The Sunday News
We continue our interview with Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired) Stanford Moyo pseudo name Cde Lloyd Zvananewako or Cde Mabhikwa who was in a unit of 13 that was deployed to the Zipra operational area later to be code named Northern Front Two (NF2) in January 1977.
The area covered districts such as Binga, Lupane, Nkayi and parts of Gokwe in the Midlands Province. In this instalment Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo tells our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) how they had to carry out political orientation on villagers before embarking on military action. Below are excerpts of the interview. Read on….
MS: Last time you were still talking about your deployment to Binga and Lupane with orders that you were going there to stay with the people. Take us through what happened.
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: The go and stay with the people operation unfolded this way. Our first port of call after crossing the Zambezi River was Magungu in the western part of Binga District. Unlike previous operations where we would cross from Zambia, carry out missions and go back, this time we started having more time with the people. We quickly noticed that the Binga people especially men were very secretive that they held us at bay from their families.
On this operation things changed, however. At the first homes in Magungu we did not get into the homesteads for the sake of security. Enemy movements were too much. As we moved deep towards Tinde we changed the approach, the commander of the unit, Cde Dwala put the unit to a hold and appointed two escorts and also chose Cde Driver as his deputy.
To the east lay homesteads along the Binga-Kamativi Road occupying both sides of the road. Cde Dwala ordered me to lead the unit towards the east. We moved and approached some homes on the western side of the road where we spoke to the villagers, asked them to prepare us food. We then left facing the eastern side of the road where we approached two homesteads and asked them to prepare us food as well.
We divided ourselves into three groups so that each of the three homesteads will take care of the food provision of each group. We did not want to burden one family with feeding us.
MS: At this stage you were doing political orientation of the masses, how were you doing it?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: When we got to Lupane and Binga in January 1977, the villagers had been told about ‘terrorists’ but had not seen one. The colonial regime propaganda was that freedom fighters were bad people, who will abuse their wives and girl children, all sorts of bad things were said about us. At that stage some if not a majority did not believe that we could win the war.
We had to do a lot of political orientation so that we win the hearts and minds of the masses. They had to be on our side.
The concept was to deal with one family at a time.
We would select a place near the home where we would talk to the old people away from the eyes of little ones as the latter had the potential to spread the news of our presence. We would be explaining to them the reason why we took up arms to fight the colonial regime.
There was a lot politicisation.
In about three weeks we had covered areas like Tinde, Manyamela, Chinegu and some far away areas like Lubimbi. We then moved further inside, going to Lupane District. Our first port of call in Lupane was at Dongamuzi an area where Binga and Lupane share a border. On the first day in Lupane, at around 10am we were refilling our water bottles along Dongamuzi River near the homestead of Chief Gumede when we heard cattle bells.
The cattle were moving towards the northerly direction which was leading to Binga where the pastures were good. We heard voices of herdboys speaking in iSiNdebele and we said to ourselves we are now in Lupane. We allowed the herdboys to pass and they did not see us. We spent the better part of the day there and late afternoon, the herdboys returned.
We approached them and asked where we were and they confirmed that indeed we were in Dongamuzi. We warned them against telling anyone about our presence.
We then followed the visibly terrified boys without them noticing that we were rightly behind them. When they got to their homes they penned the cattle and after about 30 minutes when it was becoming dark we moved into the homestead.
We moved into the boys’ home and two others nearby.
The commander’s team selected the first one. I moved in with the commander into that home without announcing ourselves. We moved towards the kitchen hut where we heard the boys telling their parents what they had seen in the bush, they were talking about us. We then burst into the kitchen. Everyone was shocked to see us, armed men, they had never seen guerillas before.
Everyone kept quiet for sometime until I commented. I said: ‘bafana thina singathi ungakhulumi, ungaqali, siyathutsha’. However, the commander greeted them nicely and comforted them. He said they could go ahead with what they had been doing.
We had some discussion for some time until the old man got relaxed and became confident that indeed we were real guerilla fighters.
MS: What was the old man saying?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: Among his children there were three boys who were ill with malaria. However, the way he put to us was that they were bewitched and pointed a finger at his neighbour. Our medicine man was ordered to attend to those boys. He gave them a one week course of malaria tablets.
We had enough malaria tablets and those for snake bites. After three days we returned to check on the condition of the boys and we found that they were recovering.
That is when we told the old man not to report to the guerillas that other villagers were practicing witchcraft. We told them that we were not after that, but fighting the colonial government. We said if we had followed what he had told us, then we could have killed an innocent person. After carrying out our mobilisation programme in Dongamuzi we proceeded to Mzola, also in Lupane.
MS: How was the reception at Mzola?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: When we got there we were told by the villagers that the headman and his village heads had been summoned to Lupane Centre by the settler regime and were returning in the afternoon by buses. We moved close to the headman’s homestead where we hid, we did not want his family to see us. He arrived around sunset.
While his family was welcoming him home, we also appeared, that was myself, Majority and Mercy (Stanley Ndlovu). He shouted at us for being naughty by getting into his homestead without permission. As we moved closer he was shocked to see the ‘animals’ he had been told about at Lupane District offices.
He started shivering from fear and we told him to be calm. He then ordered his family to prepare food for us. During our discussion he told us that he had summoned his subjects to his homestead the following day. We gave him the go-ahead so that he could tell them what the Rhodesian authorities had instructed them as traditional leaders to do. To us our job had been made easy. We then discussed the issue as a unit and came up with a plan to hijack the meeting and instead it be us to address the gathering.
MS: Take us through that meeting
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: Before the people converged on the headman’s home, we deployed our troops to the northern side of the place of the meeting. People came from all corners of Mzola, the old and young.
We waited until the meeting started, so while the headman was addressing his subjects we emerged from nowhere. We greeted the headman and instructed him to sit down. We greeted all the people. We then divided them into two groups, the old and the youth. I was then instructed to address the youth.
What a difficult task, I did not have anything on my finger tips to say, let alone I had during that time never addressed a meeting. What I knew was standing in front of people and giving patrol orders, not political statements at a rally. I stood in front of them, without a word for sometime. I then asked them to ask me questions on anything concerning us, the fighters.
All their questions and comments centred on how we could assist them cross to Zambia to join the armed struggle. I advised them how they could cut across the country and cross into Botswana, but they insisted on leaving that day with us to join the war. I took their concerns to other members of the unit.
MS: That’s interesting, what did you decide as a unit?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: After our discussion as the section it was agreed that we take the group of youths straight to Zambia across the Zambezi River. We addressed the youths after their parents had left the meeting. We made it clear to them that we wanted volunteers only, those who were not ready were excused and we remained with the volunteers.
Among us, six comrades trekked northwards and successfully crossed into Zambia with the youths without any incident. With the villagers now realising that their children had gone to war, they fully supported the war.
Meanwhile, we continued widening our area of responsibility to areas along Kana River, from the western tip to the eastern side, to areas of three borders, that is of Lupane, Gokwe and Nkayi districts. Now that areas had widened and we were satisfied with the political orientation of the masses, we started planning military action.
MS: The tell us about your first military action.
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: Our first mission was an ambush along the Siwale-Jotsholo. We had information that the District Assistants (DAs) to soldiers were going to Jotsholo or Lupane. The ambush was laid with a control mine planted at the centre of deployment, to hit a vehicle at a position which gave all the men good field of fire to the vehicle. The ambush was quickly abandoned when those who were deployed in the direction of the approaching vehicle warned that it was full of civilians.
We let the vehicle pass and later on in the evening we heard from the locals that the soldiers were in the vehicle, but were putting on civilian clothes to avoid being hit by us. We then decided to return to Binga to revisit our contacts, we wanted to be in touch with them. We planned to have our lunch in Dongamuzi at a village we had previously been, but the people had refused to cook for us in fear of a village head called kraal heads then, who was among those who had been briefed in Lupane about us.
However, when we addressed the villagers he was not there as his area was far away. Despite that we forced the people to cook for us. After that we discussed the issue, which we believed was not good for us. We felt we needed to nip that resistance in the bud. However, while we were in that sticky situation the commander failed to take decisive action on what we had to do.
MS: Faced with such a delicate situation, what was the general feeling of the troops?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: To be honest with you, we were divided. Some were of the opinion that the kraal head was setting a bad example of defiance and felt we should put him into a hut and set it alight then continue with our mission to Binga. However, others felt there was a need to politically orient him first to avoid a situation of starting to kill civilians. We then decided to vote. Seven voted to leave him alone for the time being while the other six voted for his immediate elimination.
MS: How did you vote yourself?
Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo: I was one of the seven at first but I quickly turned around and supported the six. We then separated and came up with our point where we were to meet the following day at Manyanda in Binga. My decision to support the six cost someone his life. I saw horror which I had not seen in my life. It haunted me for some time.
We moved to that man’s homestead and arrived there at around 7pm. We found him and his wife preparing to retire to bed.
To be continued next week with Lt-Col (Rtd) Moyo narrating how they dealt with the defiant village head.
