The Sunday News
Orbituary by Andrew Ndlovu
I re-united in the jungles of Lupane District in January 1978 with Cde Sydney Saul Dube pseudo name Sandlana Mafutha who passed on, on Monday last week at Mpilo Central Hospital, Bulawayo.
He was buried on Friday last week at the Bulawayo Provincial Heroes Acre in Nkulumane. Lupane fell under the ZPRA operational area code named, Northern Front 2 (NF2).
I had first met Mafutha in Francistown, Botswana in 1975 when we were recruits and I was just a teenager seeking freedom for my country. Mafutha was coming from South Africa with three other comrades where they had been working. They were injivas, imgoli.
We had to go through military training together as part of the famous group of 800, first at Mwembeshi in Zambia, Mgagao, and finally at Morogoro in Tanzania. After our training at Morogoro I was part of cadres who were sent to the Soviet Union for further training while Mafutha was deployed to the front for operations.
When I got to Lupane in January 1978 commanding a unit of 140, previously having operated in the Lake Kariba area I found that Mafutha had worked very well to mobilise peasants to understand the liberation struggle and the support was very good.
At that point there was no “misunderstanding” between him and the ZPRA High Command in Zambia.
The misunderstanding might have started after Mafutha had come up with a document called the Regional Emblem which stood as a code of conduct to discipline guerrillas who were harassing the peasants.
Mafutha had obviously crafted the document without permission from the ZPRA Headquarters in Zambia and that put him on a collision course with the commanders at the rear. It was at that point that he was accused of refusing to take orders from the High Command or at worst of being a “renegade”, something he was far from being.
In fact, some few comrades who were fresh from deployment from Zambia did not understand what a Regional Emblem was especially those who feared war and when they returned to Zambia in order to protect themselves after failing to withstand the heat at the front, they used the word emblem as a ruse to set up Mafutha against the High Command.
Mafutha had been launched by the High Command in January 1977 with a clear mission and he never deviated outside that. Some comrades deployed from the rear came with orders to force Mafutha who had seen battle to submit to them and if he refused they were told to shoot him, but when they got to the front they were shocked to find him as a “people’s general”.
They ended up testifying to him what they had been told at the rear. Anyway, who could have dared him. Besides being heavily built, Mafutha was never a military or political novice. He was an epitome of a streetwise individual.
As his issue with the High Command spiralled, Mafutha decided to go and face the High Command in Zambia and that was in October 1979. I was one of the fighters, in fact front commanders he picked to go with him to Zambia. We were about 15 and other comrades were Makwiramiti, Jijiji, Mpunzi, Mackenzie just to mention but a few.
Of, course we had made an attempt to go to Zambia earlier but information brought by some comrades from the rear delayed us as they would say to Mafutha “if you go to Zambia you will be attacked by the comrades deployed along the Zambezi River.”
According to them those comrades had strict orders not to allow Mafutha to proceed to Lusaka. So, when we crossed to Zambia we expected to be attacked but we were surprised by the heroes’ welcome we got from the comrades deployed along the Zambian border.
They sympathized with us and said to us “macomrades our struggle has been infiltrated. We didn’t expect to see you guys coming back to Zambia because a lot has been said about Mafutha.” They supported the idea of us meeting the Zipra High Command so that whatever allegations were there against Mafutha they were dealt with.
We then moved into another base further inside Zambia and the following day the now late ZPRA Political Commissar, Colonel (Retired) Richard Dube whose pseudo name was Gedi arrived at the base and took with him Mafutha, Jijiji and Mpunzi to the Zimbabwe House in Lusaka where a meeting to clarify all the “burning” issues was held.
Though our group remained at the base, we decided to follow after suspecting that they might “frustrate” Mafutha in Lusaka. When we got to the Zimbabwe House, occupants there ran away from us maybe because of our bush dressing or they might have been told about our unit from the front that we were not good people.
To be honest we looked like “real terrorists”, abantu abadla amakhiwa. Our condition suited the war we were in. We did not look like town fellas.
The behaviour of the staff at the Zimbabwe House did not even bother us as we concentrated on our mission.
One comrade came to us and said he had been sent by the commanders to advise us not to worry about Mafutha and the other two. He said there were arrangements to transport us to JZ Camp and that we should hand over our weapons.
In no uncertain terms we refused to be disarmed and show courtesy to people who did not trust us and we responded by saying, “we have not come to Zambia to stay but to report our operation battles and return to Rhodesia to command the war.”
That comrade left us and never came back because from our faces, he could tell that we had come from the war front, we had no time to waste. We were battle hardened. We only acceded to be driven to JZ after we had spoken to Mafutha and on realizing that the three of them were safe.
The meeting then took off well between the High Command chaired by Secretary for Defence, Cde Ackim Ndlovu who was in charge since the President, Joshua Nkomo was attending the Lancaster House Conference in Britain.
In the process, ZPRA Chief of Operations, Cde Enock Tshangane (late Retired Major-General Jevan Maseko) reacted badly towards Mafutha saying he would not talk to him because all along he had failed to show respect to the High Command by refusing to take orders from them.
Mafutha being Mafutha did not waste time and hit back. He said if Tshangane was the Chief of Operations which he claimed to be then he should tell the meeting on the number of times he had been to the front to assess the situation instead of relying on situational reports from others. Tshangane was dumbstruck.
The two had a go at each other with unpleasant words exchanged. Cde Ackim Ndlovu then said to Cde Tshangane, the President who is the ZPRA Commander-In-Chief, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo had said the High Command should talk to Mafutha and the one who will refuse was then a renegade himself.
The meeting whose minute taker was now the late Brigadier-General (Retired) Patrick Mhandu continued with tempers high, in fact with Tshangane and Mafutha being the emotional of the two. At some point Mafutha reminded Cde Tshangane of his mission when he deployed him to the front and went further to tell Tshangane that his unit was instructed to remain in the operation area and wait to be called back to Zambia by the High Command and this was exactly what he had done.
Mafutha challenged Tshangane to show evidence that he was a renegade. Mafutha went further to clarify the issue of a regional emblem and told the High Command that some comrades who had been launched to the front were not political mature as some of them harassed the peasants who fed and dressed us well. The peasants were also playing a big role in providing intelligence to the guerrillas on the activities of the Rhodesian forces.
Mafutha also spoke about the hardships guerillas at the front were facing such as poor supplies. Hence the regional emblem was a simple code of conduct to discipline guerrillas who thought an AK-47 was bigger than the people.
All the allegations that had been levelled against Mafutha were then dropped. They had come from cowards who had run away from the front to pave way for their safety or from armchair guerilla leaders.
Mafutha also spoke with Dr Nkomo through the phone as the latter was at Lancaster House. Dr Nkomo’s words were: “Sengithembe lina ekhaya, stand where you are, at the rear things are not well”.
In November we returned to Rhodesia with a contingent of 130 well-armed guerrillas. Over the years I had remained in contact with Cde Mafutha as at times we will socialize together or if at his rural home in Kezi call him.
The writer, Cde Andrew Ndlovu was ZPRA zonal commander in the NF2 region, which covered districts such as Lupane and Nkayi. His pseudo name was Cde Volunteer Mkhwananzi or Commando.
