'Intelligence training is crucial in life situations'

• Published date: 05 March 2023
• Publication title: The Sunday News

WE conclude our interview with former freedom fighter and survivor of the 19 October 1978 bombing of Mkushi Camp in Zambia, which accommodated women guerillas, Cde Queen Maligwa (nee Dube). In our previous edition, Cde Maligwa pseudonym Cde Simangaliso Mpofu who also trained in intelligence and counter-intelligence in then Yugoslavia told our Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) how she left her rural home in Gwanda District, Matabeleland South Province as a 14-year-old walking barefooted. Today she rounds up her narration by telling us about her training at Mkushi and how she survived the 1978 bombing.

MS: Cde Maligwa we ended our conversation last week with you telling us how you insisted to Dr Joshua Nkomo that you were within the required age bracket of 16 when in actual fact you were just 14 so that you could be allowed to go for training. May you take us through what happened after that.

Cde Maligwa: We were the first group to open up Mkushi Camp which was exclusively for women cadres. As for the training, members of our group and instructors I think you have written a lot on it. I don't think it is necessary to talk about that as like I said you have covered a lot on it in your previous interviews.

However, our training was more than six months during which we covered all the aspects of the military and like any other ZPRA training it was as rigorous as they come. After our training, I was given a section to command then soon after made company commissar. We left the camp where we had trained as another one was opened with the first occupied by the new recruits. Then on 19 October 1978 we were bombed by the Rhodesians and it was a very sad day. We lost a number of comrades there.

MS: Take us through what happened on that day….

Cde Maligwa: Before the attack we had stayed for almost a week without mealie-meal. So we were surviving on wild fruits and powdered milk. On that morning I had gone to look for a wild fruit called umkhuna with some comrades and when I returned to the camp I was told that I was needed at the camp headquarters. I quickly ran there and we were told that the Freedom Camp (FC) had been bombed on that morning so we should be alert. Some of us were given firearms with myself issued a Semenov with 10 rounds.

I went back to my position and broke the news of the bombing of FC. We then went to the kitchen to get powdered milk, saqalisa ukukhuma uchago. I had told my colleagues that we could be bombed. Then a few minutes later I saw the...