The Sunday Mail
This is the third instalment of our discussion with CDE ALBERT NGULUVHE, a former ZIPRA cadre whose war name was Cde Miles.
Last week, we ended our discussion with CDE MILES recounting the training he underwent in Zambia.
This week, CDE NGULUVHE (AN) chronicles to our Senior Reporter TENDAI CHARA (TC) the rigorous training he underwent at the CGT, which was at that time under the command of General Philip Valerio Sibanda.
Cde Nguluvhe will also give us an insight into how ZIPRA, which was made up of cadres from different tribes, among them the Shona, Ndebele, Tonga, Venda and Kalanga, dealt with tribalism.
He also takes us through his journey to Bulgaria, where he received further training in intelligence security.
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TC: Cde, last week we ended our discussion when you were in the middle of narrating how you were trained. Kindly continue from where you left off.
AN : Thank you! The training was for six months and it was very tough. PV Sibanda took training seriously. He always spoke in a low, but very firm voice.
He gave his all and moulded us into a well-trained and disciplined force. We also had other instructors such as Goronga.
Sadly, Goronga died in Zambia.
We also had Makanyange and Msubenyoka, who was from Plumtree. Dry Patch, who is late now, was also one of the instructors.
These were tough guys who specialised in different areas such as engineering, political science and even bayonet fighting.
Cde Godfrey took us through bayonet fighting.
The training, although it was basic, was well-structured.
We were also then given uniforms. So, during the time when we were being trained, each one of us was given a stick.
One had to carry that stick wherever that person would be.
We were supposed to carry the stick even during lunch or breakfast. We were told that these sticks were our AK47s and even when we go to sleep or bath, the stick was supposed to be near you.
By forcing us to carry a stick wherever we were, the instructors were teaching us to never forget our weapons.
If one was seen without the stick, that person would be severely punished. The golden rule was that the stick must always be nearby, at arms’ reach.
When we were in our fourth month of training, one of the trainees disappeared.
The camp leaders immediately knew that Rhodesian spies had been unleashed on us.
It was later discovered that the person who had disappeared was a member of the notorious Rhodesian Selous Scouts and was on a spying mission. The spy wanted to see how we were being trained.
We always suspected him of being a Selous Scout by merely looking at his physique.
He was much more physically fit than the rest of us. After his disappearance, our camp commanders knew that our activities at the camp were now known by the Rhodesian army.
They knew that a Rhodesian attack was imminent. Taking you back, you mentioned something to do with food.
What was happening was that during the rainy season, the lorries would come with food deliveries from Lusaka, but the lorries could often get stuck in the mud before reaching our camp.
We would then travel more than 20 kilometres to go and fetch the food from the stuck lorries. Basically, it was just maize-meal served with kapenta, which was often cooked without cooking oil, causing running tummies.
There was this type of beans, like soya beans, which took a lot of time to prepare.
On rare – very rare occasions – we had canned beef.
We sometimes ate meat from wild animals like zebra.
During training, we were also forced to dig some bunkers.
The idea was that if the enemy comes to bomb, we could all go under.
One thing I would want to say is that during the training sessions in which we crawled, the instructors used live ammunition.
We will be crawling as the instructors will be firing live ammunition.
The instructors would shoot right beside us, and Goronga was good at that. No one was injured though.
TC: Tell us more about the training schedule.
AN : During the morning, we could basically do the toyi-toyi and the crawling and then rush to the nearby river where we would bath, put on combat gear and go to the kitchen where we ate in turns, by companies.
We often ate as we did the toyi-toyi. After breakfast, we could wash the dishes and then attend lessons.
To me, everything was new and we were in the process of learning.
We learnt map reading, what we called topography.
The thing I hated most was the bayonet-fighting sessions. Bayonet fighting was a bit physical and tough.
We had to do it because it made us fit.
After the disappearance of the spy, we changed camp.
We walked at night to another camp which was far from the initial camp. I am told the camp that we were initially at was later bombed.
Fortunately, no one was at the camp because we had moved on to another camp. Nikita Mangena was our camp commander; he visited us regularly.
During our pass-out, both Nikita and Dr (Joshua) Nkomo came.
Elias Masilu was the political commissar at the base. There was also this other guy, whom I later on discovered I was related to, who came from my home area. During the war, we did not care much about where one came from.
We were treated the same.
My brother, who was also at this camp, did not treat me like his real brother. We were now comrades-in-arms and not brothers.
That was the first time that I learned Kalanga and Tonga, among other languages.
TC: How about the relations between the cadres who were coming from different tribes?
AN : One thing that people do not understand about ZIPRA or ZAPU was that its leadership, the majority of it, was made up of Shona-speaking people.
We are talking of people like Goronga and Dry Patch, the other senior instructor who grew up in Highfield, Harare.
We also had Kalangas as leaders.
During our training, tribalism was never, never tolerated.
They did not want to know where you came from. Tribalism was not allowed.
After training, Ndumiso Dabengwa visited our camp.
There was a group called the National Security Organisation (NSO), which was headed by Dabengwa.
During the visit, Dabengwa was accompanied by Swazi Ndlovu, Gordon Butshe, Noah Jackson Mvenge and the late national hero Victor Mlambo.
They were part of the leadership.
They came and asked for those who had gone up to Form Two and above to go on one side.
Dabengwa then selected 15 cadres from this group. John Phinda was made commander of the group. There was also the late national hero, Zenzo Maphekapheka Ntuluki, who was in security and had trained with PV Sibanda in East Africa.
Our group of 15 was taken to Lusaka, and that was in 1977. When we got to Lusaka, we started to do our paperwork.
We were told that we were going to do something else, specialising in intelligence security.
We were given some travel documents. We flew using Balkan Airways to Luanda, Angola.
From Luanda, we were flown to Thessaloniki in Greece. From Thessaloniki, we were taken by bus to a place called Varana in Bulgaria.
TC: Who else constituted that group of 15?
AN : As I said earlier, we had Zenzo Ntuliki.
In that group, I think five of us are still surviving. There was Rodwell, he was Kalanga. We had John; Ethan Mativere, he is still alive. There was also Todd Sibanda, who I once worked with in the President’s Department.
The late Nathaniel Mangoye was also part of the team. We also had others whose names I am forgetting.
There were no girls.
Don’t miss the next instalment where Cde Nguluvhe takes us through his intelligence training in Bulgaria and how he came back to Zambia where he worked closely with the late Dr Nkomo. He will also give a vivid account of how he escaped the “State House” attack in Zambia.
