How cdes dealt with Selous Scout Mandevu

26 Mar, 2023 - 00:03 0 Views
How cdes dealt with Selous Scout Mandevu Charles Ndebele

The Sunday News

WE conclude our interview today with former ZPRA combatant Cde Charles Ndebele pseudonym Cde Victor Gasela. Cde Ndebele who served in the ZPRA 2nd Battalion has been telling our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) about how he joined the armed struggle in 1977, training at Mwembeshi in Zambia and Moscow Camp where he was trained in reconnaissance, surviving bombings at Foxhole where ZPRA forces brought down notorious Rhodesian combat pilot, Chris Dixon better known by his code name, Green Leader. Cde Ndebele was later on moved to Mlungushi where ZPRA was forming battalions and deployed in the 2nd Battalion which was under the command of Cde Zuba. He says Mlungushi came under relentless attacks from the Rhodesians and at times was bombed thrice a day as the enemy was bent on forestalling the formation of the ZPRA Brigade. When preparations for the final onslaught on the Rhodesians were put in motion, ZPRA deployed four battalions along the Zambezi River and Cde Ndebele said theirs, the 2nd was deployed at DK which faced Binga District. In the final interview, Cde Ndebele talks about how he survived an attack by the Selous Scouts. Below are excerpts from the interview. Read on . . .  

MS: You spoke about having deployed the battalions along the Zambezi River with yours stationed at DK, let’s continue from there.

Cde Ndebele: I was still talking about operations of  reconnaissance units that their role is to see, observe, record and analyse the situation and then report to the commanders. However, in doing all that they should not be seen as that would comprise the mission. Then on 24 December 1979, two days after the signing and declaration of the ceasefire at the Lancaster House in Britain, we encountered the Rhodesian Selous Scouts while we were on patrol. 

MS: Take us through that contact . . .

Cde Ndebele: A day before, at night we heard the sound of gunfire and then waited for daybreak to check what had transpired. I was put in charge of that squad and I took two recc officers and we left the two engineers who were embedded in our unit. The two recc officers were Cdes Nqobile and Tom whom we had trained but they had done conventional training at Mlungushi. While on patrol we got to some fields where we found villagers tilling their land. I was carrying binoculars and we decided to scan the environment. I saw  movements of people and they  were wearing the rice combat gear which we were being supplied by the Soviet Union. They were armed with AK-47s rifles and we decided to set up a counter-ambush for them. At first, we thought they were a friendly force although the military instinct kicked in and warned us that we should not take things for granted. We rushed and took up positions where we thought they would pass and indeed they got to our ambush. They were seven and not moving in a battle formation. As they were getting closer, Tom and Nqobile identified one of the seven as Mandevu whom they said they had trained together at Mlungushi. When they had entered our ambush we held them up. They complied and we got up and moved to where they were. They then asked us how many we were and on that note I sensed something queer. I said we were nine with others deployed in nearby bushes covering us. We also realised that something was not right when we noticed that these guys had a communication radio system, which among guerillas not conventional forces was very, very rare. At that point, their radio man or communications guy left as if he was going to relieve himself and took a long to return. While we were still coming to grips with the obtaining situation a spotter plane started hovering around. I don’t know how it happened but those guys started firing at us. The two colleagues of mine, Nqobile and Tom were shot point blank and died on the spot. In that ensuing confusion I tried to make a breakthrough but the enemy was trying to pin me down. They shot and missed with a bullet hitting the binoculars while another hit the butt of my AK-47. However, I managed to roll and come out of the enemy fire. I was using trees as cover and it was through sheer luck that I survived that attack.  In the ensuing fighting the Zambian villagers fled, leaving their cattle in yoke. To be honest I don’t even know how I managed to get out of the enemy fire. I walked a distance which could have been more than 10 kilometres to the main base to relay the message about what had happened.

Charles Ndebele (second from left) sandwiched between Stanford ‘Stix’ Mutizwa (left) and Ashton ‘Papa’ Nyazika after one of Black Rhinos’ many triumphs. On the right is former national team goalkeeper Japhet Muparutsa and midfielder Hamid Danha

MS: So this Mandevu fellow had gone through the ZPRA training and then turned himself into an enemy agent.

Cde Ndebele: It looks like Mandevu had all along been an enemy agent who had infiltrated our system, went through our training programme at Mlungushi. After he slipped through the system again he returned to his masters, the Rhodesians. He was a Selous Scout.

MS: Tricky. Then you were still talking about going to submit a report, let’s continue from there.   

Cde Ndebele: I made a report to the battalion chief of staff who was Cde Munda (Bernard Nyathi). He immediately called for the deployment of a unit to carry out a mop up operation. I was part of that unit, which was a mobile platoon made up of 30 comrades commanded by Jonathan. While on that operation we saw a helicopter landing and leaving. It was clear that it had been deployed to evacuate the Selous Scouts. We went to the spot of the contact and buried the two comrades. That incident happened on Christmas Eve of 1979 and it was a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement by the Rhodesians. 

MS: I suppose that was the last contact you had with the enemy as it was already the ceasefire period. From there on what happened?

Cde Ndebele: It was then announced that sesibuyela ekhaya. Our battalion then moved to Livingstone Town from where we were transported by train straight to Gwayi River Mine Assembly Point near Dete. We were the first to get to Gwayi River Mine. Myself I was in the advance team and that was January 1980. Then other battalions came later on to form a brigade at Gwayi. Not all comrades moved into the APs as some thought the Rhodesians were playing games and would launch raids on the APs. In our case we had comrades who remained on the ground in Tsholotsho and Bulilima districts. Those comrades had been operating there during the war. I am talking about these places because I was one of the people who were deployed to diffuse the potential explosive situation. 

MS: So how did you deal with that situation?

Cde Ndebele: I remember the now late Dumiso Dabengwa came to Gwayi and among those with him was Brigadier Mike Shute, who if my memory still serves me right had commanded the colonial regime’s One Brigade. Dabengwa addressed troops at Gwayi and said we should go and talk to our colleagues who were still in the bush. He didn’t say we should round them up by force but said we should dialogue with them. We were then deployed as a company to the Sipepa area of Tsholotsho. We were based at Sipepa Hospital which became our launch pad. We would get information from the povo on the whereabouts of the comrades and I tell you it was a job and-a-half to convince them to move to the APs. Those comrades were accusing us of being sell-outs and we had to do a lot of explaining to them. They were also questioning why we were being gathered in one area which they said was open to attacks from the Rhodesian forces. I was then moved to join another unit which was based at South Nata on the border between Tsholotsho and Bulilima districts to look for other comrades. We were based at the council offices. It was during that operation that Mandevu, the Selous Scout whom I spoke about earlier was caught.

MS: You mean the one who led to the death of your two comrades?

Cde Ndebele: Yes. A signal arrived that Mandevu had been caught while on his way to his rural home. I was at Nswazi in Bulilima near the border with Botswana when it was radioed that I should immediately get to Nata South where Mandevu had been caught. I was wanted there so that I could identify him as I was the person who had met him in close contact during that fateful day.

MS: So when you got to the scene did you manage to identify him as the person who was part of that Selous Scouts unit.

Cde Ndebele: I could not. 

MS: Why?

Cde Ndebele: The way the comrades had dealt with him made that difficult. They had re-arranged his features. Babemlungise okuzwayo. I told the comrades that in that state I was no longer sure whether it was him. His face had been deformed.

MS: What happened to him after that?

Cde Ndebele: I don’t know. I can’t say anything on that. Anyway we later returned to Gwayi River Mine. I was there until the integration period. I was attested into the Zimbabwe National Army at Llewellyn Barracks on 12 August 1980. After being  integrated with fellow freedom fighters from Zanla and the former regime we were moved to Guinea Fowl near Gweru where we were trained as part of the formalisation exercise of getting into the new army. From there I was posted to 2:2 Battalion in Mutoko which was under the command of now Major-General (Retired) Happyton Bonyongwe. His deputy was Cde Bhekuzulu, a comrade who had been the ZPRA’s deputy commander of our  2nd Battalion. From my former battalion during the war there was also Cde Gwanzura, he should be Lt-Col Gwanzura now in the ZNA. He was recruited from Manama Mission in 1977. I served at 2:2 until the formation of Black Rhinos Football Club when I was one of the five who were sent from Mutoko to go join Rhinos. I was the Rhinos’ first-choice goalkeeper at its formation until we recruited former non-combatants, especially from Caps United and Dynamos. We formed Black Rhinos with comrades such as the late Jerry Chidawa and Droment Chirowa who were ex-Zanla. Chidawa went on to become a lethal striker in then Super League. I ended up being the second choice goalkeeper to Japhet Muparutsa although I had started off as a winger before Shepherd Murape changed me to become the goalkeeper.

MS: You could have played football to a certain age, from football what were your other duties in the ZNA.

Cde Ndebele: After Black Rhinos I played for other army teams then went back to continue my career as a soldier. I retired from the army as a Warrant Officer Class One (WO1) in 2021. I had been a driver for the former Zimbabwe Ambassador to Mozambique, uGeneral Nicholas Dube, who is known in some quarters as Bhuzhwa. At the moment I am into farming on the outskirts of Bulawayo where I own a plot. I am doing justice to the piece of land which I got under the land reform programme. We fought for land.

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