adminhuman and material loss through attacks by Rhodesian forces, before and after their own independence, writes Phyllis Johnson.
ZANLA opened the eastern front with support of FRELIMO.
Contact was established between the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) and Zanu at an initial meeting at the Twiga Hotel in Dar es Salaam in 1968, when Eduardo Mondlane, the Frelimo leader, and his military commander, Samora Machel, met the Zanu national chairman, Herbert Chitepo, and then Secretary for Defence, Noel Mukono.
A few months later, in April 1969, the exiled leaders of Zanu held their first biennial review conference in Lusaka and formed an eight-member war council, the Dare re Chimurenga.
After the conference the Zanla High Command decided that an approach should be made to Frelimo to request cross-border access through Mozambique’s Tete province, first discussing with Chitepo, and then a full meeting of the Dare which decided that the meeting should be held at military level.
The meeting took place in November 1969, in Lusaka’s Lilanda township, at the house of the Frelimo representative to Zambia, Mariano Matsinhe.
A Zanu team led by Mukono and including Tongogara, William Ndangana and Cletus Chitowe, met Machel, Matsinhe, and Sebastão Mabote, a member of the Frelimo High Command. Zanu formally asked for access through Tete, saying they wanted to open a front in the north-east of Rhodesia.
The next meeting with Frelimo was in May 1970 at a Zanu house in Lusaka. Machel was accompanied by the same team but Chitepo led the Zanu team, accompanied by Tongogara and four senior commanders.
“It was at the second Lusaka meeting when we agreed to work together,” Tongogara said later.
“And Comrade Machel made it clear to us – he was very open and honest and you know he doesn’t hide his feelings – that Frelimo supported the revolution of the people of Zimbabwe . . . and anyone who can show us he can start a revolution in Zimbabwe and liberate the people of Zimbabwe, they will support.”
Among the first recruits in the north-east were 18 old men. Age is traditionally respected in African society, hence the reason for recruiting old men for their influence n the area where Zanla had decided to begin the war.
They were escorted by four Zanla guerrillas 180 kms into Mozambique to a point near the Kaswende base.
Tongogara, accompanied by a group of Frelimo commanders, went to meet them and a somewhat elaborate deception followed, which apparently did not entirely fool the old men.
The Zanla guerrillas had been instructed to treat Tongogara as a Frelimo commander for security reasons, as Zanla’s activities in Tete were still secret at that time.
Even after the war began, and it was known that Zanla cadres were infiltrating through Tete, the pretence continued. The old men asked for weapons and guerrillas to be brought in through Tete without knowing that Zanla and Frelimo were already planning this.
Tongogara adopted the same tough no-nonsense strategy that Machel had used on him and his colleagues a year earlier when Machel agreed to let Zanal operate in Tete.
He was willing to give them a chance, Tongogara said, but once the war began in the northeast there could be no question of running to Mozambique and drawing Rhodesian troops after them into even greater involvement with the Portuguese army against Frelimo.
Rhodesian troops were already operating with the Portuguese army in Tete province against Frelimo, when Machel met Zanu political and military leaders in Lusaka and told them: “Some of us, when we look at the situation in Mozambique, realise if we liberate Mozambique tomorrow that will not be the end. The liberation of Mozambique without the liberation of Zimbabwe is meaningless . . . “
After the elders had gone home, the High Command met with the Frelimo commanders to discuss strategy, and they took the decision that the time had come to send in a larger group of 60 guerrillas.
Their instructions would be to carry out further reconnaissance, liaise with the old men, who would provide food and shelter, and cache more arms in the area. Tongogara’s priority was to get a large quantity of arms and ammunition into the area before the war began.
A small reconnaissance team sent in September 1972 penetrated deep into the country as far as St Albert’s looking for places to hide war materials in the Mavuradonha Mountains.
When it returned, the group of 60 was divided into three groups and infiltrated through different crossing points.
The 60 included the 45 who had been carrying armaments from the Chifombo base in Mozambique across the Zambezi and 15 others who had been sent to reinforce them, led by Rex Nhongo (Solomon Mujuru) with Joshia Tungamirai as his deputy. Nhongo commanded the group in Nehanda sector while Tungamirai was political commissar of the other group commanded by Gwindingwi, which entered Chaminuka sector in November 1972. Eight years later when Nhongo became acting Zanla commander after the death of Tongogara, Tungamirai was again to be his deputy. Mozambique gained its independence in 1975 but continued to suffer military attacks due to its support for other liberation movements.
Explaining later why the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) had been created by Rhodesia to operate against Frelimo, Ken Flower, the former head of Rhodesian intelligence, said, “the objectives of the MNR were essentially to provide the opportunity for Rhodesia to deal with Zanal in Mozambique without doing so directly, and to perpetuate or create instability in areas of Mozambique.”
Another of the CIO officers involves said, “The MNR gave a cover for Rhodesian operations and, from initial intelligence-gathering operations, moved on to getting recruits and then on to the offensive, disrupting road and rail links and making it harder for Frelimo to support Zanu.”
From The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War by David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, first published 1981.
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