Counterinsurgency after 1972

In the early 1970s Rhodesia's intelligence service grew increasingly concerned about guerrilla advances in neighboring Mozambique and alerted the Cabinet to the dire consequences of a Portuguese defeat next door. A top official at the CIO lamented that these warnings went unheeded:

The Portuguese experience in Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique was very closely studied and I believe all the appropriate lessons were passed to Cabinet whose members suffered from a "Portuguese blind spot," which took nearly eight years to clear up—and was then too late for clear vision. Why? I suppose because Ian Smith's Government was getting a much more encourag-

[10] Norma Kriger, "The Zimbabwean War of Liberation: Struggles within the Struggle," Journal of Southern African Studies 14, no. 2 (January 1988): 306, 313.

ing account out of its emissaries to Lisbon and elsewhere, and there were too many politicians inside Rhodesia ... who believed that just as the Portuguese had been in Africa for four centuries, so would it continue. In consequence, CIO warnings on this subject probably cut less ice than on any other.^[11]

In the fall of Mozambique and Angola in 1974–1975 some white Rhodesians saw handwriting on the wall and believed the Government should strike a political deal with the black majority while whites were still ahead. Prime Minister Ian Smith was prepared to do nothing of the sort. He revealed his view in a broadcast to the nation in 1976:

We shall be urged by some people to heed the lessons of Mozambique and Angola and to surrender now in order to avoid chaos and strife ... I say to these people that if we were to surrender the reins of Government nothing would be more certain than the inevitability of civil war between blacks and whites in Rhodesia.... The fundamental difference [between Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies] is that in Rhodesia there is no metropolitan government to surrender on our behalf. We made certain of that when we assumed our independence ten years ago.^[12]

In addition to its autonomy from the metropole, Rhodesia had military forces far superior to the insurgents'. The regime had about fortyfive thousand security forces, of which it could field twenty-five thousand at any time without seriously disrupting the economy and administration.^[13] The security system received increasingly generous allocations, an index of both the intensification of the conflict and the steady ascendancy of the security apparatus within the settler state. From 1971–1972 to 1976–1977 the budget for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (previously the Department of Native Affairs) skyrocketed from (Rhodesian) R$9.7 million to R$42 million; that for the Ministry of Law and Order (including police) jumped from R$17.5 million to R$50 million; and expenditure for the Ministry of Defense grew from R$20 million to R$98.7 million.^[14] In 1976, defense expenditure consumed 25 percent of the total budget; by 1979, it was 47 percent. Vital to the Rhodesian war economy were massive infusions of South African aid, which

[11] Correspondence with author, 2 May 1984.

[12] Transcript of broadcast, Department of Information press statement, Salisbury, 6 February 1976.

[13] Gann and Henriksen, Struggle, p. 65. The Rhodesian security forces were no thin white line; blacks were 40 percent of the 15,000 army personnel and 60 percent of the BSAP; they also worked in the Department of Internal Affairs. Few blacks deserted or were disloyal to the white regime; they (like their South African counterparts) enlisted primarily for economic reasons.

[14] Government of Southern Rhodesia, Estimates of Expenditure (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1971–1972 and 1976–1977).

accounted for roughly 50 percent of Rhodesia's defense costs after 1976.^[15]

As the war grew more regionalized, Rhodesia resorted to frequent cross-border air strikes against enemy targets and against the infrastructures of Mozambique and Zambia as well. Roads, bridges, communication Dines, and development projects were pulverized, costing the host nations dearly. Rhodesia also engaged in covert action in other countries, including assassination of nationalist leaders in Zambia, Mozambique, and Botswana.^[16]

Cross-border attacks occurred in part because white citizens and military officers pressed for external operations. Such attacks also demonstrated the regime's refusal to recognize that the conflict had domestic roots, just as political elites in the 1960s denied that African nationalism had internal sources. The standard official line, that black discontent and political violence were caused by outside "agitators," was consistent with the policy of cross-border military strikes and also explained the regime's reluctance to consider domestic reforms. Privately, some elites—including Rhodesia's intelligence services—contested official dogma, to no avail. A senior CIO officer described the situation:

The military increased its external raids into Mozambique. But the CIO believed ... we must win the war inside the country.... Counterinsurgency was 80 percent political and 20 percent military. But for that you need a government that will act politically and our Government got beyond this.^[17]

Preferring a military victory, the Rhodesian Front Government steadfastly refused to attend to the political causes of the war:

The military, supported by the politicians, believed more and more that the anti-terrorist war could be won by striking at terrorist bases as far outside the country as possible; and CIO/Police believed that the war would be lost unless we could stop recruiting within the country, and towards the end being able to prove that we were not winning if 1,000 "terrorists" (mostly untrained recruits) were killed each month beyond our borders, when the recruiting rate was 2,000–3,000 a month, and each month there were more armed terrorists within the country. But we had to concede the impossibility of convincing politicians, and some others, that recruiting was proceeding at the rate de-

[15] Anthony R. Wilkinson, "The Impact of the War," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 18, no. 1 (March 1980): 115; Martin Gregory, "Rhodesia: From Lusaka to Lancaster House," The World Today 36, no. 1 (January 1980): 17–18. During the 1970s South Africa became increasingly a de facto metropole, giving Rhodesia critical material support and, toward the end, putting decisive political pressure on the Smith regime.

[16] Ron Reid Daly, Selous Scouts: Top Secret War (Alberton, South Africa: Galago, 1982).

[17] Interview with author, 30 May 1983.

scribed, because this signified that their political policies had failed—when, of course, they had.^[18]

Several observers have commented on the "ingenuity," "flexibility," "efficiency," and "tactical brilliance" of the Rhodesian security forces;^[19] others have noted their success in producing guerrilla casualties while keeping military casualties "low."^[20] Evans claims that "while the Rhodesian security forces had won every battle, the Rhodesian politicians had lost the war."^[21] This claim neglects the military's own role in undermining the war effort. Although the official line was that winning black hearts and minds was absolutely vital to overall success, military practices routinely contradicted that objective; lower-level commanders and soldiers preferred insurgent casualties to civilian support.^[22] And some elites candidly admitted that a hearts-and-minds approach was eventually forsaken.^[23] The Ministry of Internal Affairs insisted that blacks were too primitive to appreciate such appeals and only "respected force." In practice, therefore, a military solution remained the hallmark of Rhodesia's counterinsurgency strategy throughout the war.^[24]

If this was the favored approach, there were those inside the executive who appealed for sensitivity to Africans' hearts and minds. Some senior military officers favored this strategy, as did certain intelligence elites who argued for a policy to address black grievances, minimize ruthless and counterproductive military practices, and begin political negotiations with black leaders. According to one ranking Special Branch officer, the branch was "advocating dialogue with the nationalists, versus a

[18] CIO officer, correspondence with author, 2 May 1984. Ken Flower supports and elaborates these points (Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record, Rhodesia into Zimbabwe: 1964 to 1981 [London: John Murray, 1987]). Recruits (some abducted or press-ganged), came from Rhodesian villages, from urban areas with high African unemployment (exacerbated by the world recession of 1973–1974), and from refugee camps in Zambia and Mozambique.

[19] James Bruton, "Counterinsurgency in Rhodesia," Military Review 59, no. 3 (March 1979): 27–39; Mike Evans, Fighting Against Chimurenga: An Analysis of Counterinsurgency in Rhodesia (Salisbury: Historical Association of Zimbabwe, 1981).

[20] Gann and Henriksen, Struggle, p. 66.

[21] Evans, Fighting, p. 24.

[22] J. K. Cilliers, Counter-lnsurgency in Rhodesia (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 146, 148.

[23] Minister of Combined Operations, Assembly Debates, vol. 98, 11 August 1978, col. 1724. By the time martial law was instituted, another noted, "hearts and minds had less adherence in Cabinet" (former official in Ministry of Law and Order, interview with author, 3 June 1983).

[24] Ian Beckett, "The Rhodesian Army: Counter-Insurgency 1972–1979," in Armed Forces and Counter-Insurgency, ed. I. Beckett and J. Pimlott (New York: St. Martins, 1985); J. K. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia (London: Croom Helm, 1985).

purely military approach, as far back as 1963."^[25] Sensitized to the lessons of failed counterinsurgency efforts in Mozambique, Angola, and elsewhere, the CIO consistently pressed for a political settlement in its reports to Cabinet. The intelligence director insisted that by the mid1970s Rhodesia was neither winning the war nor containing the threat, and that the security situation was increasingly desperate. The Quarterly Threat Assessment of July 1977 is a case in point:

No successful result can be attained by purely military means. It is now more vital than ever to arrive at an early political settlement before the point of no return beyond which it will be impossible to achieve any viable political or military/political solution.^[26]

By 1978 the CIO held that Rhodesia had reached the point of no return. But its advice had little impact on a ruling party determined at any cost to maintain its grip on state power, and whose white constituency adamantly opposed black majority rule.

The Rhodesian state did not rely on coercion alone to preserve settler domination. It waged a multifaceted propaganda war with pamphlets, films, newspaper stories, and posters, directed at both whites and blacks.^[27] My analysis of a sample of this material showed that its messages concentrated on the atrocities committed by the rebels (including the killing of missionaries and the mutilating of peasants), the specter of communism, and the inevitable "degeneration" of independent black African nations—all of which stood as an object lesson in stark contrast to the achievements of white rule and the security forces' glorified defense of the state against the enemies of Western Christian civilization in southern Africa.

The regime's propaganda and censorship paid high dividends among the white electorate inasmuch as they systematically distorted the political roots of the conflict and deprived whites of information on atrocities by the military. Exploiting whites' anxieties and resonating with their supremacist orientation, official thought control reinforced settler cohesion, minimized protest by white civic institutions, and prevented the growth of a progressive white alternative to the incumbent regime.

The propaganda machine registered much less success within the black population, as officials involved later admitted.^[28] Grossly out of touch with peasants' concerns, the propaganda disseminated by Psycho-

[25] Interview with author, 24 June 1983.

[26] Quarterly Threat Assessment, reproduced in Flower, Serving Secretly, p. 310.

[27] Frederikse, None But Ourselves .

[28] Ibid.

logical Operations units made light of the grievances of the black community and often contradicted their experiences; it proffered a crude caricature of the guerrillas and a benevolent picture of the security forces that military brutality routinely undermined. A typical article appeared in the Government Information Services paper, the African Times, after an early rebel attack: "Let us thank the spirits of our ancestors who watch over us that a good, strong Rhodesian Government made sure that such bloated, cruel, and greedy liars never came to power, and never will."^[29] Such exhortation did nothing to shore up the legitimacy of white rule among the majority of black Rhodesians. One classified army assessment revealed that in some rural areas "the civilian population is totally alienated against the Government."^[30]

Given the abiding interest of the regime in preserving minority rule and whites' control of the best agricultural land, it is questionable whether any hearts-and-minds program could have registered success. The propaganda failed to take black grievances seriously, driven as it was by the official insistence that genuine grievances did not exist but were instead manufactured by outside agitators. Blacks' discontent over unequal land distribution, racial discrimination, the lack of opportunities for economic advancement, and undiluted settler rule was not accepted as genuine. Instead whites took pride in the racial harmony prevailing in the country. As Ian Smith told me, "We had the happiest blacks in the world here in Rhodesia, which was based on the fact that we weren't a UK colony. This was our home, and we were concerned to ensure good race relations." Blacks who participated in the liberation war were duped by "Communist Russian exploitation of grievances; it had nothing to do with race relations."^[31]

Only in the late 1970s did the regime begin to dilute settler rule by incorporating moderate Africans into the state and by removing some forms of "unnecessary discrimination." Yet, like the Pretoria regime today, it failed to win popular approval through its belated reformist efforts. They were widely perceived as too little and too late; and the concern with reforms was altogether secondary to repression. Tellingly, the Minister of Information, who was responsible for overseeing propaganda, stated after the war, "I wanted to step up the use of the bayonet. That's the most effective propaganda—the bayonet."^[32] The regime was

[29] African Times (Salisbury), 30 November 1966.

[30] Quoted in Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency, p. 99.

[31] Interview with author, 29 June 1983.

[32] Quoted in Frederikse, None But Ourselves, p. 126.

obsessed with "kill rates," and its ideological campaign did little to build peasant support for counterinsurgency. Force, to quote Gramsci, was "predominating excessively over consent," and this imbalance sent legions of blacks over to the guerrilla side.^[33]