The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
This is the second and final instalment on the role played by the late Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu in Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence. Ndlovu, born on 23 September 1934 at Dombodema Mission run by the London Missionary Society (LMS) where his father worked, attended primary school at the same mission, in the Bulilima-Mangwe District before proceeding to the Catholic-run Kutama Mission for secondary education. For some time he served as a temporary teacher, in 1954 and also from 1957 to 1959.
The second period coincides with the rise of nationalism in Zimbabwe when the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) was established on 12 September 1957 at a time when it rode on the inspiration provided by Ghana’s independence under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah. That was the period too when the SRANC was proscribed by the Edgar White-led Government when it instituted the Emergency Powers Regulations, banning the political movement and incarcerating its leadership in various prisons in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), notably at Khami Prison.
Ndlovu was engaged by Professor Richard Webner as a research assistant in Social Anthropology. Webner was working on the social history of the Bango people in Mangwe District. The culmination of the research work, spanning two periods, was the publication of a book titled, Tears of the Dead. It was this work that gave Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu immense knowledge of the history and cultures of the BaKalanga people. He became the undoubted fundi on that front and I would, over decades, tap into his vast knowledge.
I would later meet Professor Richard Webner at Oxford University in the United Kingdom during the Britain Zimbabwe Society (BZS) Research Day where I was privy to hilarious snippets on Ndlovu’s life in Hwange prior to moving into exile in Zambia.
Between 1961 and early 1964 he worked as a journalist for the African Daily News. It was at the time when nationalist agitation was radicalising. The political movement was demanding one man one vote. The more radical National Democratic Movement (NDP) had come into being on 1 January 1960. The armed struggle was in its nascent stage. Military weapons had, in that period, been smuggled into the country and the first shots fired at Zidube Ranch in Mambale by a group under Moffat Hadebe.
By early 1963 most of the nationalist leaders had been released from house arrest in their rural homes. Jack Amos Ngwenya and Willie Dzawanda Musarurwa proceeded to Zambia to facilitate the opening of Zapu offices in that country which was on the eve of independence.
Dr Joshua Nkomo and James Robert Dambaza Chikerema went by train to meet with Gore brown in Zambia on the same mission-setting up Zapu offices in Lusaka. Following the holding of the meeting at the Cold Comfort Farm from 10 August 1963 a decision taken then was implemented. Many Zapu cadres went out of the country in order to execute the armed liberation struggle. Chikerema was to become the head of the external wing of Zapu.
Among the Zapu officials that left for Tanganyika was Tarcisius George Silundika (TG) who was then in charge of the Information and Publicity Department at National Executive level. Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu went to spearhead the development and operations of that department in Zambia. Ndlovu was well-placed with his journalism qualifications to champion the development of the fledgling department.
The department had been initiated by TG in Tanganyika and one of its early products was the publication of the Zimbabwe Review, a magazine which became the mouthpiece of Zapu. The first issue appeared in September 1963. It was the arrival of Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu which put the Zimbabwe Review on a solid footing.
That coincided with the move from Tanganyika to Lusaka. Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu became the editor-in-chief for the monthly publication which was being published in Lusaka. It soon became a monthly publication which was produced as and when possible in Dar-es-Salaam, Cairo, Algiers, and later in London. The Afro-Asian Solidarity
Movement underwrote production costs. There came a time when the paper was printed in the GDR where Albert Ndindah Magaisa received a copy of the paper and facilitated its printing. A small department under TG included Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, John Tsimba, Philip Ngwenya, Jerry Mdluli and Joel Mahlangu.
Then came the period when Zapu reorganized following the death, in a parcel bomb, of Jason Ziyapapa Moyo. Dr Nkomo and fellow nationalist leaders moved to Lusaka to take direct charge of the liberation movement. Two sections in the Information and Publicity Department were created. The Information and Publicity section was headed by Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu. The section had three components: printing which was headed by James Manguni, the editorial unit under Raymond Takavarasha and the circulation unit under Jerry Mdluli.
The second section was fronted by Lazarus Mpofu who worked with Lovemore Gondo, Shully Mashingaidze, Isaac Donald Mswelaboya Sibanda, Joseph Masuku, and Jameson Mthethwa.
By then TG was poised to fulfil the objects of the department, namely to inform, educate and counter the propaganda from those opposed to the liberation struggle. From 1971 Zapu embarked on the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. The new political leanings of the party were encapsulated in the document titled, “Zapu’s Political Ideology and Political Program.”
The Information and Publicity section was tasked with the dissemination of information to military camps. The department was also the vehicle for the dissemination of the new ideology that the political movement was pursuing.
The library at the University of Rhodesia (now the University of Zimbabwe) also received some copies.
When the nationalists arrived in Lusaka it had to be seen they were in charge of the political party. That took the form of scattering the Zapu personnel that hitherto had been in charge of the party’s external affairs and constituted the nucleus of J Z Moyo’s leadership. Many people were assigned to the positions of Party Representatives in various countries. Among those that were reassigned were Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, Easter Ndiweni, Report Mpoko, Edward Mhambi, Gordon Munyanyi (Terror Man) inter alia.
Gwakuba was posted to Algiers in Algeria where he was in charge of a number of countries including Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad, Saharaoui, Spain, Portugal, France Belgium, Netherlands, and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Gwakuba’s role in the new post was to represent Zapu at the various international bodies such as the Organization for African Unity (OAU), Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO), the United Nations and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). It was at that time that he attended several meetings relating to his journalism profession in various countries such as in the Czech Republic, North Korea, the Soviet Union, Federal Republic of Germany, DRC, Cuba, Italy, Cambodia and India.
In 1979 he and Dr Barnabas Dzingayi Mutumbuka undertook a lecture tour to Canada at a time when the two political movements Zapu and Zanu had established the Patriotic Front (PF). Their mission was to advise the
Canadians on the position of the Patriotic Front regarding its vicious opposition to the sellout political arrangement that had been set up in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia under the sham government of Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa.
Once the Lancaster House Talks had been successfully concluded and the ceasefire instituted, it was time to return home.
Saul, like many others who had lived in exile fighting for the independence of the Zimbabwean people, packed his bags with lots of books and returned home.
He died on 16 July at a Bulawayo hospital.
