‘Intelligence is for the switched-on’

We continue our interview with former National Security and Order (NSO) frontal security officer for the southern front, Cde Macleod Tshawe, whose pseudo name was Cde Jabulani Cele. NSO was a Zapu intelligence unit. 

Cde Tshawe has in the past two weeks been speaking about how he joined the armed struggle and today in the conservation with Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) speaks about how he was initiated into the field of intelligence gathering. Below are excerpts of the interview:    

MS: Besides yourself and J Themba who were some of the people in that committee?

Cde Tshawe: J Themba was the chairman, then there was Reginald Nhliziyo as the secretary, Mutambanengwe (younger brother to Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe), whom I can’t recall his first name was the treasurer. There was Dan Ncube as  organising secretary, Dan passed away recently and he once headed Castle Breweries (Delta), the late national hero Cde Sydney Malunga was a committee together with Taylor Mawarire. Myself I was the deputy to Dan Ncube.  So I am saying this to show that some of those comrades had known me from home. It sort of gave me a head start of the new life I was confronted with.

MS: Coming to Nampundwe, how long did you stay there?

Cde Tshawe: I stayed at Nampundwe for three months. The initiation to the military life was not easy, it was unbearable, thina abanye izisu zaphela within a week. Worse off with instructors such as Teddy and Finish. However, Finish was not as bad as Teddy who gave recruits hell there. The camp was under the command of  Hungwe, a guy whom I am told is now a veterinary doctor. There was also Killion Sibanda, who after independence worked for the Bulawayo City Council, others there were Khumalo (logistics), Finish, Teddy, Tonderai and there was also Majola from Mbembesi.

Early in the morning we will be taken for exercises, there is a hill nearby where drills such as number six (press-ups) and number nine (frog jump) were done. There were comical incidents there where injiva especially would fall for the trick of the instructors who will claim that the party President, Dr Joshua Nkomo would visit the camp to meet the recruits the following morning. The injiva would then dress in their best including coats only to be met by tough drills, resulting in them throwing away their clothes.

There were times also when recruits would be given tasks like going to gather firewood and it was during such expeditions that whenever the recruits came across a wild animal they would try by all means to catch it with bare hands, ngoba izitshebo zazihlupha. There was such an incident when uGodwin Dube who after independence joined the Airforce of Zimbabwe chased and caught a buck.

Bathing was done at the nearby river, which was perennial and I remember an incident when I and some comrades delayed in returning to the camp from bathing and that irked Teddy so much. What happened was that some senior party officials visited the camp and left soon before we returned, Teddy was livid and he made us line up in a single file and threatened to shoot us before he was restrained by a colleague. 

MS: How long were you at Nampundwe?

Cde Tshawe: I was there for three months. One day a man called Nkomeni Nleya who was in charge of drivers arrived at Nampundwe, then ngezwa sengibizwa kuthiwa ngiyafuneka eLusaka. Kwakungatshiphanga ukuthi uyafuneka eLusaka wena uli-recruit. I was told that the person who was summoning me was Dumiso Dabengwa. I asked myself what wrong had I done to be summoned by the head of intelligence, we had been told a lot about Dabengwa.

Anyway Dabengwa was a household name. Although the name Dabengwa intimidated me, I had been friends with his brother, Sipho. I then went to Lusaka with Cde Nleya, the man who years on I was to work with when I was the Zanu-PF provincial chairman for Bulawayo. On arrival in Lusaka I was ushered into Dabengwa’s office.

Yangibuza-ke ingquphunga le enguDabengwa. He asked a lot questions about me such as the level of my education, other things related to my background and ended up asking whether I knew his younger brother, Sipho. Dabengwa then said he wanted me to work for him as his driver. He added that I will also drive some senior party members, abadala.

I was then taught basic security measures by some men there. I stayed in the driving department of Zapu in Lusaka for four months. One day Dabengwa said I should leave and go for training at a place called Moscow, which was our intelligence camp near CGT. Maybe before I go on and talk about my new role, it is important to go back a bit.

MS: Okay. Carry on.

Cde Tshawe: There is a need to fill the gap I had left about my life in Botswana before we were taken to Zambia. Like I said previously that I met Douglas Dube who was married to a black American woman with children, oLwazi. I used to travel with him between Moideng and Francistown, uDube although he was teaching there he was already involved ezintweni zonalezi, he was an activist working for Zapu, supplying them with critical information.

He was working closely with the Zapu intelligence guys, in other words he was an informer and people like Dabengwa were aware of his activities. Myself during my time in Botswana I was embedded to the late Nust founding Vice-Chancellor, Professor Phineas Mogorosi Makhurane and Zimbabwe’s first Ambassador to South Africa, the late Cde Nelson Moyo. These two were teaching at the then University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS), a precursor to the universities in their respective countries.

I also worked closely with Black Swine, uMnyamana and these people asked me to carry out some tasks. When I was being given those, I was still a green horn who did not understand much, in fact I was not aware that if I was being sent to do something, it was intelligence gathering and the information I was supplying was very critical to the armed struggle.

MS: What exactly were you being asked to do?

Cde Tshawe: I was being asked to find out the backgrounds of other recruits, to find exactly who these people were who were coming to join the struggle. In short I was spying on fellow recruits. I know few are aware that Prof Makhurane was involved in the liberation struggle not from a distance but assisted when called upon. In fact he started doing political activities in Zambia before he moved to Botswana together with another intellectual, uProfessor Misheck Matshazi who later on worked at various institutions of higher learning like the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU). 

MS: Then tell us about the training, your initial training as an intelligence operative. 

Cde Tshawe: The Intelligence Camp, Moscow was under Cde Nephat Madlela who is now late and was to later on become director of training in the NSO (National Security and Order). There was Sam Madondo as well, a quiet but tough guy.

The training was tough. Among my group of 25 were comrades like  Mpikitsha, now Retired-Brigadier General Levi Mayihlome, the current  Member of Parliament for Mzingwane,  Major Patrick Mpofu, Dominic Moyo, Vusa Nkomo who is now in Canada, Dlamini, Edmus who was killed at Roma (NSO HQ). After three months some of us were chosen to go to Moscow in the then Soviet Union for further training in intelligence. As for now Rtd Brig-Gen Mayihlome and others I am not sure where they sent to, but it could have been Cuba or Bulgaria, but they were sent overseas as well.

MS: How was your group in terms of talent, do you think it was properly chosen to undergo intelligence training?

Cde Tshawe: What I can say with confidence is that in that group I was the least educated although I had done Matric in South Africa. It was a very talented group. Most of the guys besides myself had higher qualifications, some were medicine students, engineers, teachers like Canaan, and other strategic professions.

The reason was because Dabengwa did not believe in recruiting izithutha. You could not work closely with  Dabengwa if you were not properly organised as an individual, DD had set some standards that those who failed to match them ended up resenting him. Maybe in your interviews in this column you have not been told this, bengabe bekhona abakufihlelayo for other reasons. In fact DD would speak softly, but with authority.

Staffing NSO with educated and switched-on people, those who are street wise was because Dabengwa had realised that an intelligence officer worth his or her salt was or is supposed to fit anywhere, be it in industry, commerce and other professions. An intelligence officer is someone who should be quick to understand issues around him or her, be it in technical fields like medicine and engineering.

That is the standard world over. I will give you an example of Rtd Brig-Gen Mayihlome, he is an example of a switched-on person, just look at what he has done in his life, academically he has excelled as well, so the talent in Levi was spotted long back, there are many others, some still serving in our security services and others in different sectors. 

Dabengwa as the director of the  intelligence unit had a clear foresight. 

• To be continued with Cde Tshawe relating how the training was, his return to Zambia and then later deployment to Botswana where he served as the frontal intelligence officer for the southern front.