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Phatisa Nyathi
The Zhi-i riots of July 1960 were an important turning point in Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence.

Before that year there had not been recourse to violence. It was a different story after that year. African colonies were decolonising. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, during a visit to South Africa, made a landmark speech about the wind of change blowing across the African continent. Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast had, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, led the way in 1957.

While we are, in this article focusing on the death of Ethan Dube, umfokaNyamazana of Mtshabezi, we cannot meaningfully do that without narrating the early events some of which date back to the days of the Sabotage Campaign, also referred to as Zhanda or uMtshetshaphansi. The nationalist movement was radicalizing, especially following the formation of the National Democratic Party NDP) on January 1, 1960. To counter that, the Rhodesian settlers were equally radicalising and were determined not to surrender power to the black majority.

Prime Minister Edgar Whitehead saw his party lose the whites-only elections in 1962. The Dominion Party (DP) led by Winston Field swept to victory. Further radicalisation of the party saw Field being replaced by the more radical Ian Smith and the DP assuming a new name, the Rhodesian Front (RF) which endeared itself to the white community.

Repressive legislation was enacted, for example the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA). At the same time, institutions of repression were created, notably the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) under the directorship of Ken Flower. Before then there was the Special Branch (SB) which was a branch of the British South Africa Police (BSAP).

Cadres in the Youth League who were the drivers of Zhanda under the leadership of General Chedu, Enos Chikowore, began to lose confidence in their Algerian-inspired strategy and sought a more confrontational and violent approach. As early as 1962 some of them had left the country to undergo sabotage training in friendly countries. Clark Mpofu and colleagues were in Zambia where Sikhwili Moyo was taking them through their paces with the assistance of John Makiwane of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK). The Rhodesian Front Government did not fold its arms and watch the country slip through their fingers. The cadres that went to train in various countries such as Egypt, China, North Korea, Ghana and Cuba were infiltrated with their agents.

At the same time, there was enhanced collaboration between the Rhodesian CIO and western intelligence organizations such as the MI5, MI6, the CIA, Mossad, PIDE and South Africa’s Bureau of State Security (BOSS). Their countries, in the wake of the march of communism, which they were mortally afraid of, felt threatened both politically and economically and responded through close collaboration and coordination within the context of the hot cold war.

The year 1962 saw the arrival of Phillip Mhlanga in Tanganyika where ZAPU already had personnel manning the office headed by Benjamin Madlela, following his relocation from Cairo in Egypt. The capture rate was high among these trained personnel who were returning home to take part in the Sabotage Campaign.

They were thrown into prison when lucky not to be executed. Prisons such as the Khami Prison outside Bulawayo were teeming with political prisoners.

Phillip Mhlanga together with Maphosa and Stanley Maduma worked closely in the Sabotage Campaign. Maphosa had been recruited in Khami Prison and became active within the Selous Scouts. The Maphosa who trained in China was Benson. It has not been established whether this is the Maphosa who teamed up with Phillip Mhlanga or not. Benson Maphosa trained in China in 1963 alongside the likes of Felix Rice, Clark Mpofu, Gordon Butshe, Charles Dauramanzi, Luke Mhlanga, Lloyd Gundu and John Maluzo Ndlovu.

However, it is known that Maphosa worked in the Midlands Province covering, in particular, Shabanie (now Zvishavane) where he worked with the likes of David Lupepe. They were involved in the receipt and distribution of weapons. Maphosa later found his way to Bulawayo where he had a brother working for the Bulawayo City Council. Each province had such people who were couriers of weapons: Welshman Mabhena, Thobela, Anthony Magagula and Khesiwe Malindi, to name but a few.

The Maduma brothers who included Israel and Griffiths had come under the political influence of their father who was an active member of ZAPU and lived in the New Luveve Township in Bulawayo.

During the Sabotage Campaign explosives were used. One Siyezi Ndlovu from Gwanda worked at Davis Granite in Bulawayo and collaborated with Rogders Ngugama and Dauti Salatiel Mabusa, both of whom also hailed from Gwanda. Abel Siwela was obtaining gelignite from the mines.

The spotlight will now shift to the Khami Prison where antagonistic forces were busy with recruitment to their respective camps. ZAPU political prisoners were recruiting from the ranks of the jail guards and the police. When it was felt recruitees were about to be exposed, they escaped and fled the country.

There were people within the prison precincts who were active in this role: Phillip Mhlanga, Kenneth Ndlovu, Stanley Maduma and Ebenezer Nxumalo.

The group was the hottest gang which was active in sabotage, making use of weapons smuggled into the country. When Stanley Maduma got arrested, it was the work of Phillip Mhlanga after he had been recruited by the Rhodesia

Khami Prison had two types of prisoners, the hard-core criminals who engaged in homosexual activities. Their association was known as the Manini Club. The second group was that of political prisoners who had been arrested for their role in the Sabotage Campaign.

These were rabidly against the activities of the members of the Mainini Club. Fierce fights broke out, sometimes with fatalities. As a result, the two groups lived apart.

On the other side, the Rhodesians were also busy recruiting in particular within the ranks of the political prisoners. The one saboteur who was incarcerated at Khami Prison was Phillip Mhlanga.

He had been arrested, stood trial and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. That saw him get to Khami Prison. Khami Prison was an important recruitment site. One man that the Rhodesians targeted and promised heaven on earth was Phillip Mhlanga, the mastermind behind the death of both Ethan Dube and JZ Moyo.

Further, we ought to know that the Rhodesians recruited young and beautiful girls, the AMBI battalion, who worked in Indian shops such as Vashee, Lions, Baloos and Naik. These were recruited as Rhodesian spies who went, ostensibly to join the struggle, when in actual fact they were on a spying mission. When they got to the military camps in Zambia, they feigned health conditions which required their attendance at the University of Zambia Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. Their targets were the members of ZPRA’s High Command.

With hindsight, ZAPU had taken a wrong decision not to live with their spouses in Zambia. That exposed them to the Rhodesian women spies. The deaths of both Ethan Dube and JZ Moyo are connected to girlfriends in Botswana, a country that was porous when it came to intelligence.

Before independence in 1966, there were British police and military officers who collaborated with the Rhodesians in particular the Selous Scouts under Colonel Reid Daly who were politically oriented and with a brief to hunt down and kill liberation war cadres, both inside and more particularly outside the country. As will be shown later, it was a white member of the Selous Scouts who was responsible for the strangling of Ethan Dube to death.

Once Phillip Mhlanga had been recruited, he earned himself freedom. He was given skills training and was then working against his colleagues, in particular his friend Stanley Maduma.

When Stanley had been cornered, his younger brothers Israel and Griffiths fled the country. The former emerged in September 1964 when he, alongside Moffat Hadebe, Rhodes Malaba, Keyi Nkala, Elliot Ngwabi and Roger Matshimini Ncube, attacked Zidube Ranch south of Maphisa, becoming the first cadres to fire bullets in Zimbabwe’s armed liberation struggle.

Apparently, Israel was in the group that was incarcerated in Zambia following the split in 1971. Upon release he went to the UK.

The initial relocation of Phillip Mhlanga to Botswana where he was to perform his duties was when he was given a job as a truck driver for Wards Transport.
ZAPU, it would seem, was not aware he had been recruited to the Rhodesian side. When time came for the appointment of Party Representatives, Phillip Mhlanga was appointed Party Representative in Botswana. He worked with one Maphosa who too had been a trained saboteur in the nascent days of the armed liberation struggle.

All was set for the capture and elimination of the critical members of ZAPU/ZPRA. The Southern Front (SF) had been opened and both JZ and Ethan were major players in that development. It should be known that at that time military intelligence was separate from civilian or political intelligence.

It was during the time when Gordon Munyanyi (Tapson Sibanda, “Terror Man”) was the Chief of Intelligence within ZPRA. Ethan Dube was in charge of civilian intelligence. The Rhodesian counter insurgency in Botswana was a well-knit network that included ladies working in the post offices and banks in Francistown. The one agent among the ladies, with a link to JZ Moyo, was a Matumo, apparently a younger sister to late Vice President Joseph Msika’s wife.

In addition to Mhlanga and Maphosa, there were several others who were recruited at Khami Prison and others that were members of the Special Branch and the Selous Scouts. Some frequented public drinking places and others arrived in Francistown together with those intending to join the liberation struggle.

It is against this background that the two ZAPU/ZPRA stalwarts were eliminated in such a way that the propaganda from the Selous Scouts was to make it look like inside jobs in order to get maximum mileage from the acts, by causing tension within the liberation movement. As pointed out in an article in Chronicle, an inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of JZ Moyo threatened to split ZAPU.

To this day there are people who believe the deaths were indeed a result of internal infighting within ZAPU/ZPRA.

It is advanced that JZ Moyo had many enemies. I argue that there was essentially one enemy, the Rhodesians and those who worked with and for them.
In the next article we shall deal more with the modus operandi relating to the elimination of the two men. For now, at least, the key agents have been identified and their backgrounds exposed.