The Sunday News
ON 7 January 1965, the Chronicle led on its front page with a story headlined: MASSIVE AIR AND POLICE HUNT FOR 4 ESCAPERS, while the kicker read THREE OF THE JAILBREAKERS FACE CHARGES INVOLVING MACHINEGUN ATTACK ON RANCH.
Among the four was then 27-year-old Cde Moffat Hadebe pseudo name Cde Morris Dhlomo who with time has since assumed legendary status as one of the pioneer field commanders during the armed struggle. On that January of 1965 Cde Hadebe and his three colleagues, Cde Clark Ngiyo Mpofu who passed on in March last year, Cdes Keyi Nkala and Elliot Ngwabe had made a daring escape from Bulawayo Grey Street Prison now Bulawayo Prison by cutting a 2ft (60.96 cm) by 2ft.6in ( 79.248 cm) hole in the ceiling and crawling along the ceiling of another cell block until they reached the edge of the building, where the outside roof comes down to wall level.
According to the Chronicle story they then cut a hole through that roof, and jumped down into the garden of a prison officer’s house at the corner of Grey Street and Second Avenue. Their disappearance was discovered by prison officers at about 6.30am and police officers who rushed to the prison discovered the four combatants’ footprints and smashed flowers in the prison officer’s garden. A massive manhunt then swung into full swing with the colonial security officers deploying tracker dogs while by 8am security forces had thrown up rings of roadblocks, one around the City of Bulawayo and others in areas such as Gweru, Zvishavane, Figtree and Plumtree.
From there Cde Hadebe was to be given the responsiblity to command the joint ZPRA/Umkhonto WeSizwe Sipolilo Operation in 1968. After several attempts of trying to interview him and turning us down, the veteran freedom fighter finally agreed for an interview on Thursday last week where he spoke to our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) who was in the company of Chief Photographer, Eliah Saushoma. Cde Hadebe now 84 years old spoke about his early political activities which he said he developed in the capital, Harare where he was working for an advertising agency. By that time, he was a resident of Highfields, a hotbed of African nationalism. Below are excerpts of the interview. Read on . . .
Cde Moffat Hadebe
MS: Many people have said a lot about your exploits during the armed struggle, but who is Moffat Hadebe? Give us your background.
Cde Hadebe: First things first. I hope you are going to be accurate in capturing what I did during the war. I am not saying you newspaper people are writing lies, No. But I have read articles where there is a lot of exaggerations, people saying things that they never did. I am not saying I am a saint, but I have a big problem with people who deliberately distort history for their selfish ends. It’s either they exaggerate or deliberately omit important events.
Some even claim things they never did and that pains me a lot. We need to be accurate in capturing our history.
MS: That’s very unfortunate khulu. Maybe you can continue.
Cde Hadebe: Alright. I was born on 12 April 1937 at a place called Mawaza at what was then called Gwanda Tribal Trust Lands, which is Gwanda District in Matabeleland South. My area falls under Chief Mathe whose totem is Nyathi. There was still Chief Hwadalala, a family where my mother Dikeleda Nyathi belonged to. My father, Linda was from the Hadebe family, the same family Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo’s mother, MaHadebe came from. So, in other words mina laboJoshua Nkomo are related. I grew up in Mawaza and that is where I began my education from Sub-A up to Standard One. I then went to Tshelanyemba Mission for Standard Four, a Salvation Army institution in nearby Kezi (Matobo) District. For Standard Five to Six I was at Inyathi Bantu Boys Institute as it was called then. Now it’s Inyathi Mission. After Standard Six I enrolled for Form One at Inyathi, that is where I was until Form Two. I could not proceed as my father said he could not afford my fees.
After my Junior Certificate I came to Bulawayo where I worked at Bulawayo Clothing factory as a marker. I didn’t stay long there as I got a job as a conductor at the then Rhodesia Omnibus Company (ROC) now Zupco. It was during that time when the now late Taffi Moyo had a brush with the law in an issue related to gold. Moyo was then forced to sell three of his buses, two Albions and a Forden to ROC. Those buses were plying the Bulawayo-Mambale, Bulawayo-Kafusi and Bulawayo-Babirwa routes, the first being in Kezi and the last two in Gwanda. That is how ROC came into servicing rural routes as it had to later on start servicing the Filabusi area.
MS: During that time how was the political situation?
Cde Hadebe: There was open racial discrimination with black people boarding ROC buses to their places of residence at the Stanley Square in Makokoba while whites, coloureds and Indians had their terminus at the City Hall. During that time there were composite buses, those are buses that have separate compartments. Therefore, white passengers and black passengers did not mix. Whites had their own section which had comfortable seats like sofas while on the section of non-whites the seats were just benches. I was to resign from ROC after working there for between three and four years.
MS: Why, did you have any problems with your employers?
Cde Hadebe: All along I had been working on the buses that plied the black townships, so when the management told me that I had to move and work on the buses that plied the white residential routes I refused and offered to resign. I had a feeling that they wanted to fire me from my job, something did not add up.
MS: That was that and you were gone?
Cde Hadebe: Yes, I packed my bags in Bulawayo and headed for my rural home at Mawaza. Then while in the rural areas I was approached by a Mr Nyathi whom I called my uncle, he asked me to assist at his business as he owned Nkento Store, a general dealership. Among the chores I was asked to do was to mould bricks, carry river sand and other things at the shop. This was despite the fact that I was considered educated as I had gone up to Junior Certificate (Form Two). Since we were related Mr Nyathi did not consider me as his worker, however, he did something that was to change my life. He said I should get a driver’s licence as he owned a Bedford truck. He took care of all the costs towards getting my driver’s the licence. It so happened that after getting the licence, one Jeremiah Nyathi who came from my village advised me to go to Salisbury as Harare was called then to look for employment. Jeremiah himself was working there.
I did not think twice as it was normal during those days for even boys from Matabeleland to go as far as Salisbury to look for employment. Already working there from my area were people like Silabulawa Noko and Sam Mfakazi who was later on to become one of the senior commanders of ZPRA. In fact, there were many Gwanda boys working there. It did not take me long to get a job in Salisbury as soon I was to be employed by Dragon Films as a driver, which was an advertising agency company. That company used to produce adverts such as for Lifebuoy, cigarettes companies and other commodities.
It was during my time in Salisbury that I was to get involved in politics. Since I was staying in Highfields one could not escape the revolutionary spirit that had gripped our people. I was charmed by the political speeches of nationalists such as Leopold Takawira, Hebert Chitepo, the Malianga brothers, Morton and Washington, among many leaders of that time. We were still young and there was fire in our bellies. Some of the youths that I associated with at the time were people like Noel Mukono. Then something happened that saw me leaving Salisbury.
MS: Take us through that.
Cde Hadebe: There was a call for a shutdown, the nationalists called on the people not to report for duty at their places of work and we gladly obliged. When we returned to work, I was among those that were fired. I packed my bags and returned to my rural home in Gwanda and when I got there I was disappointed that political activity was dead. That was in 1960 and I was 23. There was no politics to talk about. However, I told myself that I had to do something, I had to lay the ground work for political activity, I did not want to back slide. I then saw a chance with the way the white veterinary officers were treating the villagers. I said to myself let me use that to organise my people. Let me create a grievance out of that as part of my mobilisation strategy.
MS: How were the veterinary officers treating people? Take us through that.
Cde Hadebe: I doubt whether those whites were really qualified veterinary personnel. However, what they used to do was that there would be days when they would demand that villagers bring their cattle to the local dip tank to check on diseases or even just to count the cattle, their foolish livestock census. On such occasions the villagers would start driving their cattle from their homes as early as 2am and guess what, the white man would take his time and even arrive there at 2pm. I then approached opinion leaders in my community to resist that.
I chose those I was to approach very carefully, I went for Lindani Ndlovu, Elijah Mguni, Brown Moyo, Sky Moyo and Shorty Moyo who was the father of Dr Mbuso Moyo, that veterinary officer from Gwanda who died with his entire family in a car accident not so long ago. Lindani had the ear of the community because he had a store. I said to them “badala let’s stop this nonsense of being treated like slaves by these white people”. They soon bought into my ideas, but when the word started spreading around, a majority of the people said I had lost my mind, bathi sehlanya umfana kaHadebe. Uzamani? What can he do against amakhiwa?
MS: Against such odds did you pull through?
Cde Hadebe: Listen. As anticipated word reached us that the white man was coming for a cattle inspection and that was my chance. As usual people drove their cattle to the dip tank and assembled there waiting for the white man. I had mobilised other youngsters that by the time the white man arrived all the cattle would have been driven away and its owners also having left the place. I went to the dip tank attendant and told him what I was planning to do, all those opinion leaders I spoke about had given me the go ahead that we should put our plan of resisting the Rhodesian government programmes into motion. What we were doing was our small way of sabotaging and resisting the colonial government at community level. I was working on the psychology of the villagers.
MS: That’s interesting, so what happened?
Cde Hadebe: I then realised that the white man might come early and that was going to affect my plan. Then at around 11am, I went to the herdboys and told them that let’s open the gates to the pens, ngathi azivulelwe. The young people were very excited and we drove the cattle away from the dip tank pens. Remember I had said if that white man came and started asking questions the dip attendant and his assistant should tell him that it was Moffat Hadebe who had ordered that the cattle be driven away and villagers return to their homesteads.
In my small way I had started the revolution at village level. As I had anticipated the white man arrived at the dip tank an hour after I had ordered that the cattle be driven away. I am told he was very, very angry when he found the people gone. Little did I know that I was a marked man now. Events of that day were to force me to skip the border into Botswana to join the armed struggle.
- To be continued next week with Cde Hadebe narrating how he ended up leaving the country to Botswana enroute to Zambia to join the armed struggle. Visit www.sundaynews.co.zw for a video of the interview with Moffat Hadebe.
