Chronicle Editor
Pathisa Nyathi
Continued from yesterday
As pointed out in the last installment, the year 1978 was not a good year for ZAPU/ZPRA in Zambia. The liberation movement lost its Chief of Operations, the Algerian trained JD (John Dube, Charles Sotsha Ngwenya) who in 1967 led the Luthuli Detachment, a joint operation involving ZAPU’s Special Affairs unit and the African National Congress’ MK (uMkhonto we Sizwe). The same year witnessed the death of ZPRA Commander Rodgers Alfred Nikita Mangena. In the same year, the Rhodesian forces launched their first illegal cross-border air raids on ZAPU’s refugee camps in Zambia.
In the previous year ZPRA’s Commander-in-Chief J Z Moyo died in a parcel bomb posted from Botswana. Following his death the detainees who had been released from detention in December 1974 began moving out to assert themselves over the liberation movement following incarceration since 1964.
The political shenanigans of the Détente exercise were in full swing; to eliminate while simultaneously creating and fomenting intra-movement conflict calculated at applying brakes to the liberation movement’s war against the Ian Smith regime.
In the meantime, there was some reorganization within the Party as part of the nationalists’ consolidation and hold onto power. However, it is important to note that the envisaged changes had to wait until the demise of Nikita Mangena on the 28th of June 1978. Immediately after that the ZPRA High Command was reorganized, with new personnel being appointed.
At the same time ZPRA lost the portfolio of Military Intelligence (MI) to the newly created NSO which came into operation in 1978.
In a different article we shall deal with another result of the arrival of the nationalists in Zambia who demanded realignment within ZPRA so as to mirror ethnic composition that characterized the National Executive Committee of ZAPU.
For the time being, our focus is on the death of Mangena and its aftermath and repercussions on the political movement. The poisoned political atmosphere was ideal for all manner of misinformation, inaccurate analysis and interpretation regarding the drivers of events that were taking place.
Whereas at the local level there was an internationally crafted and driven political shenanigans, to many the international dimension was invisible. A broad political network, nay a sticking web had been cast around ZAPU to create confusion, false accusations and mistrust to destabilize the movement.
Mangena’s death came against this background to which we have alluded albeit in brief terms. The Rhodesians knew about the ZPRA cadres being trained in Angola by the Cubans under the supervision of the Soviets.
They were under no illusion about their political leanings within the broader context of the Cold War. Regular army training had commenced at Luso and Boma in Angola in 1977.
By 1978 some units were being infiltrated across the Zambezi River into Rhodesia. One such unit was led by Asaf Ndinda (Alexander Mutema). It was this group that fell into an ambush in a well identified and chosen spot at a river crossing. In the ambush, the vehicles and bodies of ZPRA victims were charred beyond recognition.
News had got to the ZAPU and ZPRA headquarters in Lusaka concerning the ambush. As ZPRA Commander, Mangena was keen to get there personally in order to assess and satisfy himself what had transpired.
In a situation like that, he had to report to his own commander, Commander-in-Chief General Joshua Nkomo.
Getting no authorisation, Mangena is said, according to the Gedi Document, to have gone to consult ZAPU’s Administrative Secretary John Nkomo who had gone ahead of the nationalists to Zambia in the company of Simon Vengayi Muzenda during the days the various political parties were trying to forge some sort of unity amongst them. When the efforts fell apart Nkomo went to his own Party and faced, in the initial days, rejection.
Commander Nikita met Nkomo in the company of Cephas Cele who was the Chief of Personnel and Training within the ZPRA High Command. The two advised against the Commander getting to the site of the ambush. However, if he had to go, Cele advised that he take with him the SAM 7 missile as part of his defences.
Finally, Mangena returned to General Josh who this time he found in the company of Albert Nxele (Mugaradzakasungwa), the onetime Camp Commander at the Morogoro Camp in Tanzania. Once again, the required authorisation was denied. Mangena insisted that in a war situation such things were expected and it was, in his view, a dereliction of duty on his part and that of the Command not to go and carry out spot inspection. He however promised he was going to stop at Kabanga and proceed on foot to get to the site.
Three Land Rovers constituted his transport and the three, him, Enock Tshangane(Jevan Maseko) and Eddie Sigoge(Cassius Moya) were to travel separately. In the last article we named the members of the High Command that he selected to accompany him to the site of the ambush.
Mangena and his entourage were expected to report to the operational base closest to the site of ambush. The operational base was under the command of Nicholas Nkomo(Gilbert Khumalo) who at the time was across the Zambezi River, inside Rhodesia. This is the man who, towards the end of the war, was the Deputy Commander of the Northern Front(NF), deputising Rodwell Nyika( Collen Moyo). After the war he commanded the ZPRA cadres at the Entumbane cantonments.
At Kabanga the party which was bound for the site of ambush was advised by Mrs Thaka nee Mafu who was a nurse at the local hospital about the situation and the presence of the Rhodesian forces in the vicinity.
However, Mangena proceeded to the site after abandoning his Land Rover at the operational base where Gedi Dube was in charge during that particular operation.
At the site Mangena said, “ Please Sigoge, come here. I want to identify Asaf.” “His (Asaf’s) body had been burnt beyond recognition. There were a few corpses near the burn-out Land Rover shells and a lot more on the roadsides and near the huge personnel carriers. All the carriers had been burnt out. Asaf was identified through a wrist watch and the commanders’ boots which bore distinctive markings (Nyathi, 2020 In Search of Freedom: Rodgers Alfred Nikita Mangena p 126.)”
Once Asaf’s corpse had been identified, Joseph Dube (Donki Mfanyana who lived till the end of the war only to die in the hands of Gukurahundi) led the burials while Sigoge, who had grabbed a kitbag, proceeded to sleep. With the burials completed, it was time to return. Commander Mangena who in March of the same year had been shot at while travelling to Freedom Camp (FC), got tired and radioed the operational base to instruct his driver, one Bhala, to bring his Land Rover as he was experiencing pain in his legs. During the March attack on the Commander which Edward Ndlovu criticized and lamented that no culprits though known, were apprehended, Mangena lost two fingers and was sent to the Soviet Union for medical attention.
Bhala started the car. Mangena got inside and sat in the front seat of the Land Rover where he was joined by Chief of Operations Enock Tshangane (Jevan Maseko). Sigoge sat at the back where two seats faced each other.
Pressmen and the other close security person were also in the vehicle which had a robust metal bar extending from the front to the back and was provided with some canvas. Two other Land Rovers were just behind and Gedi, Donki and Jack Mpofu were moving towards them. The commander’s Land Rover had hardly got to the travelling gear when it detonated a land mine.
Here there is some contradiction regarding the order of events. In the next article we shall bring out what is narrated in Mangena’s biography and what is found in the Gedi Document.
To be continued
Londile Moyo
Bongani Ndlovu