A comrade speaking to a fellow comrade

Cde Silas Saurombe

I have detected some anomalies in the interview last week with Cde Dennis Mlambo entitled; “Chilling chat with member of the Crocodile Gang.”

I wish to make the following contributions to correct Cde Mlambo.

Firstly, the incident did not happen anywhere between Nyanyadzi and Mutambara, it happened about 60kms from Mutambara at a place called Urashe in Biriwiri area. The road around that place is curvy and the area is mountainous.

Cde William Ndangana and his gang laid an ambush by placing some boulders in the middle of the road so that no vehicles would access passage. Cde Ndangana once worked with the victim, Ubhowzter who was working for a company named Silver Stream near Ngaone, in Melsetter (now Chimanimani).

So Cde Ndangana knew very well the movement of this white man who regularly went to Mutare for leisure on Wednesdays and Fridays and the usual times he passed through the place where the ambush was executed.

When the white man arrived and found the road blocked, he went out of his vehicle and tried to clear the road, that’s when Cde Ndangana and his fellow Cdes emerged from the thicket and killed the white man whilst his wife was watching and wailing.

There was no crowd of 60 people as mentioned by Cde Mlambo — how can an ambush be executed with 60 people in attendance? Again, Cdes Victor Mlambo and Dhlamini were not arrested when they were trying to cross Zambezi river but were arrested when they were attending the wedding of Cde Dhlamini’s in Mt Selinda.

Cde Ndangana escaped the raid by the special branch at the wedding because he declined to attend the wedding. Cde Ndangana first sought a place to hide at his uncles’ place near the boarder with Mozambique, he did not stay long there because the Portuguese authorities were alerted by their counterparts from Rhodesia that a wanted man could be hiding somewhere in their territory.

Cde Ndangana managed to escape by boarding a truck at Birchneough Bridge to Masvingo and then skipped the boarder to Zambia. This incident by the Crocodile Gang brought a wave of brutal attacks in areas around Biriwiri, Chipinge and mainly Nyanyadzi. This brought to the foe the brutal arrests and persecution of the likes of Cdes Obed Mutezo (father to the sitting MP for Chimanimani West ), the Gwitiras, Pambukas, Gonorindas, Chingunos, Chikatis, Kusenas and others from the community of Nyanyadzi who were linked to the crocodile gang. This operation by the settler security forces was being done from Nyanyadzi police station where suspects were subjected to torture and all sorts of brutality.