Cde Embassy had a rare skill in the military sphere

Commissioner (Rtd) Claydon Seula aka Cde Sizwe Ngcobo

THE death of National Hero, Colonel (Rtd) Tshinga Dube pseudonym Cde Embassy has saddened me and I am sure a lot of other Zimbabweans as well.

I first met Col Dube on 9 July 1979 in Zambia and it was at the height of our armed struggle. He had been deployed to take over as the ZPRA Chief of Communications. He was filling in the rank left vacant following the death of Cde Zvafa Moyo. Cde Moyo who was the elder brother of now former Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) commander, Chief Air Marshal (Rtd) Elson Moyo had unfortunately been killed during one of the bombings of our camps by the Rhodesian Airforce.

When Embassy came in, he found Cde Timothy Mawire as acting Chief of Communications. What readers should note is that Embassy had held the same rank when the ZAPU military wing was still called the Department of Special Affairs before it evolved to be called ZPRA in 1971. So in 1979 he was having a second bite of the cherry having stayed in the Soviet Union, where he studied Engineering up to Masters level.

When Col (Rtd) Dube arrived to resume his duties, I should be honest, a majority of us initially had reservations about him. The feeling was that a much older person was coming to take over command of this strategic arm of ZPRA at the expense of much younger and ambitious cadres. Cde Mawire who had been acting was of our generation while Cde Embassy was a guerilla fighter who had trained and operated in the 1960s. Remember his exploits in laying the groundwork for the famous joint ZAPU/Umkhonto WeSizwe of South Africa Wankie Battle in 1967.

As Cde Embassy was quiet naturally, that made us view him with suspicion. However, our reservations soon evaporated when he sat us down and spelt out his vision for the department. So we soon found ourselves bit-by-bit getting closer to him while he, at the same time, was bit-by-bit pulling us closer to him. We then realised that he was a jovial man who at times would crack nice jokes, but he was very forthright.

We were very impressed with Cde Embassy’s understanding of military communications, a rare skill in the military sphere. As the Rhodesians were intensifying the bombing of our camps, the ZPRA Headquarters had been moved from the Freedom Camp (FC) to Kasupe and then ours as the department of communications was again moved to Lusaka.

We were stationed at Kwapata Flats. Kwapata Flats were near the United Teaching Hospitals (UTH) and the Air Force of Zambia. When we moved our comms department to Kwapata, Cde Embassy left some of us at Kasupe but I soon followed with the now late Colonel Neo Nare who died in combat in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during our tour of duty there. Col Nare was buried at the Bulawayo Provincial Heroes Acre in Nkulumane.

We were well equipped and Embassy was well knowledgeable on the use of our military gadgets such as the Ultra High Frequency (UHF), the R26, Very High Frequency, the R28 and the R1041, the Moscod that sends coded messages. We even had machines that could jam the Rhodesian communication system. Without boring readers with technical issues, when the time came for moving into Assembly Points at the announcement of the ceasefire, Cde Embassy deployed me to Mushumbi Pools as the chief of communications for the AP while Col Nare was sent to Gwayi River Mine.

Although he looked a very quiet person, he was a thinker, patient and endowed with high emotional intelligence. He displayed that when he was appointed with the rank of full Colonel and ordered to lead the newly constituted Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) Signals Corps. It was not an easy task to do as the Rhodesian white officers were still very arrogant and looked down upon guerillas. He took over from Colonel Clark, who was a New Zealander but had been serving the Rhodesian Army.

When we joined the Signals Corps we found some blacks who had served in the Rhodesian Army. I remember Willie Mapfumo, Tafi Machiridza, Funny Ndlubu and Giles Chinyedza. From our side as ZPRA besides myself, there was Col Nare, now Lt-Col Joyce Tshuma and Lt-Col Mavis Gonde while our ZANLA counterparts had Kosijini Sithole, now Brigadier-General (Rtd) Livingstone Chineka and Cde Madhani. Coming up with a working unit was not easy, but Col Dube managed to steer the ship. Of note with him, he was always forthright.

When we erred as his subordinates, I don’t remember him instituting a hearing, it was not his nature. He will just deal with you on the spot. He will not hold back but will tell you his mind. He called a spade a spade and he earned respect from his team. He also treated us the same, I think those who are still alive can testify to that. There were no former ZPRA, ZANLA and RF officers, men and women in his eyes. We were all officers of the ZNA.

He was a fair person and very affable as he had an open-door policy. Go well Cde Embassy.

l Commissioner Seula whose pseudonym was Cde Sizwe Ngcobo worked as the Chief Intelligence and Operations officer in the ZPRA Communications Department. After the war, he served in the ZNA before he was moved to the Prisons Service at some point becoming the Commander for the Matabeleland Region.