The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi, Sunday News Correspondent
TODAY we look at other means of transport that were made use of during the liberation struggle. We shall, in future, deal with how injured guerrillas were taken care of in the operational zones. But today we focus on the wheelbarrow and its role. Generally, in most rural homes there are wheelbarrows that villagers make use of to carry various items. Hardly would one think about the role wheelbarrows played in the war of liberation.
We cite one case where the single-wheeled form of transport was used. MaSiziba lived at Solewa Line near Chief Sivalo’s place in Nkayi District. The war of liberation had reached the area in 1976. The said area is towards Somakandana. MaSiziba kept a steel trunk in which there were medicines that were used to treat injured guerrillas. She worked with a team of villagers and medics from ZPRA. The villagers had been organised into branches within which there were areas of specialisation, including liaison between villagers and guerrillas.
The one active component was that of the youth comprising both boys and girls. They acted as the link between guerrillas and villagers. Their role was, among others, that of providing intelligence to the fighters. In this article we are not dwelling on the functions of the youth in general within the operational zones as our thrust is focusing on transport. In one encounter a guerrilla was injured. The youth obtained a wheelbarrow and took the guerrilla to MaSiziba’s homestead where the guerrilla was treated. However, the youth made sure the injured guerrilla did not live at one homestead for the duration of treatment and recuperation.
An injured guerrilla was moved from village to village so that information would not readily get to the District Assistants (DAs) who assisted the Rhodesian army in guiding them around as some of them were locals. For example, in the Sivalo area, there was Mangqala Khumalo and Chief Sivalo’s son Bhululu, who is the incumbent Chief Sivalo. Whenever there was need to transport injured guerrillas donkey drawn scotch carts and wheelbarrows were made use of.
Airplanes were used during the war, particularly in transporting recruits from Francistown or Selebi Phikwe to Lusaka Airport on transit to Nampundwe Camp. Nampundwe had originally been a Zanla Camp and when they left, ZPRA took it over, not as a training camp but a transit camp from which cadres were taken to training camps in Zambia and beyond. From Nampundwe, some went to Angola where they were then training in regular warfare. Others went to various camps such as CGT1 and later CGT2. For regular army training they went to Mlungushi while the officer cadets went to Kohima.
Airplanes were boarded by qualified cadres who had done initial training in Zambia and were now proceeding to overseas countries for advanced training. Many went to the Soviet Union, Somalia, Ethiopia and many other countries where there was specialisation, in particular when ZPRA was preparing for the initiation and implementation of the Turning Point Strategy. In the initial stages of the struggle airplanes were boarded in Dar-es-Salaam en route to Cairo, Accra, Moscow, Algiers and other destinations. There were people such as George Silundika, Joshua Nkomo, James Chikerema, JZ Moyo and Edward Ndlovu who boarded airplanes to negotiate for training facilities in friendly countries and to get medical supplies especially when the Rhodesians launched cross-border raids on camps in Zambia(Freedom Camp), Mkushi, Solwezi and Victory Camp) and Angola as from September 1978.
Ships were used by countries that provided arms to ZPRA. The big ships docked in Dar-es-Salaam. Various liberation movements sent their representatives to identify and collect weapons such as the PPSHs. From Dar-es-Salaam the weapons were driven to Mbeya and onward to Tunduma on the border with Zambia. Retired Colonel Thomas Ngwenya who is now unwell cites the long and several journeys he travelled to collect arms from Dar-es-Salaam and deliver them to Lusaka as the cause of his health challenges. There were other cadres that drove the long distance to collect the weapons such as Danger Sibanda and Abraham Nkiwane.
Lorries such as the Soviet Zil were used in the transportation of cadres to destinations such as Angola. Several trucks travelled the long distance from Nampundwe to Boma where regular army training took place. Trucks also transported recruits from Nampundwe to other camps such as Kohima, Mlungushi, CGT1 and later CGT2, FC and others. The trucks also ferried some who were moving to the gorges en route to the front after crossing the treacherous Zambezi River at several crossing points such as DK.
Inside Rhodesia lorries played an important role. We can cite the unsung hero of our struggle Tafi Zibuya Moyo who used his truck to collect weapons from near the Zambezi River to the southern part of the country. He disguised his truck as carrying pigs, the business that he engaged in. Below the pigs, within pig excreta there were concealed weapons. The Rhodesians hardly suspected there was contraband together with smelly pig shit.
Lorries were used to ferry recruits abducted from Elmos Ncube’s wedding at Sankonjana in 1977. The trucks that had brought the wedding party were turned into transport to ferry would-be recruits to somewhere near the Shashe River en route to Bobonong, Selebi Phikwe and to Francistown from where airplanes flew them to Lusaka. One of the trucks was driven by John Fletcher Ngwenya, uMalumezi.
Cars of various models and sizes were used on numerous occasions during the armed liberation struggle. In John Robert Mzimela’s house in Luveve stands a disused wagon that was used to get people to the border at night. The car was driven throughout the night and by morning it was back and parked at his house. He would proceed to his workplace as if he had spent the whole night at home. During the Grey Prison jailbreak in 1965, involving Moffat Hadebe, Elliot Ngwabi, Keyi Nkala and the late Clark Mpofu, a car had been arranged to collect them.
There was however, some mistiming and the car missed them. In prison garb, they travelled beyond Mater Dei Hospital and other places till they got to Dan Ngwenya’s house in Tshabalala Township. A car was arranged for them to be taken to the border with Botswana.
Visiting Zapu/ZPRA officials in Francistown in Botswana were given cars and it so happened that at one time, what they took to be a ZPRA official was in actual fact a Rhodesian agent. The car that Ethan Dube got into was the car in which he was captured, taken to Brunapeg Police Station and onward to Gwanda where he was last heard of. Dumiso Dabengwa tells of a car he used to transport grenades that Sikhwili Moyo had given him to take back to Rhodesia. That was back in 1963 before he went for military training in the Soviet Union in 1964.
It is common knowledge that a car, a Zephyr Zodiac, was driven by Abraham Nkiwane in 1962 to bring in the first consignment of weapons to be smuggled into Southern Rhodesia. He was in the company of Misheck Velaphi Ncube and Kenius Mlalazi. At another time a car was driven by Ndukwana Ncube in the company of Velaphi Ncube. The car was laden with weapons of war. The pair had observed that the Special Branch operatives were pursuing them. Beyond Wankie (now Hwange) they were stopped. Velaphi flatly denied knowledge of the weapons and claimed he had been given a lift by the driver he did not know. There are numerous instances that we could cite where cars were used during the struggle.
Let us bring the article to a close by referring to buses which equally played a role in the liberation struggle. On the 27th of March 2020, there was a scheduled meeting at Manyane (Sihwaba) to which I was invited. The function sought, among other things, to celebrate the change of name of a single classroom block school from Sihwaba to Joseph Mtshumayeli. The change was in recognition of his contribution to the liberation struggle by availing his buses to ferry would be-recruits bound for Botswana. There was a time when the Pelandaba bus fleet was massive.
I remember very well back in 1967 going to Mazowe Secondary School boarding a Pelandaba Bus (Umqway’obomvu) at Ratanyane as the road beyond was a bog. Most of the buses plied routes to Matabeleland South: Kafusi River, Kafusi Dam, Sankonjana, Mankonkoni, Mambale, Beula-Seula, inter alia. Of particular note was Bus Number 12, uMagudukubhema, so named after Joseph Mtshumayeli Ngwenya’s grandfather. Mwewu Business Centre where Mtshumayeli ran a store would be painted red by the red and cream buses that gathered before proceeding to various destinations further south.
Later the buses, when the struggle picked up pace, were used to ferry would-be recruits wanting to get to as near the border with Botswana as possible. Pelandaba buses never disappointed. It is thus befitting that Joseph Mtshumayeli Ngwenya be honoured. He certainly is one of the unsung heroes whose benevolence resulted in the construction of the school, in addition to assisting the liberation struggle. The buses are back on the road albeit without the usual identity tag of “Pelandaba” with the cockerel symbolising the business he did at the beginning — buying and selling chickens.
We are quite cognisant of the fact that there were other bus companies that played the same role: Alick Stuart, Shu Shine, Suka Sihambe and Matambanadzo which then was plying a route to Botswana. All these companies deserve recognition. After independence, we tended to forget about other players in the struggle and focused only on those who carried the gun. The struggle embraced several people playing different but complementary roles. The struggle was a diversified endeavour.
