Army Chief PV Sibanda opens up on lack of civilian life, love for the Warriors
Harare- THE country celebrated the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Day on Tuesday, and the usually reserved Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces General
Philip Valerio Sibanda opened up that the fact that he joined the army at a tender age, gave him little to no civilian life,Express Mail Zim can report.
In an interview with Zimbabwe Television Network (ZTN) Tuesday , the army chief said :
“I don’t have a civilian side,I joined the military when I was very young and I have been in the military eversince, really there is very little civilian about me,”he said.
He however revealed that he follows the national soccer team. “I watch football a bit when the national team is playing and when they are winning,once they start losing I lose interest,” he said.
The decorated soldier has served as Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces since December 2017. He was promoted from Lieutenant General to full general at that time.
As lieutenant general he had served as commander of the Zimbabwe National Army.
According to Wikipedia and other credible sources who documented his history, General Sibanda was born in 1954 and grew up in Midlands Province in what was at the time Southern Rhodesia.
He attended the newly opened Marist Brothers Secondary in Dete.
He then left the country in 1973 to join the liberation struggle and received military training at Morogoro under the likes of Retired Brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri. His war alias was Ananias Gwenzi.
He completed his training in Tanzania and proceeded to Lebanon for 9 months where he received vigorous training under the Palestinian Liberation Organization at Jalub.
When he returned in 1975, he became an instructor at the newly opened Mbwembwesi training camp in Tanzania.
He was then seconded to form part of the military commanders running Morogoro under the ZIPA.
Among the Morogoro-based Zanla Commanders in Zipa were Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, the late former Air Marshall Perence Shiri and self exiled former police commissioner Augustine Chihuri (Stephen Chocha).
From ZIPRA there was Eddie Sigoge Mlotshwa and Sam Fakazi.
He also became the commander of the GC-B region.
After the death of Alfred Nikita Mangena in 1978, he became the camp commander for the CGT (Communist Guerrilla Training) camp, located about 60 miles east of Lusaka.
He was initially appointed to the ZIPRA High Command as chief of training, however, he swapped that position with Eddie “Sigoge” Mlotshwa for Chief Of Reconnaissance leading the Military Intelligence department.
After the War of liberation, the army chief formally joined the Zimbabwe National Army at independence.
He quickly rose through the ranks, by 1994 he was the only ex-ZIPRA cadre to have rose to the rank of Major-General.
Between October 1995 and April 1998 he became the head of United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III) and subsequently MONUA (Mission d’Observation des Nations Unies à l’Angola) as the Force Commander charged with peace and national reconciliation.
