The Sunday Mail
This instalment is a continuation of our discussion with Cde Hoyini Samuel Bhila, whose Chimurenga name was Obey Dzingai. In the last instalment, Cde Dzingai recounted how he abandoned teacher training and crossed into Mozambique to join the liberation struggle. Today, he tells our Senior Reporter TENDAI CHARA about the intensive guerrilla training he underwent before being deployed to the war zone.
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Q: We rounded up our discussion as you were narrating how your group moved from Machazi and set up a new camp at Chibawawa.
A: Yes, at Chibawawa, the number of cadres that were coming in increased rapidly until we were in our thousands.
Trained personnel, who were coming from Zambia, started giving us political orientation lessons.
Then, we didn’t know who our enemy was.
Some of us had ideas of going back home after training to engage in missions of vengeance.
We had ideas of going back after training to see so-and-so, vakadyisa mombe dzavo muminda medu, which was not a reason to join the armed struggle.
We were taught that after training, and we were deployed to the war zone, our mission was not to go and deal with personal enemies.
We were taught that when we returned home, we were going to fight the system, not individuals.
Also, note that we also had white people who were friendly to us, so they were not our enemies.
We were taught that the masses, the people who remained in Zimbabwe, were not all our enemies.
The povo was the water and we were the fish and without these people, there was no way we could fight the war, just like fish cannot survive without water.
We needed the masses, probably more than the masses needed us.
After the orientation, I was among the people who were selected to go for training in Tembwe, which is up in the north of Mozambique.
Q: Tell us a bit about the training.
A: The conditions were very difficult. We went through rigorous training, with a lot of strenuous exercises.
Food was scarce because we were surviving on donations from well-wishers.
For lunch, we at times had a handful of mangayi (boiled maize) and that was it.
Also, you would find out that while we were in training, we had among us some people who were sell-outs.
Apart from the hunger, we also had to be vigilant.
Q: Who were some of the comrades that trained you at Tembwe?
A: We had Cdes Gunja, Tsana, Makasha, Dadirai and a lot more.
During my time at Tembwe, we had Cde Chris Mutsvangwa and Zororai Duri.
They were also being trained.
They were coming from the University of Rhodesia and I was coming from teacher training and some were from secondary schools.
After training, I specialised in a weapon called the RPG7, commonly known as the bazooka.
I was deployed to the Guru sector. Guru base was in Mozambique, but our sector covered Nyanga and parts of Headlands.
In Nyanga, we operated in places like Katerere, Fombe, Gwanyamwanya and Tsvitu among other areas.
Q: If you can tell us about some of the incidents that you came across during your tour of duty?
A: We fought countless battles and ambushed enemy forces.
One particular incident that I will never forget is when we were ambushed by the Rhodesian forces.
What happened was that we were on our way to attack the Nyanga Barracks.
This was a combined operation involving many sectors.
We had big weapons — the recoilless rifles, anti-aircraft guns and mortars.
I was operating a recoilless that day.
A recoilless is a very big gun on wheels, so when you are walking towards the target, the gun is disassembled, with one carrying the wheel and another one, the barrel.
The gun can only be used when it is assembled.
Unfortunately, as we were heading towards the target, we were sold out by locals.
What followed was chaos as we were caught unawares.
We were surprised and had to scatter in all directions.
We had to go back, with the Rhodesian army hot on our heels, to our base in Mozambique to regroup.
I learnt many war lessons from that incident.
Q: When did you return to the front after the setback?
A: I was ordered to immediately return to the war front.
In my group, I was the only one who could carry the heavy bazooka, some of my comrades were not that big and could not move around with such a heavy weapon.
Q: Let us get into the battle that cut short your active military involvement.
A: Like I said, I was ordered to return to the front. This time I was operating under a different section.
We fought many successful battles.
However, disaster struck one day when we had made the grave mistake of camping for two straight days at Nyakatsaru in Headlands.
We were subsequently sold out.
It was in the morning and planes started hovering above us.
I knew something bad was about to happen.
I could see paratroopers being dropped.
The Rhodesians had over-estimated our numbers.
There were only 15 of us, but they thought there were so many of us, so they came in numbers and armed to the teeth.
Then the first helicopter came and I was ordered to fire.
You know, the bazooka was normally used to fire at ground structures and not aerial targets.
I fired and luckily hit the helicopter.
I was, however, not lucky with the second helicopter.
As the plane was coming directly at me, I fired. Nothing came out.
The bazooka jammed.
The smoke that was supposed to come out from the barrel of the gun did not come out and the rocket fell a few metres away from me.
Within moments, I was engulfed in all sorts of shrapnel-bolts, scissors, nuts, you name it.
I could feel that I had been hit.
Q: Did you see the bomb being dropped?
A: You couldn’t see it because the helicopter would just drop it and boom, there it goes!
It happened so fast.
I could feel that something had hit me and got into my body, my entire body.
Blood was coming out from every part of my body and two of my fingers were badly hurt.
I went numb and I couldn’t handle anything.
I dropped the bazooka and waited for death to come.
I could see my colleagues dying.
I waited thinking that very soon, I will be joining them in the afterlife. Nothing happened.
Normally, during the war, if a comrade knew that he or she was injured and would die, the fighter would chant the Pamberi nehondo slogan. The slogan was meant to encourage those that would have survived to carry on with the struggle.
Q: Before you proceed, how many of your colleagues died during the attack?
A: There was no way I could tell. Under such circumstances, one would not have the luxury of counting the dead.
Q: If you can proceed. . .
A: I was bleeding profusely. I was certain that I was going to die. I chanted the Pamberi nehondo slogan because I was sure that I was going to die. I waited. Still nothing came. The death that I was sure was going to visit me simply did not come. Then all of a sudden, everything just went quiet.
Don’t miss the next instalment as Cde Dzingai narrates how he escaped death by a whisker and became a teacher at a refugee camp.
