Dissidents activities relived

IN probably a first, a former dissident who took up arms against the Zimbabwean Government soon after independence during the civil unrest in the country has come out in the open and laid bare their activities.

Although the name Phumuza Ndlovu might not ring a bell among the 113 dissidents who were pardoned by the Government in 1988 following the signing of the Unity Accord on 22 December 1987 between then State President, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe who was also the leader of the ruling Zanu-PF and the now late Vice-President, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo who was the leader of PF-Zapu.

However, in his own words Cde Ndlovu said he was the dissidents’ chief of logistics. Cde Ndlovu operated under the pseudo names, Mbulali Nare, Donki Itshekile and Mdzwengi. On Tuesday last week our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) made up a follow-up interview with Cde Ndlovu and caught up with him at a mine in Gwanda District where he is working and he spoke extensively about the dissidents’ operations and how the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) accounted for some in their ranks such as Castro and Danger in the Matopos area.

Below are excerpts of the interview. Read on . . .

MS: Last week Cde Ndlovu you spoke about leaving your home in Wenlock and going to disarm a security guard at a local farming area, so please take us through your first steps as a dissident.

Cde Ndlovu: Like I said last week I became a dissident as it was no longer safe to continue serving in the ZNA, so it was a self-preservation mechanism against death, I felt I could be killed anytime. Being arrested was something else, I knew that like other ex-Zipras I could be arrested anytime and be killed for that matter. So, we set off with other local ex-combatants who were my neighbours. That was myself, Ntubeni, Clive and Sayijeni.

We were not armed by then. We were going to meet others who were coming from Nkayi, seven of them. The gathering point (GP) was Gwandavale in the upper north of Matobo District. We gathered near the Dula shrine, but that had nothing with beliefs. That was November 1982, but I can’t remember the exact date. Among the group of seven from Nkayi, only four were armed.

They had three G3s and an MMG machine gun. Castro was a guerilla who had trained at CGT during the armed struggle and had deserted from his unit in Manicaland where he had been a commissioned officer. Those seven had stolen the weapons from a camp near St Luke’s in Lupane. From there we started carrying out operations with the primary aim of securing firearms for some of us who were not armed.

MS: Then how did you get the weapons?

Cde Ndlovu: That is when we raided the farms and disarmed the guards there. We also moved into chiefs’ homesteads as some were armed and grabbed their guns.

MS: Do you mean to say you did not have arms caches somewhere?

Cde Ndlovu: No. We did not have any. All the weapons we got through raids. We also attacked police officers moving in small groups and that is where we got amaG3s and FNs. Those police officers would have been assigned guard duties such as escorting Government vehicles and they would either be two or three of them.

MS: Tell us about one of your first raids as a dissident.

Cde Ndlovu: It was at koMkhawulo in 1983 just after Mayezane here in Gwanda District and villagers had tipped us off that there were three police officers who were always seen aboard a Super Godlwayo bus that would be travelling from Gwanda Town to the area.

Those policemen had been assigned to escort the bus in case it was raided by the dissidents. So as told by the villagers, five of us went to a bus stop koMkhawulo and waited for that bus. The bus as usual stopped at the bus stop. Aboard that bus was one policeman who had been assigned to go and do guard duties at Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo’s farm, this nearby Makwe Ranch.

It was in the afternoon around 3pm. That policeman had his bicycle, rations which included mealie-meal and of course his rifle. Among the five of us was the section commander, Jamaica and platoon commander, Khanye. We ordered everyone out of the bus. We told the policeman that since he was armed he could do whatever he liked but he just froze.

He ended up asking us ukuthi enzeni thina sathi yenza okukwanisayo. Sathi dubula nxa ukwanisa but he had no guts to do that. He eventually disembarked from the bus and one of us dashed onto the bus and collected his belongings. We then ordered the driver to drive off while we took his handcuffs and cuffed him. We then force-marched him into the mountains.

MS: Aaah so what did you do to him?

Cde Ndlovu: We subjected him to serious interrogation for four days and during those days he was pleading for mercy. He was asking us not to kill him, but on the fifth day after being satisfied with what he had told us samphelekezela ezulwini (executed him).

Sahlala laye four days wafa ngelanga lesi fayifi. In those days the security forces were all over trying to locate us. They had covered the area from Dula to Njelele, but they failed to locate us as we had chosen a very strategic spot in the mountains, we had concealed ourselves well.

MS: Dissidents were seen as people who were fighting for Zapu, why did you kill that policeman when he was going to provide security at Nkomo’s farm?

Cde Ndlovu: We did not buy the story that he was genuinely going to guard Nkomo’s farm. To us he had his own mission of spying on Nkomo. In actual fact Nkomo had enough bodyguards around him. Police officers such as the one we killed were keeping an eye on the farm with the hope of discovering arms cached there.

MS: From there what happened?

Cde Ndlovu: Now we could ambush security forces vehicles targeting especially small cars. We once attacked a security service Land Rover driven by an officer called Donga who had three youths in his car. We ambushed him at Chief Sigombe Mathema’s area. One of the boys was treated at Mtshabezi Mission Hospital after being injured in that attack. We told him that he should go to the hospital and tell the health staff there that he was in a car that was attacked by dissidents.

As for Donga I don’t know what happened to him but the villagers saw his car driving away. Thina we wanted to prevent him from taking those youths to the camp, we did not attack the car as our mission was to rescue the three youths. We were prepared to kill them because we did not want them to give crucial information to the security officers as that could have spelt trouble.

So, in 1985 we hit two small cars, one at Silobini and the other at Mahlabathini. In one of the incidents, we almost hit the now late businessman, Tafi Moyo. He almost got into our ambush because his car and that of the security officers were following each other. EkaTafi was ahead of the one of the security services. From that incident we got away with a weapon from the man who was driving that car.

MS: There is this theory that those ex-Zipras who became dissidents were people with a poor political judgment or in some cases young people then who had not seen battle at the front during the war. How far true is that?

Cde Ndlovu: It’s not true. What do you say of Magadlela (Tennyson “Thambolenyoka” Ndlovu). Magadlela was a dissident despite the fact that he was a senior Zipra instructor during the armed struggle. I think he was also in Mozambique during Zipa. Of course igenge enengi besizi trenela (majority of the dissidents were people whom we trained ourselves).

For example Gayigusu. He came from his home area in Filabusi and we trained him during the dissidents activities. However, Gayigusu during the war of liberation was in Botswana enroute to Zambia. He could not proceed to receive military training in Zambia because of the ceasefire.

MS: What was the role of the Zapu structures in the dissidents activities?

Cde Ndlovu: It was not all out there for everyone to see that they supported us but they (party structures) knew that we were around. Kwakusazakala ukuthi sikhona. They supported us, if we did not have the support of the villagers we were not going to survive. They fed and clothed us, the reason being that the security forces were not friendly to the villagers as well.

MS: But you also targeted ex-Zipras.

Cde Ndlovu: Those in the army were just like any Gukurahundi soldier. We viewed them as sell-outs.

MS: What about those who were not in the army, I am told they were also at the mercy of you guys, the dissidents.

Cde Ndlovu: You are now confusing us with Super Zapu dissidents, those that were sponsored by the apartheid South African government. Those ones during their operations were totally against former Zipra combatants. They killed quite a number of people.

Just here at Conemara in Gwanda we came across them, they were 11 while we were five and they tried to give a signal or password, but we were not familiar with it. We told them who were but they just took to their heels, leaving us surprised. We later encountered them at Tshoboyo where we had contact and they killed two of our comrades leaving the three of us.

A few days down the line we had another contact with the same Super Zapu dissidents koSigombe where they captured one of us. They took our comrade to Mtshazo Business Centre where they executed him, his grave is still there and villagers can show you. So, in a few days they had accounted for three of our comrades.

To be continued next week