Chronicle Editor
OUR interviews with former ZPRA Medical Officer for the First Battalion, Cde Miller Mlilo pseudonym Cde Masotsha Nkiwane have generated a lot of debate with some readers offering mixed opinions. While some praised Cde Mlilo’s narration as a piece of history that should be preserved and called for more such interviews, others doubted that ZPRA guerillas had the power and resolve to outgun the Rhodesians, worse off holding the ground for almost a week despite the incessant bombings by the racist colonial government.
“This is a brilliant interview and do more of these. We need such stories where ZPRA and Zanla routed the enemy instead of being shown our losses such as bombings in Zambia and Mozambique. We need more stories that show our own victories. Our children should grow up knowing that their grandfathers were brave soldiers,” opined a man who identified himself as Ray Sithole.
Veteran educationist and liberation writer, Cde Ezekiel Hleza said he had relatives who fought in that battle.
“That is the most talked about battle from the ZPRA side and I have uncles who fought there, one of them was part of the artillery unit,” said Mr Hleza.
“We need to highlight such battles.”
However, a Zimbabwean based overseas who said he was an academic said: “How do you claim to have had conventional army units when the whole movement was a collection of sabotage units? The language to characterise the events is what raises the stink. The story by uMlilo lacks credibility ye public opinion,” and he went on: “The risk which is there is that future generations will fall victim to those history distortions.”
However, former ZPRA Chief of Military Intelligence in a brief interview with our Assistant Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) said there was no way the Rhodesians could have dislodged the First Battalion because they had made a tactical and strategic era. Brigadier-General (Retired) Abel Mazinyane said the Rhodesians needed a brigade to attack the Madliwa battalion. Below are his observations. Read on . . .
MS: Brigadier-General Mazinyane a lot of interest has been generated by the story of that battle between the First Battalion and the Rhodesians along the Zambezi River towards the end of 1979. Where do you think ZPRA won it and the Rhodesians lost it?
Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mazinyane: First of all one needs to give the background of the commander of that battalion, now Major-General (Rtd) Stanford Khumalo, Madliwa. It was not his first time to command a battalion that engaged the Rhodesians. In 1977 soon after his return from the Soviet Union where he had been trained as a battalion commander, Madliwa young as he was at that time was given a battalion to go and deal with the Rhodesians who had descended on the GCB, a region that was under the command of now CDF, General Philip Valerio Sibanda. Those Rhodesians had occupied high lying areas and were making it difficult for our guerillas to infiltrate into Rhodesia. It was our route to Rhodesia, so there was a need to reinforce PV. So guerillas of a battalion strength were quickly constituted and given to Mdaliwa to command. His deputy was Cde Okay Mabhena who I think is now working for the United Nations. They managed to carry out successful operations and dislodged the Rhodesians from the Zambian territory.
MS: Then on the battle of Kariba what happened?
Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mazinyane: It was a mistake for the Rhodesians to attack a battalion of that strength with a battalion as according to the testimonies of the Rhodesians they had deployed the Rhodesia Light Infantry Battalion. You attack a battalion with a brigade. It should be three versus one. You can’t attack on one is to one. I think they thought our guerillas were going to run away from their aircrafts, not knowing that they were dealing with guerillas who had been bombed time and again at Mlungushi where bombings at times would take place three times a day. So instead of the guerillas running away from the Rhodesians they were dug in and were well armed. It was a properly armed battalion with all the attachments. The artillery unit also dealt well with the enemy. The organisation of artillery in a ZPRA regular battalion which was the case at that time was like this. There was the chief of artillery. His unit composed of an anti-tank battery, anti-air battery, field guns battery and mortar battery. The anti-tank battery had three guns of 57 millimetre and three guns (B10), six guns 14,5 millimetre, mortar battery of 6 x 82 millimetre mortar tubes while the field gun battery was six (Grad-P) 122 millimetre. The personnel of the battalion kaMadliwa was well trained as some had been part of the 2 000 regular forces that had been trained at Mlungushi while others had come from Angola where they had undergone a semi-conventional training programme under the Cubans and the Soviets.
MS: So those in doubt that ZPRA was transforming itself into a proper army are wrong.
Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mazinyane: Obviously they are ignorant of the situation that was obtaining on the ground at that time. Besides Madliwa other comrades that had been trained as battalion commanders were the now late Smile Madubeko Moyo (Cde Middle) who after training as a regular soldier at Mlungushi had gone for further training in the Soviet Union. Cdes Jack Matiwaza, Barnabas Sibanda (of the Zimcopter fame), Citizen Ncube, the Bitwell and Soneni from the Maphenduka had also trained as battalion commanders. As for that battle the Rhodesians couldn’t contain our fire power and to be honest with you one wonders ukuthi amakhiwa ayengenwe yini (what the whites were thinking).
Online Reporter