The Sunday News
We continue our interview with former Zapu intelligence operative, Cde Gibson Mayisa. In the interview with Chronicle Political Editor, Nduduzo Tshuma (NT), Cde Mayisa last week spoke about how he got interested into politics while still a teacher in Kezi and later on working at a radio manufacturing firm, Supersonic in Bulawayo. He also spoke about how he eventually crossed the border into Botswana en-route to Zambia to join the armed struggle. Cde Mayisa picks today’s conversation while still in Botswana.
NT: You spoke about Lusaka being aware of your presence in Botswana, so take us through that period.
Cde Mayisa: One day after a month, a white man Peter Mckay arrived at the camp with Botswana police. He told us that he had been sent by James Dambaza Chikerema who was the leader of Zapu in exile to come and get us. Fortunately, there was another one, Tommy Ndebele from Kezi who had come from home and joined us in Francistown. He didn’t stay much at the camp because after a week the white man came with his Land Cruiser saying he had been instructed to come and get us as we were wanted in Lusaka. There was no proper road to Zambia from Botswana so it meant we had to pass through Rhodesia. The white man was advised that we drive to the Kazungula border where we would cross, we were also joined by South African comrades from the ANC. In Kazungula there was a transit refugee camp and we were kept there for two weeks. Before we crossed into Zambia, there arrived guerillas from Zambia who had undergone training, it was in 1966.
NT: Do you still remember them?
Cde Mayisa: Yes. That unit included Roger Matshimini Ncube, now Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube, Embassy and Gordon Butshe. They arrived at night and asked for food from the police and were told that there were their fellow countrymen at the camp. Butshe came to us and we prepared food for them and gave them. A week later, my brother and I were cleared to go to Zambia. We passed through Livingstone where Luke Mhlanga was and then proceeded to Lusaka by train. I was welcomed in Lusaka by Chikerema, Nyandoro, JZ Moyo, Edward Ndlovu, George Silundika, Dumiso Dabengwa, Agrippa Madlela, George Nyandoro among others. I was taken to Lilanda suburb, representatives of liberation movements lived in that suburb. The Zapu representative was Stephen Parirenyatwa and I stayed with them with Amos Jack Ngwenya. After some time I asked to be transferred to Kamwala but I didn’t stay long in that house as it was arranged that I go for training. I was summoned and told that I was being sent to the Soviet Union for special training along other comrades. I was appointed the leader of that group. I was told that I would go with six comrades and after us others would join us. I was taken from Kamwala to Zimbabwe House where I found five comrades and one of them was Artwell Bhokwe, Tyson Makhethwa, Reuben Dingane, Allen Muzanenhamo, another comrade called Japhet and myself. We went to the Soviet Union. We flew to Ndola then Dar es Salaam then Cairo and finally to the Soviet Union.
NT: How was the reception in the Soviet Union?
Cde Mayisa: We were welcomed very well, the only problem I had is that I was wearing summer clothes, that area is very cold mind you. We lived in a small place called Adintsov just outside Moscow. After two weeks, we were joined by a second group which had Mahathu, Gideon Mhlanga whose real name is Christopher Sibanda, he is at the Zanu-PF provincial offices in Bulawayo, he was young then. Others I can’t remember their names. Our training took nine months after which we returned to Lusaka in 1967, it was mid-1967 because we flew above the Middle East during the days of the Six Day War between the Jews and the Arabs. We arrived in Zambia, the plane that brought us left us in Ndola and we were meant to board a Rhodesia Airways aircraft to Lusaka but we refused to board it until the party sent Ethan Dube who took us to the train to Lusaka. When we got to the station, we were taken to a camp outside Lusaka, where we stayed there for a while as they organised operations into Zimbabwe. I was withdrawn after some time to work in Lusaka.
NT: When were you deployed for operations?
Cde Mayisa: My first operation was in reconnaissance in the eastern front. I was with Mbhejelwa Moyo and an ANC person called Steve for the Wankie and Sipolilo battles. We would go all the way to Feira doing reconnaissance. We went for a number of rounds and at one point we met a group from Zanla under Tongogara and John Mataure who were also doing reconnaissance. When we met them, we combined and went together. In one of the missions we stumbled on the Zambian soldiers who caught us and took us to their camp. They said “we are not arresting you but we want to protect you because the Rhodesians are here across the Zambezi River. We want to avoid a disaster so we will keep you overnight and then you will go to Lusaka the following day”. I was part of the reconnaissance team that gathered intelligence for the Sipolilo Battle, the fighters entered Rhodesia and we gave them directions on how to go. There were units from Zapu and MK of South Africa.
As they proceeded, we made our way back but before we crossed, the fighters made contact with the Rhodesians and the Rhodesians deployed fighter planes, some of them to the crossing point where we were meant to cross. We then went to a road close to the Chirundu Bridge and there was a gorge close by. We hid there the entire afternoon and spent the night there. The Rhodesians intensified patrols and we feared that soon the infantry would come. Mbhejelwa said we must risk and climb the bridge and cross. We were prepared to be shot but not captured. At around 8 we left the gorge and got onto the bridge on the Rhodesian side and walked on the main road. They watched us as we walked towards the Zambian side, as we got to the Zambian side, they started blowing whistles of alarm and fired shots. The Zambians took us back to Lusaka.
NT: That was close, take us through more of your operations.
Cde Mayisa: After that, I went to infiltration operations where we got our operatives into the country. My sector was the west and the first person I got into the country was Makhethwa then Moses Thusi. We then sent others through Malawi who were deployed to Mashonaland, in Malawi we didn’t know anyone or where to cross but fortunately there was a John Ndebele working for the railways. I went there and spoke to him and he agreed that he would facilitate the movement of our people. The first person we sent was Zodwa Mahlangu whom we had trained in Lusaka, John then sent her to Zimbabwe then the second was Reuben Dingane who was meant to go to Bulawayo. The third was Fani who was going to Salisbury as Harare was called then, the fourth was deployed to Mutare.
There were problems with Botswana as it was now a haven of Rhodesian spies so we couldn’t infiltrate people through Botswana. One day we risked, I took Tommy Ndebele to recruit a person who would assist to welcome people from Zambia to infiltrate them into Zimbabwe. We found a Nyathi who agreed to help us and when I returned to Lusaka the first person we sent through Botswana was Mahatu then the second one was a locally trained woman. The objective was to prepare for a war that was coming. The combatants were ready to enter Rhodesia to fight and one of them was that group that went to Hwange. The infiltrated personnel were not going to fight but to gather intelligence in preparation for the battles.
From 1969, there was a crisis emanating from the Zapu leadership and that crisis derailed the struggle and stopped operations. The last operation had been Sipolilo.
NT: Did you play any role during the internal problems in Zapu?
Cde Mayisa: I was tasked to collect documents where Chikerema suspended some members of the executive and appointing others as well as unbundling the military command and appointing others. We had all those papers including those written by JZ Moyo and Silundika disputing what Chikerema had done. We had all those documents. Dabengwa tasked me to take those documents to Rhodesia to Joshua Nkomo who was detained at Gonakudzingwa. I flew to Kasane then Gaborone and Francistown. It was not easy entering Botswana.
I recruited a man called Moyo from the church. I asked him to do reconnaissance for me to map the way I would use. He came back and gave me directions. Sydney Malunga had been released from Gonakudzingwa and Jane Ngwenya was at her house in Mpopoma, initially we thought of phoning them but later decided otherwise. We then agreed to contact the Matiwaza family that had businesses in Bulilima after the border. We sent a message to Benene Matiwaza to create a path for us which he did, he also sent a uniform and hat for bishops for me to wear and would meet me in Bambadzi. I entered the country as a Bishop all the way to Bulawayo where I met Malunga, Jane and Bango.
I briefed them on what was happening in Lusaka and discussed how we could send those documents to Nkomo. It was agreed that we send the documents through MaFuyana. She came back after three days with a verbal response where Nkomo said, “I sent you to Lusaka to prepare to wage the war of liberation and the person I placed in charge is Chikerema so you must follow what he says because he represents me.” When I went back to Lusaka, JZ refused and said we are at war and we will not allow Chikerema to sell our strategies to the British by taking them to our crossing points for their television programmes. The Zambian government had also taken some time to react so Dabengwa suggested that we arrange a meeting with the military commanders and in consultation with Zambia to try and bring the warring parties together.
NT: Did you succeed in that regard?
Cde Mayisa: We did that and spoke to JZ and he agreed to the plan. We went to Chikerema who insisted that he had taken a decision. One of the commanders was Cephas Cele whose cousin Aaron Milner was the Minister of Home Affairs under Kaunda. Milner’s mother was a MaCele and he was born in Thorngrove in Bulawayo. Cele spoke to Milner who agreed to meet us. JZ said Dabengwa, Akim, myself, Cele and Bhokwe should go and brief Milner about the problem they faced and ask Zambia to help unite warring parties.
Milner told us that there was a problem in Zambia as there was a fight in the Zambian government as the Vice-President Kapwepwe was breaking away from Kaunda and the suspicion was that he had spoken to a number of foreign countries and some liberation movements in Zambia so that they stage a coup so it was hard for them to intervene but promised to talk to Kaunda. After some days Milner said Kaunda had said we must stop our initiative and that he would try to talk to Nkomo about the issue. I do not know if he managed to talk to Nkomo but there came a time when some forces in the military arrested JZ and other session leaders but left Chikerema and Nyandoro.
I was one of the people arrested. I had my residence in Kamwala, it was a secret location where I worked. The boys who came to arrest me were Livingstone Mashengele, Joshua Mahlathini Mpofu, Cain Mathema and Phongwana and some young boys. They collected me from Kamwala, they didn’t harass me, they took me to where JZ was with Dabengwa. Dabengwa was injured. The struggle stopped because of that problem. That time created political rifts between Chikerema and JZ. The Zambian government brought us together with the boys that had arrested us and the warring parties at Mboroma Camp.
What I learnt is that there was so much political enmity between the JZ group and that of Chikerema. After Mboroma we went to Chakwenga where the Zambian government took us after Chikerema had declared that he was leaving Zapu to form Frolizi. Discussions were made on what really was the problem was within the party and it was concluded that it was because the party had no direction as far as the armed struggle was concerned. That was created by a lack of a straight ideological programme as we were just fighting without a concrete plan on what to do next.
It was decided that the country would be taken through a revolutionary change that required an ideology and the ideology we adopted was a socialist one. A conference was held of those who were left in Zapu to discuss on ways to handle the struggle. That is when the Proxy Document was adopted which I think also caused problems.
In the last instalment next week Cde Mayisa discusses the kidnapping of Zapu intelligence chief Ethan Dube and the assassination of JZ Moyo.
