Factors that led to the surrender of enemy forces in Lupane
IN our last interview the former regional commander for the Northern Front Two (NF2), Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Sibanda pseudo name Phebion Mutero spoke about the surrender of auxiliary forces in Lupane in 1978. After the publication of the interview we received a number of responses and among those who responded is another former guerrilla who operated in Lupane, Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Stanford Moyo.
Rtd Lt-Col Moyo explained in his written response the factors that led to the surrender. Below is his article:
The enemy in our operational area had tried every trick to eliminate us but failed. At first they had an upper hand as in every contact they could call in helicopters and in most cases those choppers were supported by a spotter plane. That gave us a hard time and also taught us to be highly mobile, mobilise people to stand with us within our operational area.
The other issue was that at the rear in Zambia our commanders were sending in more forces into the country. The continuous coming in of more comrades resulted in the enemy deploying more of its men in the Mzola area of Lupane between February and March 1978 as a way of cutting off the route and blocking the corridor that had been created to funnel more troops for deployment in various parts of the country.
However, when the Rhodesian forces cordoned off the Mzola area they faced strong resistance, which resulted in them withdrawing. To us that was a big victory and the move gave the locals confidence that we were able to defend them and score decisive victories over the enemy forces.
They had seen it with their own eyes that their sons could withstand the “mighty” army of Ian Douglas Smith. The withdrawal of the enemy forces also gave our comrades an opportunity to quickly move deep into more operational areas.
Areas around Gweru, Inyathi, east and south of Nkayi had few men before that operation as more forces had remained in Mzola and Lubimbi in Binga.
There was also the continuous deployment of part of the first group of guerrillas that had trained in Angola. Those comrades were part of the 2001 guerillas that were coming from Angola.
With such successful operations in the region between 1977 and the whole of 1978 the regime forces realised that they were losing grip of the area and so they came up with new tactics. Therefore in December 1978 they launched an operation that saw them forcibly capturing or taking away all able bodied males between the ages of 15 to 60 to undergo a crush military training programme.
These people were first taken to Siwali/ Siwale Camp for screening. Those found to be young and strong were taken for training followed by a group of 105 men just a few weeks later. Following those events the guerrilla leaders in areas such as Mzola and Dongamazi came up with a decision to suspend offensive operations. They set up groups of senior guerrillas who were more respected and well known and trusted by the population to talk to the parents or relatives of all those people who were conscripted into the enemy forces.
The guerrilla leaders made it clear to the villagers that we were not prepared to kill our own youths who had assisted us in our operations for so long.
The job or that task was made easier because those older men who had been captured and were not sent for training were used for day to day chores in the camp and released to their homes after that. The guerrillas given the task met all those people and emphasised to them that we would not kill our brothers on condition that they co-operated by bringing all the military equipment to us.
In mid-January 1979 guerrilla leaders namely Sandlana Mafutha, Ntonga Mazinyo Ensimbi and others whose names I cannot remember off-hand came up with two groups: one group of comrades who will receive the newly enemy trained group of 47 men, the other group were selected individuals among the most loyalist civilians and Zapu stalwarts. The civilians’ task was to talk individually to the commanders of the group on a man-to-man basis.
The day finally came and we got intelligence that 40 men had been given a mission to go and protect the homes and their parents from “terrorists” attacks. What a shame. Those people were all armed with G3 rifles and had A76 radios.
When they had moved for about 6km or 7km from Siwali Camp between villages B Hole 57 and B Hole 6 they started meeting guides from civilians who directed them the route they had to follow. Behind those civilians directing them there were guerrillas. As they moved down westwards towards villages BH59 and BH58 they all got into the web. Suddenly guerrillas emerged and ordered them to lay down all what they were carrying and surrender. Guerrillas moved forward and others remained in positions to cater for any silly eventualities. All went well.
They were later disarmed and all radios switched off. Those were distributed to various sections and platoons who operated out of their home areas. Sandlana Mafutha took a group which included two young boys of between 15 and 16 to Gomoza area east of Lupane District.
The two boys were given to villagers in Mkharabuli to the Ndlovu brothers, Sum and Mabhunu. One of the boys later ran away to Lupane Centre.
The details and effects of his defection will be explained on another day.
Before the arrival of the second group of 105 men two or three weeks earlier two successive operations took place. The first one was a haste ambush with thrilling results to guerrillas and disappointment to the enemy side. The second also gave the enemy a second lesson.
The first haste ambush occurred on a Saturday morning along Mzola River at a place called Bimba. Firstly, there was a contact between some of our men near Guga Primary School at around 8am. My group was almost 600 metres away. When the enemy ran away towards Siwale Camp we flanked them and they called for reinforcements.
Three vehicles came to their rescue. We quickly took an ambush position and waited for them to return but they did not. Instead they called for more reinforcements. Two more vehicles came behind my ambush position going towards the direction of where the three vehicles had gone. I and my helper carrying bazooka shells had to change positions but the other comrades maintained their original positions. The first vehicle went down the stream and when it slowed down to change gears I gave it a good hit by the side. The bazooka shell exploded inside the vehicle killing two occupants.
The Puma vehicle following behind halted about 75 metres away. I turned to the Puma and hit it with my first shell landing where the radiator and the engine is. Suddenly there was burst of persistent fire from the Puma and I changed positions and fired from the flank of the Puma but missed. Luckily my shell hit a big tree branch which was just beside the road and the branch fell on top of the Puma and the firing stopped. That gave me and my comrade a chance to get off that hell of fire. The firing from comrades had also stopped and we quickly regrouped about 700 metres away. We went and reloaded about 2km away and returned to the battlefield. Before we could reach the ambush area a spotter plane approached and we saw it being fired upon and it flew away. The group which fired was Talo’s men from Dongamuzi and they had assaulted the vehicle which we had hit. They burnt the enemy vehicles with firewood. Together with them we
collected propaganda papers which were thrown by the enemy encouraging us to abandon the struggle. In the afternoon of that day we tied those pamphlets to the vehicles. Some of those papers read, NDIZO ZWINODIWA NEVANHU. After that incident we gathered and came up with a decision to go and lay a big ambush to the south of Kana River along Siwale-Jotsholo Road. The ambush was laid where the business centre called Nganunu is located today.
The ambush covered almost a kilometre and that day was the enemy’s re-supply day. Instead of the enemy bringing in the usually three or five vehicles they came in a bigger convoy which overlapped our position.
In their convoy they had mixed their vehicles with civilian buses and also brought some low loaders to go and retrieve the two vehicles which we had burnt.
The ambush was strang at about 3pm. I missed the leading vehicle by hitting the bazooka shell in front of the vehicles and the driver drove straight to me, luckily I had positioned myself and my assistant in a gully. When we realised the vehicle was coming straight to us we went down and it ran over our position and fell into the gully behind us. We got out of the gully and withdrew, leaving the fighting going on because of the shock we had.
The rest of the comrades remained fighting for almost 45 minutes or so. The comrades withdrew safely with no casualties. We re-assembled at Msebele about five kilometres east of the ambush area.
The enemy continued firing the whole afternoon to the middle of the night. We realised the enemy was confused because we had accounted for everyone. We wondered to where they were firing. I think they were simply scaring us away.
The convoy then proceeded to its intended mission the next day at 10am. Reports which we got later and we were happy with was that civilians in the buses were not injured. On the enemy side we did not get to know the number of casualties.
The convoy proceeded and collected the burnt out vehicles and on their way back they burnt down 27 homesteads in Matshokotsha area. The incident was a painful development. It seriously affected the villagers and also affected guerrillas’ supplies for food.
However, it boosted our campaign to win the hearts and minds of those former youths of ours who the enemy had trained to come and fight us. Some of their homes were also destroyed.
One of the factors which made such a big group to cross over and join the guerrillas was that most had their blood brothers among the guerrillas. Some of them were in the area. I really salute the people of Lupane in general and people of Mzola for managing to handle such a delicate and dangerous situation. Their understanding averted the killing of brothers by brothers.
Rtd Lt-Col Moyo was the deputy regional commissa for RL2 and after the ceasefire was the company commander for the JZ Battalion at St Pauls Assembly Point in Lupane. He operated under the pseudo names Lloyd Zvananewako and Mabhikwa Khumalo. He can be contacted on 0771630629.