush and assault. Also the Cubans paid special attention to tactics.
At Boma they also set up an impressive gym where as recruits we lifted weights, everything was there. In no time all of us were muscular. Saba ngama monya.
To be continued next week
