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Nduduzo Tshuma Political Editor
“If you can hear me, those who are close, don’t come out. I’ve been captured. Don’t answer the sound of the whistle. If someone blows it, don’t come out.” These were the haunting final words of one of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) female commanders, Ratidzo Ndlovu, aka Jane Ndlovu, who — when captured by Rhodesian death squads shortly before the raid and bombardment of Mkushi Camp in Zambia in 1978 — paid the ultimate price for saving countless lives of her comrades.

The legend of Jane, whom colleagues called “magogo”, is engraved in the memories of those who interacted with her during guerilla training in the heat of the liberation war, those she trained and those that last saw her before her execution by Rhodesian soldiers.

Cde Panny Irene Khuphe, whose war name was Rita Mnkandla, was underground in Mkushi Camp on the fateful night and recalls the terror of exploding bombs and Jane’s capture.

She had just joined the war the previous year, having left Rhodesia via Botswana, before being flown by plane to Zambia for training.

“Jane wasn’t a simple woman. She was like a man. She was grown and I tell you she had responded well to training,” reflects Cde Khuphe.

“She would walk with a pistol on her side and Bazooka on the shoulder. You could tell she was a complete soldier and (Joshua) Nkomo could totally rely on her.”

She says evidence that the camp was being monitored had been found a year earlier.

Cde Khuphe said they would run a marathon in the bush after six months of training and it was then that one of the female combatants stumbled on a box of cigarettes, indicating that the enemy was in the area.

“A girl called Nonkosi Ncube (now senior police officer) saw an empty 20 Madison pack and we knew that we had company,” said Cde Khuphe, who was in the first battalion, company A.

“We realised that the Selous Scouts were there. The whites had come to investigate how the camp was structured and how the tents were positioned.”

She said on the day the Rhodesian war planes attacked the camp, a few helicopters had initially passed as they were learning about the commissariat under trees.

They had finished most components of the training when the bombings started.

“They came from Wekasi, where there were old people, before they came to us. We were underground at the time learning about communications,” said Cde Khuphe.

“We were bombed with intense ferocity. Jane had been captured. Whenever Jane sounded the whistle, it was usually a call for a parade. But on this occasion, she shouted that we must stay in hiding because she had been captured.

“Those who were in the distance are the only ones who responded, but us who were close and heard her desperate warning stayed away.”

Jane, say accounts, was executed for refusing to follow the instructions of his captors to invite everyone to open ground where they would be slaughtered.

Cde Khuphe said the Rhodesian soldiers then mercilessly butchered the combatants who had responded to the whistle, as they had already surrounded the camp.

“The whites had put lights in the camp and we were still underground. You could hear them walking around, opening soft drink cans and you would hear them shout ‘John, Steven, don’t waste ammunition, just use the bayonets’,” she said.

Cde Khuphe said they stayed underground all night, only emerging from their pit the next morning.

“We only managed to escape in the morning. We could see helicopters in the parade and corpses of our comrades being carried in plastic bags. We escaped and ran into a river close to the kitchen where we used to cook,” she told The Chronicle from her home in Inyathi.

“We were in the water for a week. The Rhodesian army had put stretcher beds across the river so that when they saw any movement they would just open fire,” she recalls.

She said with five other combatants, they braved tsetse flies and walked in darkness on the bare ground as the enemy forces had started veld fires and dug trap holes filled with a combination of water and napalm.

“We fell into the water where they had poured napalm. That’s where I was burnt on the feet and on the hands,” said Cde Khuphe, pulling up her jeans to show her scars.

The hands, she said, were burnt as she was taking off her boots so that she could rub soil against her legs to get the napalm off her skin.

They ran into Zambian soldiers who were responding to the attacks and were taken to Rusemfa, close to the Democratic Republic of Congo border, and later Solwezi where Cde Nkomo addressed them.

Cde Grace Nuku, who trained with Jane and was a fellow commander, said the late heroine was the first Zipra female guerilla.

“I had found her as the first woman cadre in Zipra even if they hadn’t started training women. She told us that she came from the Midlands area around Silobela,” said Cde Nuku.

Cde Nuku said Jane had left Rhodesia in 1974 with five girls, crossing to Botswana before they were taken to Zambia.

“Upon arrival in Zambia, they were taken to Mboroma. Unfortunately at the time they got there, a conflict erupted. There were many groups in Mboroma including ANC, Zanla. Zipra and the Zambians,” she remembers.

“What I heard from those present at the time is that they were integrated into the Zimbabwe Liberation Council. After the conflict in Mboroma, Zipra and Zanla separated with Zipra remaining in Zambia and Zanla going to Mozambique,” said Cde Nuku.

She said one of the girls who was possessed with spirits and referred to herself as “She-Devil” or ‘Mbuya Nehanda’ died at the camp.

Jane, Cde Nuku said, opted to remain with Zipra because she was coming from a house where her mother was a strong Zapu supporter in Midlands.

As the only female, Jane was found a place to live in Zambia until 1975 when Cde Nuku’s group arrived.

“In February 1976, we were sent to Mwembeshi. We trained there but before we could finish, efforts were made again to integrate the children of Zimbabwe to come together and form the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa). We stopped training in Zambia and were sent to Tanzania and put in a camp in Mgagao,” said Cde Nuku.

“It was discovered that Zipra were the only ones that had brought women. Zanla had not brought women. While there, some people from Zanla who were with her in Mboroma, spotted Jane and it was decided that she won’t be safe. She was removed and taken to Dar es Salaam.

“As we remained in the camp waiting for continuation of training, there was conflict again and we fought amongst ourselves. We proceeded to Morogoro as Zipra alone and started training. That’s when Jane rejoined us and we trained with her.”

Cde Nuku said Jane was a strong and committed woman.

“I was younger than her, around 16, and she was older, I think around 25. We were of small body-build and would outrun her but even in exercises, she would never give up,” said Cde Nuku.

“She believed in achieving her goals. After six months of training, I was brought to Zambia and taken to Mwembeshi where we found more girls, about 55. We were sent to train those girls and I left Jane and others behind.

“They followed and were taken to Mbeya in Zambia and were picked up by Cde Matswaha who took them to Victory Camp. That’s where all female cadres converged as a camp hadn’t yet been established for training women.”

Cde Nuku said at the Victory Camp, there were two trained groups, one from Morogoro and another from Mwembeshi.

“Jane was appointed commander of trained women, deputised by Audrey Ndlovu. I left Mwembeshi for VC where I stayed briefly and was sent to Cuba,” she said.

“The first two groups of female recruits had trained with men at Morogoro and Mwembeshi. As the number of women increased, it was decided that there be a camp for females. That’s when Mkushi was established.

“When I had gone, they were taken to Mkushi. Jane was in the group of commanders that went to Mkushi until the time when they were attacked. I hear that on the day of the attack, the whites came and called out her name and tried to get her to surrender along with all the other comrades. The rest you can talk to those who were there.”

Cde Nuku said Jane had left behind a child when she joined the war. That child’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Cde Toriso Phiri, a fellow commander who trained with Jane and Cde Nuku, said the whites were fully aware of Jane’s training and capabilities so they were bound to kill her.

“We were trained commandos who could fight even without weapons. They knew from their intelligence that she was dangerous as she was highly trained and targeted her,” she said.

President Robert Mugabe has used Jane’s story to illustrate the sacrifice paid by Zimbabwe’s liberation war fighters.