by Guy Arnold
ESCALATING GUERRILLA WAR
On 9 January 1973 Smith closed the Rhodesian border with Zambia, a move that was seen as a sign of weakness rather than strength, and during the year that followed it became clear that the initiative had passed to the guerrillas. Later that month Sir Alec Douglas-Home said: ‘When a government which is pursuing racial policies inside a country has freedom fighters coming from outside, this is a situation I have warned time and time again is bound to lead to conflict. My fear all along, through all these years, has been that there would be eventually a front on the Zambezi between the southern half of Africa and the north. This is something we must all try to avoid.’ Sir Alec saw no irony in his statement though his efforts to achieve a settlement that would have left Smith in control would certainly have increased the violence that he feared. By 1973 South Africa had between 2,000 and 5,000 troops permanently in Rhodesia and by September of that year, for the first time, more whites were to emigrate than come into the country as new settlers.
When Smith closed the border with Zambia following an upsurge in cross-Zambezi guerrilla activity, his government said Zambia’s 27,000 tons a month of copper exports that passed through Rhodesia would be allowed to continue, but that no imports would be permitted to go north. Zambia, however, decided to stop sending its copper through Rhodesia. At the same time Zambia suspended all currency dealings between its banks and either Rhodesia or South Africa. For its part, South Africa was refusing to allow goods destined for Zambia to pass through its ports. Commenting on the border closure, Hugo Young8 said that Rhodesians were increasingly aware of the need for a settlement; guerrillas were operating inside as well as across their borders while drought was an unconcealed natural disaster. The closing of the Zambian border would increase Rhodesian economic difficulties. ‘If as some people consider possible, these developments eventually give Mr Smith enough support among Rhodesian whites to come once more to the conference table, he will find that London is not devoid of ideas to accommodate him. The government would like nothing better than to get rid of Rhodesia…’ He continued: ‘Britain has kept the 1971 offer on the table, despite its rejection by the Rhodesian people by a margin of four to one. To keep it there, the Foreign Office adopts a posture of ignominious silence concerning the five and a half million Africans for whom it is still the trustee… A full battery of pass laws is being enacted.’ Young’s indictment of the British government was scathing and concluded: ‘The Foreign Secretary’s response to these events is the truest measure of how far he is willing to go to get a settlement. He does not say that these are terrible betrayals of the settlement now on the table: for that would offend the Rhodesians. He says, wagging a reproving finger, that the Africans had it coming to them as soon as they rejected his settlement. They have, in other words, only themselves to blame.’ Despite the closure of the border, guerrilla activities inside Rhodesia seemed unaffected. Casualties mounted during January and February and included white farmers. On 19 January Smith admitted that the guerrillas had been ‘quietly and methodically undermining the local population’. And, he claimed, had used intimidation and witchcraft to mislead a ‘simple and gullible people’.
In February the United Nations sent a four-nation group to assess the problems faced by Zambia because of hostile action by Rhodesia. In its report to the Security Council the group said it would cost Zambia £50 million to set up alternate transport routes to those through Rhodesia. A Security Council Resolution was passed by 13 votes to two abstentions (Britain and the United States) condemning economic blackmail and military threats against Zambia ‘in collusion with the racist regime in South Africa’. At this time the Rhodesian regime began to impose collective fines on tribes that helped the guerrillas. There were a number of casualties on the Zambian side of the border as a consequence of mines laid by the Rhodesian military. Early in the year the Rhodesian government introduced new race legislation that included influx control and tougher pass laws. It established regional African Authorities for Matabeleland and Mashonaland that constituted a major step towards apartheid. Allan Savory, an outspoken white MP who broke away from the Rhodesian Front to form his own Rhodesia Party, warned that ‘brute force and tough talk’ would lose the war. He said: ‘It is essential to have the active support of the African people – the side that wins this wins the war.’ When in April 1973 the Foreign Secretary warned against violence, the ANC’s Bishop Muzorewa, generally regarded as a pacific man, replied tartly: ‘In advising Africans not to use the gun, Sir Alec Douglas-Home should realize that the use of the gun has always been a last resort in all problematical situations. Frustration leads a people to resort to violent measures.’ The British government persisted in its support for the 1971 proposals, which, Heath told the House of Commons on 8 May, remained ‘on the table’ and should form the basis of any future settlement. In Rhodesia Smith said he rejected the view that a settlement according to the 1971 proposals was no longer possible. By this time the Rhodesian government needed a settlement more than did the British government. Sir Roy Welensky, the former prime minister of the Central African Federation, said any talks were now bound to fail. He warned that a very grave situation (for white Rhodesians) was developing and called on Smith to take Africans into his government. The National Association of Coloured People representing Rhodesia’s 16,000 people of mixed descent withdrew its support for the settlement proposals in June 1973 because of the discriminatory measures that had been introduced over the preceding year.
By mid-1973 Rhodesians had come to accept the guerrilla war as a permanent part of their lives while the country was increasingly dependent upon South Africa. At the annual RF Congress that September the Chairman, Des Frost, spoke of curbing the black population as more whites were seen to be leaving the country than entering it. Meanwhile, Smith had begun talks with Bishop Muzorewa, insisting however that he should accept the 1971 British proposals even though these had been widely rejected by those who were interviewed by the Pearce Commission and then rejected by Smith himself. However, it was becoming clear to Smith that he had to make some broader accommodation with the Africans. The talks continued through to May 1974; then Smith sought talks with both Nkomo and Sithole, suggesting parity power-sharing, but Sithole was rapidly losing what little influence he still had and Nkomo only talked of majority rule. During the year the Rhodesian government published a dossier Anatomy of Terror, which was ‘designed to portray African nationalists solely as terrorists bent on the destruction of law and order for the benefit of their communist masters in Russia and China. In this way the war could be represented as black anarchy without reference to white injustice, and such a representation could therefore justify the government’s cure – a more positive dose of law and order “because this is what the African really understands”.’9
The war escalated steadily through the year and when the Rhodesian security forces disrupted guerrilla communications across borders, they simply moved deeper into the country and relied on the support of the local Africans. The guerrillas were becoming more determined, better trained and harder to combat. The Rhodesian service chiefs asked for more money to sustain the combat and Lt-Gen. Peter Walls, the Army Chief, said morale was ‘satisfactory’ but that poor pay and conditions could lead to an exodus of experienced men. The government introduced draconian measures that included the death penalty for aiding and abetting guerrillas and prison sentences up to 30 years. Economic sanctions were the only pressure being exerted upon the illegal regime although Western countries evaded many sanctions altogether. However, economic growth was limited and this contributed to demands for a settlement. At the same time there was an exodus of young whites. The African National Council, led by Bishop Muzorewa, which was the one black political organization that had been allowed to operate, became increasingly provoked by the Smith government as it arrested senior ANC members.
DÉTENTE
A great deal of diplomatic activity was to occur in 1974, following the 25 April Revo
lution in Lisbon that led to the fall of the Caetano government. The three front-line leaders, Presidents Kaunda, Khama and Nyerere, tried to work out a peaceful solution to Rhodesia with the assistance of South Africa, which attempted to play the role of ‘honest broker’. One result of South African pressures upon Smith was the release of leading nationalists, including Nkomo and Mugabe. Faced with a range of adverse economic indicators, Smith warned Rhodesians in his 1974 New Year’s speech that the guerrilla campaign would get worse. The government mounted a ‘Settlers 74’ campaign to attract one million immigrants, but the figure soon had to be reduced to 10,000; the Minister of Information and Tourism, P. K. Van der Byl, said bleakly that the security situation discouraged immigrants. In May, after talks between the government and Bishop Muzorewa’s ANC had broken down, the South African Star said: ‘This is admittedly not the easiest time for Mr Smith to reach a settlement… the point is that the best time is already past: from now on Rhodesia’s chances are likely to worsen. The options are no longer fully open. Rhodesians must shake themselves out of their dream of perpetual white supremacy.’
Both ZANU and ZAPU had had chequered careers although by 1972 they appeared to be emerging from a long period of difficulties to play more active roles as the fighting inside Rhodesia began to escalate. ZANU established a military base inside Rhodesia for the first time in 1972 when its tactics were to attack isolated white farms. In March 1973 ZANU and ZAPU had agreed to set up a political council to control a joint military command. Through 1973 the guerrilla war grew in intensity, especially in the north-east of Rhodesia where ZANU held the field. Although the two movements were banned inside Rhodesia, the ANC, which had been formed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa and the Rev. Canaan Banana in December 1971 to persuade Africans to reject the Smith-Douglas-Home settlement terms, was not. Despite the fact that the ANC had succeeded in achieving a massive ‘No’ for the Pearce Commission, it had remained in being to become the only legitimate means of expressing African opinion. By December 1973 the regime was obliged to pass measures to prevent young men opting out of their military service for religious reasons. Early in 1974 the government increased the size of the regular army while other measures made plain that the guerrilla threat had come to be regarded as the top priority. The call-up was having a serious impact on the manpower position of the private sector. Rhodesian fears increased in early 1974 as the FRELIMO war in neighbouring Mozambique escalated. While the government had tried to keep news of guerrilla activity out of the news, with partial success, during 1973, by 1974 this was no longer possible. In March 1974 Rhodesia lost three aircraft, including a Canberra bomber. On 24 April The Times carried an article which said: ‘The situation in Rhodesia is not as serious as at the height of political terrorism in places such as Palestine, Cyprus and Kenya’ but the implication was that it soon would be. Then came the Lisbon Revolution which dramatically altered the situation for the whole of Southern Africa. The most immediate result for Rhodesia was that it ceased to have value as a buffer between South Africa and independent black Africa. J. B. Vorster, the South African Prime Minister who had just won the April elections in his country, felt he had a free hand and embarked upon his détente exercise, with the object of forcing Smith to come to terms with his nationalist opponents and so relieve South Africa of further responsibility for the Rhodesian regime.
As Vorster launched his détente exercise the talks between Smith and Muzorewa came to an end after 10 months when Smith offered the Africans a further six seats in parliament to bring their representation to 22 to 50 whites; otherwise they would have to accept the 1971 proposals. The ANC unanimously rejected the offer. The RF chairman, Des Frost, said of their rejection: ‘The ANC succeeded in stopping progress at the time of the Pearce Commission and they are obviously doing the same thing again. They do not want a hand of friendship, they want the whole body.’10 Then on 4 July Harold Wilson, once more Prime Minister of Britain, told the House of Commons that the proposals put forward by the previous government had been withdrawn: ‘There will be no consideration of any deal with the Rhodesian regime until we know that the proposals put forward are approved by the majority of the Rhodesian population.’
Meanwhile, at the end of May, Smith met Vorster in South Africa to discuss the impact of the Portuguese Revolution. They said: ‘We are not concerned whether Mozambique has a White or Black government. All we are concerned about is that there should be a good and stable government in that territory.’ This meeting in fact represented the parting of the ways between Smith and Vorster: Smith still saw the Zambezi as the continuing front line but Vorster saw this as the Limpopo. Rhodesia had become expendable. Vorster’s détente exercise might have foundered in October 1974 when an OAU resolution in the UN called for South Africa to be expelled from the world body but South Africa was saved by US, British and French vetoes. Vorster then made a number of bold statements clearing the way for his détente exercise, among them telling the Cape Town Senate that there had to be a peaceful settlement in Rhodesia. Pik Botha, South Africa’s UN representative, gave a speech in which he admitted that unsavoury racial incidents took place in South Africa and were inexcusable and said, ‘We shall do everything in our power to move away from discrimination based on race or colour…’ Vorster followed this with a statement aimed at Black Africa: ‘Give South Africa a six months’ chance by not making our road harder than it is already… if you give South Africa a chance, you will be surprised where we stand.’ This statement, however, caused consternation in South Africa’s white ranks and Vorster had to tell his home audience that his statements only applied to South Africa’s neighbours. Kaunda then spoke glowingly of Vorster’s ‘voice of reason’ and spelt out what had to be done: the decolonization of Rhodesia and Namibia. Pretoria, or Vorster, were ready to pay the price of deserting Rhodesia in order to give South Africa a new lease of life.11 The South African government now exerted huge pressures upon the Smith regime to come to terms with the nationalists: the railways suddenly became congested and Vorster said he would withdraw the South African police contingents from Rhodesia as soon as ‘terrorism’ ended. Smith, who had been told by his police and army chiefs that the long-term outlook in the guerrilla war was bleak, did not protest publicly.
The nationalists, especially the ZANU radicals, came to the talks reluctantly, as did Smith. Robert Mugabe, out of Smith’s jail at Vorster’s request, denied that he had ever wanted to negotiate and claimed he had been ‘forced’ to do so by Kaunda, Khama, Nyerere and the FRELIMO leader Machel. Since Nyerere refused to accept Mugabe as ZANU’s president at that time, the first meeting was only between Kaunda, Vorster and Nkomo. A second meeting to include Mugabe was convened a month later. It was no more successful. The talks broke down within days to signal the end of Vorster’s ambitious response to events in Portugal. He was never to be in as strong a position again. The talks ended in December, the gold price peaked and South Africa entered a depression while criticism of Vorster mounted. Even so, Vorster insisted that more talks would have to take place since ‘The alternative is too ghastly to contemplate’. The Rhodesians welcomed the collapse of the talks and the RF chairman, Des Frost, said, ‘Let’s be honest. This was something the South Africans started. It wasn’t something, as far as I know, that we started.’12 However, outward Rhodesian bravado cloaked an increasingly desperate situation inside the country. In his diary for 1 December 1974, Ken Flower, the Rhodesian Security Chief, wrote: ‘Things are on the decline in Rhodesia. In spite of increased Security Force successes we are not keeping pace with terrorist recruiting. Indeed, we have lost the goodwill of the Africans in the forward areas and over much of the rest of Rhodesia as well… but strangely there appears to be a better prospect of settlement now than ever before; although how can the whites in Rhodesia reverse the trends of the past decade or more? Or if they are going to be forced into change will there be sufficient goodwill, and enough sincerity, to reach a lasting accommodation?’13
Despite the 1974
failure, in February 1975 Vorster exerted fresh pressures upon Smith and withdrew the South African Police from their border duties on the Zambezi and, at the same time, withdrew the 2,000 police inside Rhodesia from anti-guerrilla activities, despite the escalating war. By July 1975, with more talks in prospect, the Rhodesian Minister of Information, Van der Byl, revealed the South African withdrawal and complained that the move had strained the Rhodesian forces and made black Rhodesians ‘more arrogant’. This play for white support in the Republic led the South African Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, to announce that the 200 South African Police still in Rhodesia would be withdrawn. South Africa did not wish, he said, to become involved in an ‘internal struggle between Rhodesians’. Such pressures forced Smith to embark on further talks.
On 25 August Vorster and Kaunda met at Victoria Falls to chair a meeting between Smith and the nationalist leaders. Nkomo appeared willing to enter into a deal. Vorster, apparently optimistic, returned to Cape Town. Smith returned to Salisbury and announced the failure of the talks, playing to the hard right gallery over Vorster’s head. Both Vorster and Kaunda, for their own ends, had hoped to force Smith and the nationalists respectively to do what they did not wish to do; in fact Vorster had not ‘controlled’ Smith and Kaunda had failed to control the Zimbabwe nationalists. Smith now warned against further attempts to make him compromise and on South African television stated that Vorster’s withdrawal of the South African Police from Rhodesia had been ‘wrong’. He said that negotiations had been made difficult because the nationalist leaders ‘believed that the South African government was pressuring us to come to an agreement with them’. He added that Salisbury–Pretoria relations were ‘under some strain… mainly as a result of the campaign against us by the press media in South Africa – which has made the average Rhodesian believe that the South Africans are prepared to ditch Rhodesia’. Smith’s message to Vorster was clear: to stop any more pressures upon Rhodesia. Détente was over.14