The Colonel: I would rather die than fail

 

Col. Peter Malembeka at a shooting range at Mushili Barracks in Ndola. Picture courtesy WOII Ingwe Kipande (COMBAT CAMERA)

 

JACK ZIMBA

HE IS standing tall and imposing – pistol in hand, and an Uzi Pro submachine gun slung across his shoulder - in a shooting range littered with countless cartridges emptied from different types of military firearms. Colonel Peter Malembeka is the man in charge of the Special Forces unit, popularly known as commandos, at Mushili Barracks in Ndola.

And today, the men in maroon berets are using the Israeli-made Uzi and Jericho 941 pistols to fire at their targets, simulating urban warfare. Some men are taking turns on two sniper weapons on legs. One is the Russian Dragunov sniper rifle capable of taking out a target up to 1.5km away, while the other is an Israeli-made Galil sniper rifle.

Col. Malembeka is not a man who leads from behind, pushing his troops. Rather, he likes barking orders from the front.

When I ask him how he trains his men to become some of Zambia’s best soldiers, he replies with a smirk: “I don’t train them, I train with them!” The colonel believes in setting the pace for his soldiers. “You never find them anywhere training and I’m not there,” he tells me.

“Whether it’s waking up at 03:00 hours, I will be there with my men, and I will lead the way. As such, they have the confidence that I can never send them anywhere I wouldn’t go.”

And it is this trait that won the colonel a good reputation in West Africa, especially in the Central African Republic (CAR), where he served under the United Nations (UN) peace mission.

Col. Malembeka is no foolhardy fellow, but he is driven by a rare kind of bravery. The Special Forces motto Be brave my heart, seems etched on his very heart.

He also swears by another motto specifically coined for his battalion, which almost sounds like a death sentence – Fear not death, but defeat. “I would rather die than fail,” says the colonel, who looks gentle but intimidating nonetheless. So what really goes through his mind when he is faced with danger?

“What goes through my mind is, what if I fail, where will be the people of the country, where will be my family, so fear is not an option. The biggest fear I will ever have is to fail.

That is why I always ensure that the men under my command are always ready for the task,” he says. In 2001, the colonel was deployed in Sierra Leone, his first mission outside Zambia.

As a young and inexperienced platoon commander, he was dropped in a rebel-held territory called Tongofields. It was the heart of the brutal Revolutionary United Front rebels led by Foday Sankoh.

But perhaps due to poor coordination by the UN team, when the colonel and a small band of soldiers landed at an airstrip, they found themselves surrounded by rebels.

They could not get back-up, and they could not back out. It was the colonel’s first close brush with death, but one that also transformed him into a fearless soldier.

“It was a wake-up call that fear does not take you anywhere. If your time to die comes, you just have to make peace with your Maker,” he says. Then in 2005, he went on another peace mission under the African Union in Sudan’s Darfur region.

He returned to Sudan in 2008 under ZAMBATT, where he is famed for leading a team deep into rebel territory – in a place called Abyei - to retrieve UN equipment that had been forcibly taken by rebels. The daring operation was aptly code-named Operation Pokolola Katundu.

“It was a bit rough there, but we managed to retrieve the equipment,” says the colonel, reluctant to give details about the operation.

He also learnt to speak Arabic in Sudan, and it would come in handy years later when he went on another peace mission to the Central African Republic (CAR).

In 2015, he was deployed in CAR, which had become a flashpoint for rebellion, with about 14 active rebel groups fighting for control of strategic areas.

One area called Birao had particularly become a dangerous place, with rebel groups fighting for secession. Birao had become off-limits to any foreign troops, and those who dared to venture into the town became easy targets. Many soldiers died. The UN was not allowed to operate in the area. But the colonel was unfazed.

He decided to go in with a band of about 40 men. “We were a very small force compared to the rebel groupings and also the distance between us and the nearest UN forces was over 700km. It was a very big risk. My biggest weapon was to try and win the hearts and minds of the people,” he says.

“We were pointed weapons on several occasions, and of course at certain times we found ourselves in situations where we were required to show our force levels and capabilities,” he says, trying to sound as humane as possible.

The colonel and his men stayed in Birao for a few months trying to pacify the rebels, and he became well-respected among some of the rebel leaders.

The rest of the UN team only arrived in Birao six months later after some normalcy had returned to the town. For the colonel, the operation in CAR was a defining moment in his career. It revealed to him and his men the ugliness of war.

“Central Africa was the most touching mission because the level of suffering that I saw among my fellow Africans, I had never seen before, and that is what made me and my men more than willing to do our level best to uplift their lives,” he says.

Although he prepares for it daily, the colonel would rather war never happens at all.

“Retired Brig. Gen. [Godfrey] Miyanda once said that only a military man knows the real weight of war, and in as much as we are always seeming to be prepared for it, we are the people who don’t wish it to happen the most because we know the consequences it will have on the population,” he says.

He adds: “The men that are in the whole army, not just this unit, have answered the call which calls for them to be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. [But] they don’t need to be at war or die to show that they are ready to do that.”

And, although they present a tough image, the colonel speaks of their humanness.

“In as much as we don’t have fear, at the back of our heads we know that we’ve got a family that we are leaving behind. What if I die, what will happen to them?” says the colonel.

The colonel’s life has been built on discipline, and he believes a disciplined army should not be engaged in political, tribal or religious rivalry.

“Once a defence force, which is an instrument of power for the government, starts engaging itself in such activities, just know that that is a recipe for insurrection in a country. And this is what I have seen in the countries where I have been,” he says.

And the colonel believes the Special Forces is the most disciplined unit in the Zambia Army.

“Much as we have this capability, which is beyond a regular soldier, we are one of the most disciplined,” he says. For the colonel, part of that discipline is knowing when to apply force, and when to refrain.

“I know that if I were to slap somebody, by instinct I will hit him where it counts because that is what I’m trained to do, and I know that he will drop and if he is not physically fit, that will be his last breath,” says Col. Malembeka without flinching.

The colonel wears the maroon beret with great pride, and displays a deep sense of loyalty to his country. “The pride that being a special force carries is one which is embedded in you; that you can do what they can do, but they cannot do what you can do. That’s what separates us,” he says.

He then adds with a snigger, almost as an afterthought: “And they don’t know what it is that we can do.”

“As commandos, as much as we are part and parcel of this army, we are its backbone, we are the last line of defence. When all hell breaks loose, this is where it’s supposed to stop,” he adds.

For the colonel, wearing the maroon beret is also a rare privilege.

“Many are called, few are chosen, and to be among those who completed the training gave me a sense of pride,” he says. The colonel likes using maxims in his speech. It is almost as though his whole life is hinged on them.

EARLY LIFE

The colonel was born in Ndola in 1977. His father was a soldier who retired as a full colonel. His mother worked as a secretary, but later became a stay-at-home mum, and now works as a pastor.

When he was a small boy, the colonel fancied becoming a truck driver because one of the neighbours owned some trucks. But when he grew older, his father’s military experiences inspired him to enlist. However, his father never lived long enough to see him pass out.

It remains a blotch on the colonel’s life, one he cannot erase from memory.

“It was very disheartening that he could not see me pass out,” he says, “but he was very proud of me when he heard that I had qualified for the training.”

His first posting was to Tug Argan Barracks in Ndola as a regular soldier. But a few months later, in 2002, when the Special Forces advertised for recruitment, the young soldier grabbed the challenge.

“I decided to take it a notch further and go and do the hardest training known to man internationally, that is the Special Forces training,” he says.

And he did not earn his colours on a silver platter. Twice during paratroop training, the colonel broke his legs. Col. Malembeka was one of the first Zambian soldiers to do paratrooping within the country. He is also a scuba diver.

“I have had my near-death experience in the water,” he says. He also underwent counter-terrorism training in the US and Egypt.

“For the first 15 years of my career, I had never stayed home for more than three months; it was one mission after another and one training after another, whether it’s local or international. It reached a point where my second-born daughter used to call me uncle,” he says.

Col. Malembeka is married to Sombe, a major in the army, and the daughter of a former commando.

Together they have four children. When he is not shooting targets with his guns, the colonel likes shooting baskets with his daughter. And sometimes he plays volleyball and squash. The Colonel also likes farming. In future, he wants to study conflict management.

A common saying among the Special Forces is that a commando has 48 masks, which speaks about their ability to adapt in different situations.

Of course “48” is the number consigned to the Special Forces in the Zambia Army. Today, the colonel is wearing a friendly mask.