Andrew Ndlovu, controversial guerilla
CDE Andrew Ndlovu, a former war veterans national secretary for projects is as controversial and outspoken as they come.
An active participant in the call to pay war veterans gratuities and monthly allowances in 1998, occupation of white commercial farms at the height of the land reform programme and at one time Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial secretary for security, it now looks as if Cde Ndlovu who says he has turned into writing has gone softer and disappeared from the political radar. Recently our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) had a conversation with the now seemingly forgotten Cde Ndlovu to chronicle his role in the armed struggle. Cde Ndlovu whose pseudonym was Cde Cleopas Ndanga and also operated under the name of Volunteer Commando Mkhwananzi in the Zipra operational area, Northern Front 2 (NF2) that covered Lupane, Nkayi and Binga districts, will in a series of articles talk about the importance of guerilla warfare, his operations in areas around Kariba and eventually in Lupane where he spent two years in the bush. In the jungles of Lupane he will speak about how he survived when a bullet fired by a sniper went through his cheek, ripping off 14 teeth. He will also speak about the controversial Pamhodzi, a unit that was viewed as a force within a force in the Zipra ranks. Pamhodzi was accused of operating independently from the Zipra High Command. Pamhodzi, which besides Cde Ndlovu who rose to the rank of regional zonal commander had within its ranks battle hardened field commanders such as Cdes Sandlana Mafutha (Sydney Saul Dube), who was believed to be its leader, Carlos and Lipson and those guerillas were said not to be happy with the direction commanders at the rear in Zambia were taking the war to. Below are excerpts of the interview:
MS: You are a familiar face in the war veterans’ structures and leadership, but many would still want to know who is Andrew Ndlovu, where was he was he born, give us a brief background of yourself.
Cde Ndlovu: I was born on 19 August 1957 in Lupane District. However, I did my initial primary education at Magwegwe Primary School here in Bulawayo before I was taken to Zhombe by my family and there I attended St Peter’s Primary School. However, after Standard 3 my father took me to Bulawayo again where I continued with my education up to Standard Six. In 1971 when I was supposed to go for my Form One, I went home to our original rural home, which is Gwanda District in Matabeleland South. Although I was born in Lupane, I come from Gwanda. In Gwanda that is when I started familiarising myself with the Sotho language, which is widely spoken there at my rural area. I went back to Bulawayo in 1973 and that is when I started having an interest in politics. With my parents being active Zapu members I would hear them talking of things like “ilizwe ngelethu”. One of my uncles, George Mashasha Ndlovu would also ask me “mfana, awufuni ukubamba ingagane”. As a result of this political influence surrounding me, I found myself quitting school. Together with my nephew we later on got jobs as garden boys in Paddonhurst, which at that time was a new white suburb accommodating mostly Rhodesian soldiers. I was to be fired for refusing to do some chores, which I found denigrating such as cleaning dogs’ mess. The family I was working for had dogs, which would sit on sofas, mess them up and I refused to clean.
MS: How did you join the armed struggle?
Cde Ndlovu: I crossed into Botswana to find the best way to join the struggle in 1974, I was later on joined by my uncle and younger brother. It was a time when the immigration deported people back to Rhodesia and also the Rhodesian Special Branch kidnapped young men they suspected were going to join the armed struggle. Initially while in Botswana I was under the roof of my uncle, Zakaria Ndlovu, but I needed to fend for myself, so I went job scouting, finally got one at Dukes Curtis Transport in Francistown as a truck assistant while my brother got a job at Dona Café. I remember very vividly during my stay in Botswana when a friend of mine started a fight with someone, a policeman walked up to me and politely asked me to talk to my friend reminding me of where we came from and that stirring up trouble would not be good for us. That is when I realised that to avoid deportation, one had to lie low and be disciplined at all times. Then in 1975 the Black Russian, Dumiso Dabengwa arrived in Botswana at a Zapu house, situated at Mine Stone Township to inform us that everyone who wanted to be part of the struggle, should get ready to go to Zambia for training. In Botswana we were under the command of Normal Matswaha and Mandevu. In 1975, my brother Stephen and I were part of a group that was transported to Zambia for training. MS: Tell us about the situation in Zambia. Cde Ndlovu: We stayed at Nampundwe Transit Camp where we did military exercises such as being made to roll, crawl and there were snakes there. Those snakes were small but looked like pythons. From Nampundwe after a few months there we moved to open Mwembeshi Training Camp and we also did not stay long there as there were new arrangements made by the then OAU and Front Lines states that called for the unification of the liberation movements. That was during the formation of ZIPA, so we moved to a Zanla camp at Mgagao in Tanzania. Our group of 810 moved under the guidance of the late, Cde Sam Madondo with instructors such as Stanley Gagisa who was commonly known as Doko. There were conflicts at Mgagao, which is in the public domain, a lot happened there. As a result of the differences there we moved to Morogoro where we completed our training. Immediately after completing our training in December 1976, I was among the 40 cadres who were moved out of Tanzania to Zambia, from where we were flown to the then Soviet Union, in Ukraine to be specific for further training.
MS: Do you remember some of the comrades in that group of 40?
Cde Ndlovu: The leader of our group was Cde Rodwell Nyika (Brigadier-General Collins Moyo). Rodwell had been part of the team of instructors that trained us together with comrades like Ananias (General Philip Velerio Sibanda). Also in that group were comrades like former Bulawayo war veterans chairman, Stanley Ncube, Nketa, Makwiramiti, George Malalaphansi, Macnamara and Mazibeka. We were in Ukraine from December 1976 to
June 1977. There we were trained to be field commanders from platoon to brigade level. We did full conventional scale warfare, military strategies, military engineering, and military intelligence. As for the weapons we did a lot — from small arms such Makarov, assault rifles, artillery pieces such as mortars, B10s, SAM 7 (Straller), Zegues and other heavy warfare machinery like the 40 barrel and amphibious tanks. It was a time well spent there. Then we returned to Zambia in June 1977, we were taken to Freedom Camp (FC) where we gave a crush physical guerilla warfare training to the first group that was on its way to Angola for training by Cubans. I was then deployed to CGT1 under the command of Cde Lemon while the security commander was Cde Mike. We stayed there and we did not know when we would be taken to the front. So, one day my friend Cde Mazibeka Mboza and I left the camp for Kabanana town. On our way back the next morning we found out that our unit had left for the front.
MS: That was a case of indiscipline I suppose, so what happened?
Cde Ndlovu: Cde Abel Mazinyane, now a Retired Brigadier-General who was a member of the High Command and a senior military intelligence officer detained us in the cells briefly and when we were released, we were ordered to join recruits who were cooking in the kitchen. It then happened that members of the High Command, now Rtd Brig-Gen Ambrose Mutinhiri, the late Retired Colonel Richard Dube who was known as Gedi Ndlovu and Ananias, now commander ZDF, General P V Sibanda arrived. We were then taken for deployment to the front, they escorted us up to Choma town, linked us the next morning with another Jeep and we joined others at GC1. I did not stay long there as a few weeks later, I was appointed to lead a guerilla unit that was deployed near Lake Kariba for reconnaissance purposes.
MS: Take us through your operations there.
Cde Ndlovu: Though we were a reconnaissance unit, at times we would be forced to fight the Rhodesian forces in the waters. We would clash at the Lake Kariba waters on the Rhodesian island side or on the Zambian side. It was there where I experienced navy operations and it was also there where we had joint operations with Zambian forces. There were serious contacts with the Rhodesian forces using choppers at the Ntshete Island. Zipra commandos also assaulted Ship Lord Malvern, which used to ship whites from Kariba to Livingstone and that was in 1977. Then my unit was recalled to the rear by the chief of operations then, Enoch Tshangane — the late Rtd Maj-Gen Jevan Maseko for new instructions and that was in January 1978. The instructions then were that I was being deployed to Lupane and I led a unit of 140 heavily armed guerillas to my new operation area.
MS: What was the message when you were deployed?
Cde Ndlovu: During the briefing, the area operations commander, Cde Tangwena who was based across the Zambezi River on the Zambian side told me that in the event we had a serious contact before we reached our destination I was supposed to take over command. Tangwena was the last person to issue instructions as he was based at the Zipra forward base. It is then that I led the mechanised guerilla company and we successfully crossed through DK, which was known as Casualty crossing point. We crossed at night, we managed to navigate through the 20km Mlibizi mine field and we arrived at Makulubusi in Binga area where the villagers prepared a meal for us before we proceeded to Tinde where we arrived
at about 2pm.