I have read a lot of bios the late ZPRA Commander Stanley Gagisa Doko Nleya and there is little that is said about him after 1980. Any special reason why? #Asakhe
Talking to Gagisa in 2018. he said " We used to think that ZPRA military training was the toughest guerilla training South of the Sahara until we went to Lebanon. Gagisa was attached to to Palestine Liberation Organisation 1974-75.
He was stationed South of Beirut at a PLO camp called Jalub ,10 kilometres from Hebron . He was with Ananias Gwenzi(General Valerio Sibanda). Elias Ndou, Alexander Assaf Katema and Joel Dambudzo.
As deputy chief of operations he was in charge of planning operations and deployments. Zpra had three deputy chiefs of operations, Gagisa ,Richard Mataure (Retired Colonel Richard Ngwenya) and the late Brigadier-General Mike Reynolds
ZPRA had two fronts ,the northern and the southern. The northern front stretched from around Tsholotsho up to Feira, it ended l in the then Sipolilo Mash central.
The southern front started from Plumtree, up to Mutare.
each front was divided into three regions.
Northern Front one commander was John Nyamupingidzi . His region covered areas such as Tsholotsho, Hwange and Umguza.The regional commander of the Northern Front was Rodwell Nyika Retired Brigadier-General Collin Moyo
The Southern Front, there was Mahlole (Consent Maphosa) as the commander after his death in combat Carlos Mudzingwa was appointed then later Barbatone.(Retired Major Irvine Sibhona).
Gagisa used to visit areas like Hurungwe, Karoi and Chinhoyi to check guerillas deployed
AT one point Some guerillas told him told me he should stop visiting because every-time he visited there was heavy fighting. His presence presence attracted the Rhodesian forces.
At some point the Selous Scouts had a fake Gagisa and they tried to trap the ZPRA troops in Karoi using this. fake Gagisa as a decoy.
According to Gagisa at their peak ZPRA had about 13 000 guerillas in the country, a majority of them in Mashonaland, (Mashonaland Central especially in Guruve and the largest group was in Mashonaland West
Hurungwe was nicknamed Lebanon because ZPRA had driven the enemy out while some of our troops had reached Norton.
"In any war the biggest prize is the capital city, we would have been foolish to deploy more troops far away from the capital city, we had to be closer to Salisbury becoz to us the war was going to be settled through the barrel not at the round table."
"By deploying more troops in areas like Hurungwe we were creating a corridor for our regular forces to move with speed to the capital"( sunday news interview)
This is what Zero Hour Operation operation was all about.
At ceasefire Gagisa was at Papa Assembly point near Chirundu where he was 2iC to the late Rtd Col Sigoge.He integrated into the army but did not stay long.Around 1983 he was arrested & accused of being a dissident.He spent months in prison & was discharged from the army
