The Sunday News
Last week we spoke to one of the survivors of the Freedom Camp (FC) bombing by Rhodesian forces on 19 October 1978, Cde Cheops Nyathi pseudo name Cde Philip Fihlakele.
Cde Nyathi last week told our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) that when FC came under heavy aerial attack on that fateful 19 October 1978 it had ceased to be the Zipra headquarters as it had been turned into an agricultural enterprise and transit facility for combatants awaiting training. Cde Nyathi narrated how the camp was attacked, leaving hundreds of comrades who also included those of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, Umkhonto WeSizwe dead while others were also critically injured. Today he continues with his account of the bombing below. Read on . . .
MS: You speak about the attack with comrades running in all directions in a facility that did not have much vegetation to give them cover, what was happening to you in all that period of tension and death everywhere?
Cde Nyathi: As I said earlier the jets bombed first in a bid to soften the target and then came the helicopters who were actually doing the killing. As the situation got tense and tense with death everywhere the jets were flying low herding the comrades to the open ground so that the three helicopters would do their work of gunning the people down. Zazithinta abantu indege leziyana zize ziphose ziqume abantu ngempiko zazo (The helicopters were marshalling people to the open space and almost chopped some people with their wings).
As for me also in desperation I had made a run like everyone else but then just because of instinct took cover, but there was no cover at all, I just lay down on the field where the soil had been turned by the tractors as part of preparations for the cropping season. So I just lay on that spot waiting for my turn to be shot, but fortunately for other reasons the enemy forces did not see me or if they did they thought I had been shot dead as well. That is how I survived, ngangilele lapho okuphendulwe khona yi-tractor. I saw all that drama if you want to call it that. It was a bad scenario seeing people being gunned down while trying to flee from the enemy fire. The bombing might have taken 45 minutes but it seemed like the whole day. Some of us just survived through the Grace of God. Of course other comrades made a breakthrough from the camp and that is how they survived. There was also a trench which was constructed in a zig-zag way and some comrades jumped in there and hid.
MS: So what happened after the bombing?
Cde Nyathi: Scores and scores of badly mutilated bodies lay there. People died and many were crippled in that attack. Human flesh was strewn all over the place with the injured rushed to Makene Hospital and Zambia Teaching Hospital (ZTH). On that day Zambians, I mean even the ordinary people, left their business to come and assist in ferrying the injured to hospital. Business came to a standstill and our own leaders even rushed to FC to take control of the situation. It was a very, very bad day. What made the situation worse was that during the same hour the Rhodesians were also attacking Mkushi, a military facility for women where there was further damage.
MS: But don’t you think the Zipra command element failed to read the situation, how could they fail to properly provide security at FC?
Cde Nyathi: Like I have said before I don’t think there was laxity on our part because FC had ceased to be a proper military facility. What the Smith regime did was committing gross human atrocities against people who were defenceless.
MS: After the attack where were the survivors like you taken?
Cde Nyathi: The survivors were taken to different places like Nampundwe and CGT2 kuboSiboza emagojini. As for me and my four colleagues who had been waiting to train in intelligence, we were taken to the Zapu headquarters, Zimbabwe House (ZH) in Lusaka. From there we then moved to Moscow, which was the Zapu School of Intelligence located in Zambia. At Moscow I specialised in counter-intelligence and after training we served under Gordon Butshe, who was the National Security and Order (NSO) director of counter-intelligence. Cde Butshe after independence served in the country’s national intelligence service, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).
MS: Where were you deployed?
Cde Nyathi: I was deployed at a Zapu facility called Emasdale in Zambia where we used to keep an eye on party cadres who were attached to that place. Emasdale was mainly an administrative place as there was a lot of typing of crucial documents. So, myself and Cde David Mguni, also a graduate of the Moscow School of Intelligence we were always there, monitoring the situation and beneath our civilian attire we were always armed with pistols. I served there until the time of the ceasefire. When we returned home I went to Rikomichi Assembly Point in Mashonaland West Province. I was to move to Gwayi River Mine Assembly near Dete in Matabeleland North Province later on. I was then demobilised and joined the Bulawayo City Council Parks Department.
MS: Cde Nyathi, some people would like to know your background, where you were born and how you went to join the armed struggle.
Cde Nyathi: Okay. I was born on 5 May 1954 in Gwanda District, Matabeleland South. My rural home is in Gobatema and I attended the local school by the same name up to Standard Six. I left for the war after being harassed by a white man who had given me a piece job in North End suburb in Bulawayo. What happened is that the white man had given me that job to clean his yard and when the time to pay me came he set his dogs on me. My money was just 25 cents. By setting his dogs on me he was stopping me from demanding my money. I then made a vow to join the armed struggle so that I revenge and I left the country in the company of two brothers, Ishmael and Michael Ndlovu. We boarded a Pelandaba bus and our route was Gobajango-Bonong. In Botswana we were further taken to Selebi-Phikwe from where we were later airlifted to Lusaka International Airport.
MS: Then take us through your time in Zambia.
Cde Nyathi: Our first port of call in Zambia like everyone else was at Nampundwe Transit Camp and laphana kwakunga tshiphanga (it was not easy). When we got there, I was shocked to see all the people, I mean thousands of them looking like wild animals. We were given one blanket each and someone was asked to show us where to sleep and guess what it was, a place just under a tree. Then we were given food around 7pm, which was in a tin and the 15 of us, the new arrivals had to dip our hands in that isitshwala and beans. I was later chosen to undergo training at Mlungushi Camp and our instructors were Zambians. Our group was made up of 2 000 recruits and we were the first to undergo conventional military training unlike other comrades who had done guerilla warfare training.
MS: So how different we were you from those who had done guerilla warfare training?
Cde Nyathi: We were drilled into taking the enemy head-on unlike in a guerilla warfare situation where you hit the enemy and withdraw. Thina we were taught to engage the enemy feya feya, hold the ground and defend. However, after training three of us, myself, David Mguni and Shylock Mazolo we were chosen to go and join the NSO. From what I heard we were chosen because during training we had shown attributes of quickly understanding military issues. Although we were trained by the Zambians we also had senior Zipra commanders there like Gedi Ndlovu and Cephas Khupe.
