Abstract
This article considers in detail the ways in which ZANU and ZAPU sought to present the Rhodesian Security Forces in their propaganda during the UDI period. The Rhodesian Bush War was fought as much in the arena of public opinion as it was on the battlefield, a fact not lost on the guerrilla forces, who sought to delegitimize the RSF in a variety of ways. It argues that ZANU and ZAPU had to balance a range of factors when depicting the RSF, and used propaganda for multiple ends during the conflict.
Southern Rhodesia was first settled by the British South Africa Company in 1890 and achieved ‘responsible government’ status in 1923, essentially becoming a dominion in all but name. Following fairly extensive immigration, the colony ended up with a significant white minority. During the 1950s and ‘60s this group watched in dismay as the British Empire in Africa was wound up. In November 1965 the colonial Government sought to prevent a transfer to majority rule by declaring an illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence. This was never accepted by either the British, the African nationalists of Rhodesia, or (at least formally) any other country in the world. Soon after UDI, there began a long and brutal war between the white minority regime and African nationalist groups. The latter group was itself formed of different factions, most notably the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), based ultimately in Mozambique and led (from 1975) by Robert Mugabe, and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which was headquartered for much of the period in Zambia under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo (from 1961). These two groups were often in opposition to each other; however in 1976, they came together to form an uneasy alliance, becoming known collectively as the Patriotic Front. They were the main opponents of the Rhodesian Government. Each of these groups had an armed wing, namely the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) (ZANU), and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) (ZAPU). They fought a long guerrilla war against the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF), which included the paramilitary British South Africa Police (BSAP), the Rhodesian Army, and the Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF). Fighting began in the mid-1960s, but significantly accelerated from 1974 onwards. This conflict, known to one side as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, or Second Chimurenga, and to the other as the Rhodesian Bush War, was waged not only within the borders of Rhodesia, but also in the neighbouring countries of Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia. The guerilla forces took very heavy casualties during the war, but eventually emerged victorious when the Government of (by then) Zimbabwe-Rhodesia was forced to the negotiating table at Lancaster House in 1979. In February 1980 ZANU-PF won a national election and in April Robert Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of the newly independent state of Zimbabwe.
Much has been written on the politics of UDI Rhodesia during this period, and, indeed, about the war itself. The topic has also been considered through the angle of international politics by a number of historians. 1 Other work has appeared on public opinion in both Britain and Rhodesia. 2 All of this research has highlighted the importance to both sides of how war was perceived abroad. An obvious implication of this is that propaganda was a vital part of developing support and winning over public sympathy to each side. This was particularly the case for ZANU and ZAPU who had to counter the negative presentation that they received at the hands of the Rhodesian authorities, both inside and outside the colony. Additionally, there has been some work done on the use of propaganda by the Rhodesian Government, both at the time, and more recently. 3 However, very little has been written about how ZANU and ZAPU sought to present their side of the dispute. In particular, nothing has been said about the ways in which they used media to de-legitimize the Rhodesian Government and its Security Forces. Given the significance of international diplomacy on this conflict, this seems like a significant omission. 4 This article will use a range of sources to consider the question of how ZANU and ZAPU fought the propaganda war. Particularly useful in this are the Zimbabwe News (ZANU), Zimbabwe People’s Voice (ZAPU), and Zimbabwe Review (ZAPU) magazines, as well as video and radio evidence (ZANU broadcast under the programme titles Revolutionary Voice of Zimbabwe, and Voice of Zimbabwe from various locations during the 1970s). 5 These outlets were aimed at a range of people, including guerrillas, African people in Rhodesia, and people in the outside world. They were used as sources by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and were cited in national newspapers in Britain. 6 This article will argue that the nationalists’ recognised the need to undermine the RSF through their propaganda and developed extensive, if often unsubtle, motifs for doing so. It will show that their attacks on the RSF went beyond simple atrocity stories to cover a wide range of different criticisms, using the Rhodesian military as a means to achieve a number of ends, including boosting morale, recruitment, discrediting the rebel Government, and putting pressure on foreign authorities to act. However, they also had to find ways to respond to challenges to their narrative, such as the service of Africans in the RSF, which required a multi-layered approach.
On a basic level, the RSF are presented as brutal, pitiless aggressors who menaced the African population. ZAPU talked in 1976 of the ‘unbelievably atrocious measures taken by the regime’s armed terrorists against the people.’ 7 Often accusations against them pertained to alleged massacres. 8 ZAPU were able to use the material compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia to reinforce their allegations, reproducing excerpts from their report of 1977 in the Zimbabwe Review. 9 ‘Daily its savage bandit mercenary forces mount untold acts of savagery and genocide on the African population’, stated ZPV in 1979. 10 Abuses were not limited to murder, however. Claims about rape were also made by both groups. 11 Other accusations pertained to alleged grotesque behaviour, such as ‘hanging…[corpses]…beneath army helicopters for the African population to see’. 12 Whilst there was a general sense that abuses were part of the broader cruelty of the Rhodesian regime, ZANU and ZAPU also made more specific claims that they stemmed from frustration that the populace were on the side of the guerrillas. They argued that atrocities were on sometimes false flag operations aimed at dividing the populace from their liberators, and on other occasions the result of the RSF refusal to believe that they knew nothing of the guerrillas, and so tortured them for information. 13 ZANU further maintained that alleged Rhodesian brutality represented evidence of guerrilla successes, a point made explicitly in a 1979 ‘ZANU Political Commissariat note’ broadcast by Voice of Zimbabwe. 14 Such assertions reinforced the idea that the guerrillas were winning the war. Accusing the RSF of war crimes also had powerful secondary effects. First, since the Rhodesians’ professed belief was that they represented ‘civilisation’ in Africa, atrocity reports turned their own ideology against them. 15 In the words of Voice of Zimbabwe, ‘[a]ll these barbaric and vicious tactics are said to be done in the name of maintaining the so-called civilized standards. One is forced to ask: What civilized standards?’ 16 Second, it led to challenges to the West, with a view to discrediting it by association. There were, for example, claims that the British Government approved of atrocities and that the Western media had ‘connived with the Smith regime in not exposing the Smith regime’s crimes against humanity.’ 17
Much emphasis was also placed on the presence of foreign volunteers in the Rhodesian Army, starting in the 1960s. 18 Such men were invariably referred to as mercenaries, and presented by Patriotic Front sources in the worst possible light. The service of foreigners in the RSF was the subject of much international debate during the 1970s, and this focus in Patriotic Front writings must be seen in that context. 19 First, the prominence of this issue should be seen as a means of delegitimizing the RSF. Mercenaries had developed an unenviable reputation during the 1970s, and the presence of such men in the ranks of the Rhodesian Army would have been received badly by both governments and the public abroad. Thus, the depiction of foreign volunteers as ‘fascists’, ‘international criminals’, or ‘cold-blooded murderers’ was powerful rhetoric. 20 To Nkomo they were simply ‘vermin’. 21 He also claimed that ‘[t]he increase of mercenaries accounts for [the] brutal atrocities now being perpetrated on our people.’ 22 ‘[N]o single African…is safe when encountered by these sadistic dogs of war’, argued ZPV in 1979. 23 ZAPU also asserted that American mercenaries were using brutal practices they had picked up in Vietnam, making reference to the 1968 My Lai massacre on one occasion. 24 To ZANU and ZAPU, mercenaries became an almost mythical presence in the RSF during the later 1970s, being seen as both ubiquitous and particularly vicious, something noticed by contemporary writer David Caute. 25 In 1978 ZANU claimed that as many as fifty-six percent of all RSF personnel were mercenaries. 26 The same year, Nkomo stated that the Rhodesians had recruited 11,200 such men. 27 The focus on them seems likely to have been both a result of this fascination, and also a tool to discredit the RSF. One might additionally suggest here that, by presenting the RSF as being packed with soldiers of fortune, ZANU and ZAPU were indicating that Rhodesian soldiers had no stake in the future of a country which was not their home. As Robert Mugabe insisted, ‘[t]hose who are fighting on the side of the enemy are not doing it out of principle. They are doing it because of love of money.’ 28 Voice of Zimbabwe suggested that by 1979 even money was not enough to keep such men loyal, now that they saw the end of the rebel government in sight. 29
On another level, accusations about mercenary activity were a way of putting pressure on Western Governments to distance themselves further from the Rhodesian regime. ZAPU claimed in 1972 that the Rhodesian SAS was composed of ‘hired West Germans, former Congo mercenaries, hired South Africans, Belgians etc.’ 30 Meanwhile, in 1978 Robert Mugabe told Le Monde that there were many French mercenaries in Rhodesia. 31 ZAPU had reported in 1977 that ‘mercenary recruiting for the Southern Rhodesian Smith regime continues in full swing in the western world.’ 32 They had also previously stated that they wished to ‘give a piece of warning to all Europeans: “Call off this revolutionary fever.”’ 33 ZAPU were also quick to seize on a 1976 Daily Mirror article about a Londoner who claimed to have taken part in a massacre whilst serving with the Rhodesian Light Infantry. 34 Such views should also be seen as part of the general antipathy amongst African politicians towards mercenaries, especially in the wake of their activities in the Congo and Angola. For example, in 1977 the Organization of African Unity agreed on a Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. 35 Such attitudes were not dissimilar to those shown by ZANU. 36 Interestingly, on one occasion in 1978, ZANU claimed to have fought African-American mercenaries, as well as some from Malawi. 37 Another surprising claim, made by ZAPU in 1978, was that Australia had been ‘hiring out aborigines to rebel leader Ian Smith to fight the freedom fighters.’ 38 Whilst the Malawi claim might make some sense in the context of pre-war recruitment of BSAP constables from Nyasaland, the other assertions seem highly implausible given the white minority nature of the Rhodesian Government. More generally, their position on mercenary recruitment was not always consistent: in 1974 ZAPU had declared that ‘[t]he task of recruiting mercenary soldiers directly from abroad has become insurmountable’. 39 It is important to note that accusations were noticed and responded to by foreign governments. For example, in 1978 the Israeli foreign ministry felt it necessary to reject claims made by Nkomo. 40
Alongside a focus on mercenaries were claims that the RSF were struggling to recruit local whites, and that they were suffering from serious manpower shortages. ZANU reported this as early as 1968. 41 Likewise, in 1974 ZAPU maintained that ‘[s]o far the regime has been able to keep its oppressive army in service through monetary inducements. But, even so, the pressure is too great to be surmounted by local man-power resources.’ 42 Both groups stated that the Rhodesians were looking to conscript Africans to make up the shortfall. 43 It was certainly true that the RSF suffered significant shortages of (particularly white) manpower during the war, although perhaps not quite as early as ZANU and ZAPU claimed. Nevertheless, by focusing on this lack of potential recruits they were able to present the RSF as being increasingly reliant on foreign personnel. The ‘Settler ‘74’ immigration scheme, for example, was described as merely being a ‘backstage method of military recruitment.’ 44 Additionally, ZAPU suggested that the recruitment of mercenaries was allowing Rhodesia to overcome the drain in manpower caused by the exodus of whites from the country. 45
Further to this, both parties strongly implied that Western governments and companies were indirectly supplying arms and equipment to the Rhodesian military, despite the sanctions that had been placed on the colony. 46 So, in 1973 ZAPU were keen to emphasise that the Alouette helicopters used by the RhAF were ‘French-built’, and even went so far on at least one occasion as to describe them as ‘French-supplied’. 47 Similarly, in 1977-8 ZANU felt it necessary to describe the RhAF’s Allouette IIIs and Mirage jets (which the RhAF did not possess, although the South African Air Force (SAAF) did) as ‘French’. 48 The British were accused of providing ‘bombers’ in 1973, and, in 1975, ZAPU made the claim that ‘today the Rhodesian army uses British manufactured Centurion tanks and missiles of the Tigercat type from Jordan via South Africa.’ 49 The British Government was presented as being behind this, having ‘recently used the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan in its under-hand tactics of buttressing the settler regime of Rhodesia.’ 50 In 1977 ZANU accused a US aircraft manufacturer of having sold OV-10 aircraft to Rhodesia via South Africa. They also claimed that an Italian aerospace firm, had provided AL-60 light aircraft in a similar fashion. 51 ZAPU made similar sorts of claims in 1978. 52 However, the RSF never received either OV-10s, or Centurion tanks. The US were also accused of supplying aircraft to the RhAF in 1979. 53 Another ZANU claim (from 1978) was that ‘[i]t cannot be said that Britain, the USA, West Germany and France did not know that the Smith regime was acquiring NATO arms.’ 54 ZANU even went so far as to display what they described as ‘NATO military hardware captured from the Rhodesian terrorist forces’ in their pavillion at a 1978 trade fair in Mozambique. 55 The Patriotic Front were keenly aware of the need to put pressure on Western governments to distance themselves from the Smith regime. Whilst it is true that much of the equipment used by the RSF was of foreign manufacture, it is likely that it was directly supplied to them by Western powers after UDI. So it seems likely that the ZANU and ZAPU were using such claims in order to expand the international significance of the Rhodesian crisis.
The service of Africans in the RSF was a complex subject for the nationalists. On the one hand they sought to present the Rhodesian military as brutal and oppressive, whilst on the other they wanted to highlight what they saw as discrimination against African personnel. Indeed, the chance to win over deserters could not be easily passed up. The key combat unit here, the Rhodesian African Rifles, had a long pedigree in the colony’s military, dating back to the First World War. It was used extensively on ‘Fireforce’ operations against guerrilla units, and in raids on surrounding countries. Back in 1968 ZANU argued that ‘[t]hose black soldiers who remain in the R.A.R. know their deaths will be contemptible ones if they die for Smith’s despicable cause.’ 56 They were, said ZANU in 1973, ‘bootlickers’ who ‘engaged in a terror campaign against Africans in rural areas.’ 57 Five years later they were still referring to the RAR as ‘murderous’, and noted on one occasion that a member of the regiment had been sentenced to death by a ‘people’s court’ for ‘working against the just cause of Chimurenga.’ 58 In 1979 ZPV argued that there was an attempt to ‘Africanise’ the war. They claimed that whites were becoming ever less willing to fight for the future of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and so the new government had a new ‘objective to have blacks killing blacks’. 59 These men were described as ‘trigger happy gunmen.’ 60 However, Africans in the RSF were not presented in a universally negative light. For example, in 1973 ZANU also claimed to have received ‘several reports involving African soldiers refusing to take part in anti-freedom fighter operations.’ 61 Such an account highlights the conflict experienced by ZANU and ZAPU on this issue.
They also noted that in ‘Smith’s army there is a vast gap between the Africans and whites’. African soldiers were, they claimed, merely ‘considered tools’, much like rifles. Other criticisms made were the lack of promotion prospects for Africans, who were also provided with inferior weapons, and subject to lower pay than the whites whilst being ‘always driven in the frontline’. 62 A ZIPA representative also claimed that Africans were given particularly hazardous jobs, for example reconnaissance and mine-sweeping. 63 In 1977 a ‘captured Selous Scout’ was reported to have told ZANU that ‘“[t]here is no unity in the ranks and file of the racist forces because whites cannot simply accept orders from their black seniors.”’ 64 And, the exclusion of the African serviceman from access to support funds made him ‘an unrecognised participant in the war against his fellow men, and his own liberators.’ 65 The idea that African opponents lacked agency can also be seen in a 1973 ZANU publication which referred to members of the RAR as ‘[p]uppet African soldiers’. 66 The term ‘puppet’ had previously been used in 1968, and was again in 1974, this time also with reference to African District Assistants (presumably in Internal Affairs). 67 The view that African soldiers in the RSF had been led astray by the Rhodesian Government can also be found in nationalist literature. For example, in 1974 ZANU reported the deaths of ‘a misguided African puppet troop’ in a landmine explosion, whilst in 1978 they maintained that ‘Smith’s propaganda misleads many…African soldiers’. 68 Such men, a ZIPA Deputy Political Commissar argued in 1976, ‘need to be doubly liberated’, both from ‘the national oppression’, and then again from ‘the oppression that they suffer within the racist army.’ 69
There were also interviews with deserters who had joined the nationalists’ cause. For example, in 1978 ZANU reported a positive account of two men who had deserted the British South Africa Police in order to join ZANLA and were encouraging others to do the same. The poor pay and living conditions of Africans in the BSAP was also highlighted. 70 Again, in 1978 ZANU published an interview with a deserter who had joined their ranks in which the man emphasised the good treatment that he had received. 71 In 1978 Voice of Zimbabwe called for Africans in the Selous Scouts to defect. 72 The next year the station made a similar appeal to (amongst others) African members of the BSAP, and RAR. 73 In 1973 ZANU were reporting small numbers of defections to them from the RSF, claims which had increased greatly by 1979. 74 A ZIPA representative also claimed in 1976 that ‘[r]ecently the number of deserters…joining…[us]…has risen to astronomical proportions. Hundreds and hundreds of them come’. 75 Leaflets were issued calling for African soldiers to switch sides, stating that ‘ZANU…welcomes all her prodigal sons who have been serving the regime…you have been victims of malicious propaganda spread against her by the racist regime.’ 76
One can see this further in the way in which the recruitment of Africans into the RSF was presented. ZAPU complained in 1974 that ‘the Smith regime virtually practices an all national call-up of all manpower in settler Rhodesia, both black and white alike.’ 77 They explained how various tricks were used, including how recruiting officers ‘frequently patronise the Employment Exchange Centres under the guise of desirous employers…The aspirant employees then end up in the regime’s barracks as new recruits.’ 78 Another method was the use of ‘fake operational films’ and a demonstration of strength in rural villages to intimidate young men into joining up. If this failed, ZAPU claimed armed coercion was used. 79 Voice of Zimbabwe said that, whilst it made no sense for Africans to join the RSF. They described those who did as ‘confused’, or ‘thinking of money’. 80 In 1978 the Rhodesian Government sought to create an ‘Internal Settlement’ with their favoured African nationalist leaders in an attempt to gain international recognition. Elections took place the following year, leading to the creation of the new state of ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’ led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa of the United African National Council. These political developments clearly led to fears that Africans might be attracted to joining the RSF, hence Mugabe’s statement in 1978 that ‘there may be some puppets who will try to persuade our young men and women to join Smith’s forces is to join a force fighting for their own rights. Let no one be deceived.’ 81 ZAPU also appealed to Africans to ‘refuse to be conscripted’ in 1979. 82 The Patriotic Front also reported that the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian Government was making massive efforts to recruit a large force to fight the war. 83 So, according to ZANU and ZAPU, the only way that Africans might have joined the RSF was through coercion or desperation. The fact that the colonial regime stooped to such methods showed the extent of its oppression.
They additionally emphasised that attempts to recruit Africans were unsuccessful. 84 In 1978 the Patriotic Front were keen to report on protests against conscription by Africans in Bulawayo and Salisbury. 85 These, they said, ‘not only demonstrate total support for the Patriotic Front inside Zimbabwe but also…total resentment for the illegal regime.’ 86 Even attempts to recruit criminals by offering service as an alternative to prison were now failing, stated ZPV in 1979. 87 In the late 1970s the Rhodesian Government decided to conscript Africans, which was a significant change from their previous policy of excluding them from the draft. 88 The nationalists depicted this policy as a failure, and another example of the Government’s oppressive policies. The ZPV claimed that ‘thousands of students’ who had been conscripted into the Rhodesian Army did not appear on the day that they were supposed to report to barracks for training in 1979. 89 Instead, they said that many had gone into hiding or else had fled to Botswana or Mozambique. It is worth bearing in mind here that only 300 Africans reported at the barracks for intake 163, the first multi-racial call up, out of 1,500 who had been sent papers. And of these, seventeen were volunteers. 90 That said, the RAR had 1,007 applicants in their first selection course of 1976, and 600 in their second, for 260 and 240 places in basic training respectively, which suggests that this had not always been the case. 91 Indeed, it has been suggested that the conscription of Africans was in reality actually a propaganda exercise to appease white opinion. 92 In 1978 a ZAPU official claimed on Zambian radio that ‘[m]any of the Rhodesians, especially the black Zimbabweans are even prepared to die for their stand as they do not want to join the illegal regime’s army’. 93 Such rhetoric exemplifies a perceived need to show that the Africans of Rhodesia were standing with them against government attempts to recruit them. What is more, they were able to present conscription as another example of the regime’s brutality against the population. Nevertheless, that Mugabe still felt it necessary to make clear that ‘[f]or anyone to agree to be conscripted by Smith against his own people is to commit treason of the most serious variety’ shows that some dissuasion was felt necessary. 94
ZANU asserted on a number of occasions that the Rhodesian Government was trying to hide the extent of their casualties. In 1968, for example, they asserted that ‘[a]ccording to reliable sources in Salisbury, only the names of the sons of big shots in the settler establishment are announced as “killed in action”. The rest are simply concealed.’ 95 Dead African soldiers were, they claimed, ‘quietly shipped and buried at their homes in rural areas’ and their ‘[r]elatives…warned not to “talk too much”’. 96 ZANU stated that ‘[i]t is a campaign to mislead the people of Zimbabwe into thinking that ZANU has turned against them instead of the white capitalist minority settlers.’ 97 Four years later, they published a ‘Roll of Dishonour’ listing those members of the RSF who had been killed in the war. It drew from official Rhodesian Government sources and even included a glossary of ranks, units, etc. In their own words, ‘we publish this list because Ian Smith cannot deny it.’ 98 They claimed that limitations on space, and some paucity of evidence prevented them from printing the entire list of 2,500 Rhodesian casualties who had been identified by a ‘special research project’. 99 At the same time, they questioned official Rhodesian accounts of guerrilla casualties, such as in 1978 when Voice of Zimbabwe asserted that ‘[i]f the ZIPA [Zimbabwe People’s Army] freedom fighters were being killed at this rate, then by now all the guerrillas who entered the country should be dead. But what is surprising is that only yesterday the regime announced that there were at least 10,000 guerrillas operating in the beleaguered colony.’ 100 They alleged that this was an attempt to ‘raise the morale of the war-weary settlers by claiming to be killing a highly exaggerated number of guerrillas every day.’ 101 There was precedent for such claims: The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia also maintained that the Government sought to minimise casualty numbers so as to maintain morale. 102 Such criticism from the African nationalists must surely have been aimed both at discrediting the regime’s version of events whilst at the same time buoying up their own supporters’ morale.
Stress was also placed on the concept of Rhodesian Government forces being rebels, again with the objective of emphasising their illegitimate nature. By doing so they framed the military debate in terms of rebellion. This can be seen early on in UDI, such as when ZAPU referred to the ‘Rhodesian rebel army’ in December 1965. 103 The BSAP were also termed a ‘rebel Police force’ in 1978. 104 ZANU’s Voice of Zimbabwe also referred to General Walls as ‘the commander of the rebel army’ in 1978. 105 Additionally, in 1977 Robert Mugabe made a speech at the UN in which he referred to them as such several times. 106 In 1979 Joshua Nkomo told reporters that ‘if Britain was the legal authority she would have done something when those people rebelled against the Queen of Britain. What do you do with the rebels? You put them against the wall and shoot them! And we’re doing that for Britain…I’m doing the job for you, eliminating your rebels’. 107 The nature of the white Rhodesians’ rebellion was highly contentious in international circles, and within Britain itself. By firmly presenting their forces as rebels the nationalists were making clear that there could be no support for them on the international stage. They were in fact undermining the Rhodesian Government. Whereas the Rhodesians maintained that ZANLA and ZIPRA were ‘terrorists’ mounting incursions into Rhodesia, ZANU and ZAPU were able to depict themselves as acting on the side of justice, as Nkomo’s comments of 1979 illustrate. Indeed, they sought to turn the tables on the RSF by presenting them as the ‘terrorists’. 108
As the war became ever more intense, the RSF turned to raiding Patriotic Front camps in neighbouring countries. This policy was extremely controversial, especially the attacks on Nyadzonia (Mozambique) in 1976, Chimoio (Mozambique) in 1977, and Westlands Farm (Zambia) in 1979. It was also difficult for the Patriotic Front to decide exactly how to represent these raids. Whilst on the one hand they sought to present the RSF as brutally attacking unarmed civilians, on the other they had no desire to make these operations look militarily successful. Thus, whilst the 1977 raid on the camps at Chimoio and Tembue by the Selous Scouts and RLI was presented as being targeted at women and children, the numbers of dead were kept very low in the official publication. Whilst ZANU claimed that 160 people were killed in the attack, the modern consensus is about 1,200. 109 Mugabe gave a figure of only 100 dead in November 1977. 110 Interestingly, earlier in 1977 ZAPU put the figures for recent cross-border attacks on Mozambique in the thousands. 111 Joshua Nkomo also accused the RSF of atrocities during attacks on camps in Zambia. 112 There was also a political element to all this. The raids were cited at the United Nations as evidence for the need to ‘isolate and completely liquidate Ian Smith, together with his puppets’, which is to say those African politicians working towards the Internal Settlement. These men, the Patriotic Front argued, had ‘betrayed all the refugees who were murdered in a cowardly and merciless fashion in Chimoio, Nyadzonya and Smith prisons.’ 113 In 1979 Nkomo also accused the Western powers of silence over the attacks on Freedom Camp (Westlands Farm) and the women’s camp at Mkushi. 114 So, whilst keen to portray these raids as beyond the pale, the PF were reluctant to acknowledge the very high casualty rates that the RSF were inflicting, perhaps with a view to downplaying the military capabilities of Rhodesia. It was also a mechanism to protect the morale of their own supporters.
The association of the RSF with the South African military was a further key theme. The Rhodesians certainly did extensively rely on their southern neighbours, and the Patriotic Front was keen that the world should see the two regimes as the allies that they were. Until 1975, when they were withdrawn, the South African Police played a major role supporting the RSF in countering guerrilla activity. On a number of occasions after that the South African Air Force worked with the RhAF on raids, and in 1979 some South African troops were deployed on the Rhodesian side of the border. The association of Rhodesia with the much hated Apartheid regime in South Africa was a powerful way of further discrediting the rebel colony in both Africa and the Western world. To give a couple of examples, in 1978 ZANU claimed that a group of ZANLA fighters had killed a group of soldiers described as ‘South African murderers’ during a contact in southern Rhodesia. It was also claimed that ‘another ZANLA unit destroyed a truck with South African military number plates.’ 115 Additionally, by focusing on Rhodesia’s need for South African assistance, the Patriotic Front were able to demonstrate the limited resources available to the RSF. In 1979 Robert Mugabe drew attention to the use of South African aircraft in a Rhodesian raid on Angola. He particularly emphasised that the Rhodesians had by then to ‘depend more on South African…pilots’ because they did not have ‘that number of pilots to be carrying out these raids’ because they did not have enough ‘white manpower’. 116 He also claimed that there were 5,000 South African soldiers as well as lots of vehicles and equipment in Rhodesia. 117 In January 1980 he maintained that there were ‘upwards of three or four battalions’ of South African soldiers in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, and in March he said that thousands of South Africans were in the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian Army. 118 Likewise, ZAPU numbered the South Africans in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia at up to 10,000 in May 1979. 119 Mugabe also presented the Rhodesians as unable to prosecute the war without South African support, such as when in January 1979 he stated that the Rhodesians were only able to attack from the air because their southern neighbours were providing them with aircraft. 120
The Rhodesians were also accused of using banned weapons at various points. In 1978 ZANU stated at the UN that the RSF were using the ‘sort of weapons which have been condemned as reprehensible by many delegates at the Expert Conferences in Lugano in 1976 and Lucerne in 1974.’ On this occasion the Rhodesians’ use of landmines was highlighted, including, so it was claimed, their use ‘over a wide area’ of Zambian soil. The Rhodesians were accused of laying these weapons deliberately close to refugee settlements, African bus routes, and near villages believed to be supporting the guerrillas. 121 Highlighting the use of landmines was problematic for ZAPU and ZANU since ZIPRA and ZANLA were using them extensively in Rhodesia. Indeed, ZANU indirectly acknowledged this when they claimed that the RSF were using them ‘for no other reason than to make the people turn against the freedom fighters for any possible casualties.’ 122 Other allegations were that the RSF used napalm and poison. 123 They asserted that the former had been dropped on camps for refugees. 124 Other particular claims included the use of poisoned beer, and that on one occasion chemicals had been sprayed on villagers by the RhAF. 125 In 1978 ZAPU also suggested that the South Africans were assisting the Rhodesians in the production of such weapons. 126 These accusations were again a means of thoroughly discrediting the Rhodesians in the eyes of the wider world. Linking them to such weapons made it harder for respectable people to voice their support for the regime and gained sympathy for ZANU and ZAPU in a wide range of places.
The Selous Scouts were a special forces unit raised in 1973 which engaged in pseudo-operations, pretending to be guerrilla fighters in order to gather information which was then used to strike against ZANLA and ZIPRA. It also took part in cross border raids against nationalist targets in Zambia and Mozambique. The unit comprised both African and white soldiers, including many ‘turned’ guerrilla fighters. The Scouts were particularly disliked by the nationalists, and their unconventional tactics were highly controversial in the wider world. As such they came under extensive attack, as emblematic of the evils of the RSF. The presence of turncoat guerrilla fighters and other Africans further fed into the condemnation that they received. Thus, Voice of Zimbabwe accused the Selous Scouts of being a ‘traitor group with the racist army’, and ‘an infamous and notorious…terrorist band’. 127 Another angle was to accuse the Scouts of making false-flag attacks on Africans with an aim to make ZANU and ZAPU look bad. In particular there was a focus on the Scouts’ purported attacks on clerics. So, for example, in 1976 it was alleged that they had murdered Adolph Schmitt, the former Bishop of Bulawyo, and two of his missionary companions. 128 In 1980 Robert Mugabe accused them of attempting to attack churches in the name of ZANU and called on the British governor, Lord Soames, to disband them. 129 Such accusations would have been at odds with the Rhodesians’ claims to be defending ‘Christian civilization’. The nationalists were probably also keen to play up their own pro-church credentials given their association with the atheist regimes of China and the USSR. Of course the Scouts were also accused of attacking other civilian targets, such as when in 1980 Nkomo also accused them of bombing a newspaper office in Gwelo. 130 ZANU were also keen to assert that the Scouts were ordered personally by Ian Smith. 131 No doubt this was a mechanism to implicate the Rhodesian PM in the crimes of which the Scouts were being accused. The Scouts became emblematic of the Rhodesian regime in nationalist media, particularly because it was possible to blame them for any manner of terrible acts. They could be, and were, held up as the ultimate example of what ZANU and ZAPU saw as the brutality and illegal nature of the RSF.
ZAPU sought to show that the RSF were suffering from low morale during the later 1970s, the result, so they claimed, of successful guerrilla activity. Indeed, it was said that RSF troops would even sometimes retreat and hide. 132 In 1977 they reported a Bulawayo Chronicle article which had described a court martial for soldiers who had been found under the influence of alcohol whilst on duty and ‘who, it was said, failed to respond to enemy fire.’ ZAPU went on to argue that ‘[t]he situation must be very grim for many of these young men who are forced to fight a war in which they do not believe and which they have no hope of winning.’ 133 ZANU made similar claims. In 1976, for example, ZANLA’s leader stated that the morale of the RSF was declining on a daily basis, in contrast to that of the guerrillas, which was never greater. 134 He also stated that increasing numbers of RSF soldiers were deserting to join the guerrilla forces. 135 Voice of Zimbabwe also referred to ‘the mounting victories of the people’s army over Smith’s demoralized soldiers’. 136 It cited the testimony of a deserter interviewed by Radio Botswana to show that ‘the morale of the mercenaries is low.’ 137 ZPV asserted in 1979 that ‘the morale of white Rhodesian bandit soldiers is at its lowest ebb’. 138 It is certainly possible that, by the end of the decade, it was starting to wane in parts of the Rhodesian military, the result of the extensive fighting and the worsening security situation. However, the assertions put forward by ZANU and ZAPU overstated this. No doubt this was largely a propaganda exercise to rally their own supporters, but it also signifies an attempt to denigrate the capabilities of the RSF. Such an approach was no doubt part of a desire to encourage Africans to join their side, as well as to give the impression to the wider world that victory was at hand. It is worth remembering here that the RSF were at this stage killing large numbers of guerrilla fighters, and were capable of launching devastating attacks on Patriotic Front bases in neighbouring countries, such as at Chimoio in November 1977. An ancillary idea was that the RSF were undermanned, with failing equipment, and increasingly without the means to prosecute the war. To quote ZAPU, ‘[t]he truth…is that the Smith’s armed forces are getting more and more strained and will collapse sooner than later’. 139 It is true that the RSF were under increasing pressure as the 1970s wore on, and their equipment was pushed to the limit. However, these statements have to be read within the context of a desire on the part of ZAPU and ZANU to present victory as certain.
ZANU and ZAPU were keen users of propaganda who rapidly worked out that the war was fought as much with words as with guns. The RSF were an obvious target for media attacks and the nationalists waged a long and broad conflict with them in discussion and on paper. Their assertions were rarely subtle, but that was part of their power. The propagandists of the nationalist movement soon came to recognize the RSF’s greatest vulnerabilities. The white soldiers of the regime were depicted as rebels, many of whom had no true ties to the country, being mercenaries who were driven only by lust for money. They were presented as particularly brutal and could not be seen in any way as friends of the Africans of Rhodesia. They relied, it was said, on the discredited forces of South Africa and were in league with Western powers, who were named and shamed. The Rhodesian state, they argued, tried to downplay their losses, whilst the men themselves further undermined their cause by the terrible acts that they performed on African civilians. Whatever the Rhodesian regime might represent, contended ZANU and ZAPU, it was not ‘civilisation’. These messages were widely disseminated, both for consumption in Southern Africa and wider afield. This image of the RSF was being used as a recruiting tool both for fighters and allies abroad. Meanwhile, the fact that many Africans served in the RSF had to be addressed, and the nationalists tended to adopt a conciliatory line. This was likely because not only did it make defections more likely, but it also looked better on the international stage. It was, of course, vital that the regime did not look as though it had any genuine support from the Africans of Rhodesia, since that would help undermine their cause. This was particularly the case after the Internal Settlement was agreed in 1978 and especially so after the election of April 1979. How successful this propaganda was is perhaps difficult to assess, but its production formed a major part of both ZANU and ZAPU’s efforts during the 1970s. They certainly believed that it was important to undermine the RSF, and went to great lengths to do so.
