BLACK AND WHITE Newspaper Team Investigates Guerrilla Activity Throughout Southern Africa

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31628, 14 March 1968, Page 18

BLACK AND WHITE Newspaper Team Investigates Guerrilla Activity Throughout Southern Africa

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON. Two months ago, a band of 13 doomed revolutionaries straggled into a bar in the Rhodesian village of Kimativi, just south of the Rhodesian frontier with Zambia. They had crossed the border by canoe, the “shock troops” of Black Africa, dripping with modern weapons and trained in secret camps. They were thirsty and footsore and, with guns on their shoulders, they asked for beer. Someone telephoned the police, and they were taken away. . , , Seven others were picked up when they asked for medi-

cal attention at a copper mine near by. For many white South Africans this sorry show typified the “black freedom fighters” —weak-willed, undisciplined, tactically naive and burdened with a technology they do not understand.

But not all freedom fighters have been so incompetent.

The first wave of shock troops who paddled across the Zambesi last August were made of sterner stuff. Rhodesian sources admit they were dogged fighters, well trained and armed. They caught the Rhodesians napping, and they changed the military map of Africa by bringing South African forces openly into Rhodesia. “Suicide Squads” This first collision was, in the words of Sir Roy Welensky, the former Prime Minis-

ter of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, “a round in a much greater battle.”

The achievements of this first wave—admitted by their sponsors in Zambia to be “suicide squads”—have been denigrated by their white adversaries in Salisbury. It is said that the attackers got hardly further south than the perimeter of the great . Wankie game reserve. But 50 miles below that boundary the local settlers are well aware that the enemy came very close to them. There was a South African police base at Tjolotjo whose men were engaged in bitter fighting with the invaders.

Even after the beating off of the first attack, isolated killings have continued. A Rhodesian African who was incautious enough to betray a guerrilla hitch-hiker to the police was stabbed to death in his home less than a month later. And the absence of communiques from Salisbury is no proof that more guerrillas, perhaps more fortunate in their choice of driver, are not waiting quietly for the moment to strike.

“For Later Use”

One of the African nationalist movements, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, claims that it is deliberately infiltrating guerrillas “for later use.”

The freedom fighters’ crossing points are remind the shores of Lake Kariba. Many cross into Rhodesia near its eastern end at Chirundu, on the main road toSalisbury. Others, like the bar-flies of Kamativi, pushed south near the western end, heading for the LivingstoneBulawayo road. Once across it, they hole up in the Wankie reserve. It was here that white security forces found a joint troop of Z.A.P.U. and African National Congress men last September—the first preparing for trouble in Rhodesia, the second in transit to South Africa. These facts were established by a news team from “The Times” cross-checking rebel claims with visits to the battlefields. But members of the Z.A.P.U., in particular, crazily exaggerate their successes in a way that suggests they have to. One Z.A.P.U. report claimed that the carnage in and round Wankie was so great that settlers killed in the encounters could no longer jbe interred in the area. I Trucks carrying their corpses and disguised with tarpaulins marked “Fish for Bulawayo” were, the news team was informed, trundling down the road from Wankie to a graveyard at Nyamandhlovu, farther south. From Bulawayo, William Norris, “The Times” Africa correspondent, travelled up by car to examine the graves. The township consists of a small railway station, a rural hospital, a i police post and little else, i Discreet inquiries were made 1 about mass burials, but

Nyamandhlovu boasted not a single new grave, let alone 300. And the fish lorries appeared to be carrying fish.

Effective or not, the Black Freedom Fighters of Rhodesia certainly exist, and many are undergoing military training. From their training camps more and better men will doubtless come for that “much greater battle.” Nyere’s Admission

Where are these camps? Probably for the first time, the news team has extracted from President Nyere of Tanzania a public admission that they are on his territory.

“Of course there are Freedom Fighters on Tanzanian soil,” the President told Michael Knipe, of “The Times” team. “They train here and we offer them facilities. It would be absurd to deny it.” At present, the supporters of Z.A.P.U. and its rival, Z.AN.U. (Zimbabwe African National Union), show more enthusiasm for fighting among themselves in Zambia that battling with the whites in Rhodesia.

They are constantly brawling in the shanty townships of Lusaka, where most of them live as refugees. Fights break out, stones are thrown and houses wrecked. Like rival mobs of football supporters, the brawlers seem more animated by the merits of their rival captains than by ideology. With jobs, homes and families in Zambia it is perhaps understandable that they are reluctant to face the rigours and dangers of freeing their homelands. Certainly, both freedom movements have found guerrilla recruitment a major problem. Z.A.P.U. has neatly solved this problem by a “traditional” method—press-ganging Last July, their zealous emissaries imprudently recruited a supposed Rhodesian carpenter, who was in fact a Zambian. The gentle woodworker was kidnapped at dead of night by an 18-man strongarm squad and taken to a military training camp the size of two football fields on the border of the Kafue Game Reserve in Zambia. He estimates there were 200 military trainees there in the charge of a fierce, bearded African commander. Some were shown how to handle machine-guns, he was given P.T. and rifle drill.

Eventually, the exhausted carpenter convinced his instructors that he was not Rhodesian, and was released. No Apologies Z.A.P.U. makes no apologies for its recruitment policy. “Many countries have to make military service compulsory in time of war, and ours is no exception,” said Mr Edward Ndlovu, the deputy national secretary. Knipe's inquiries into training camps and allied topics landed him in a Dar Es Salaam gaol for 24 hours, cut off from Consular access or any outside contact.

He found there a group of six Goanese who had, accord-

ing to the Tanzanians, been spying for the Portuguese. Junior Government officials denied all knowledge of training camps, and an unofficial “closed area” in the south, near the Mozambique border—extending over perhaps a fifth of the whole country—made travel to the area impossible. Knipe was warned by Government officials that he would be extremely ill-advised to venture there.

Big secrets cannot be kept for long. Kongwa, in the north, protected from prying eyes by its appalling roads, is the chief training centre for Rhodesian-bound guerrillas. From Kongwa the assault route, with intermediate staging camps, leads through Dodoma and Mbeya, over the Zambian border via the infamous “Great North Road”, through Broken Hill, where suspicious lorry loads have been exciting some attention :Then the route fans out to the dispersal points round Lake Kariba. Down this road come the warrant officers and n.c.o.’s of the Black Revolution—the men who are willing to die, and usually do. And if ever a movement needed cruel sergeant-majors and unkind corporals, it is the Rhodesian liberation movement in Zambia. Disappointed Even their staunch supporter, President Kaunda, is disappointed in them. “Unfortunately.” he told the team, “the movements have not succeeded in bringing about sufficient disorder in Rhodesia. They should be creating far more problems for the Smith regime than they are doing.” Another official Z.A.P.U. policy is to urge African women to deny conjugal rights to husbands unwilling to fight. The success of their scheme is unknown. The black assailants of Rhodesia and South Africa are no very present threat to the white regimes in their homelands. But the assault on Rhodesia is a mere detail in the vast canvas across which the struggle for the southern States is being painted. Into a whitewashed complex of pill-box offices in Lusaka, called “The Liberation Centre,” the Zambians have hearded 13 of the various exiled movements bent on fighting the white oppression of their homelands all over Africa.

The cynical might consider it a sign of President Kaunda’s regard for '■ their efforts that he has appointed as overseer a man whose greatest quality seems to be his eccentricity. Edward Nkoloso achieved glory some years ago as Zambia’s self-styled Minister of Space Aviation, aiming to land a Zambian as first man on the moon. He trained student astronauts by rolling them downhill in barrels. The chances of some of the liberation movements of freeing their countries at present are, perhaps, as remote as a Zambian moon landing. But

the Angola and Mozambique liberation movements are certainly more businesslike affairs than Rhodesia’s.

Human Tragedies

The official Portuguese bulletins describing “anti-terror-ist” activities in Angola give little idea of the human tragedies involved. Last Christmas there was an “incident” in a village near Nharea, north of Silver Porto, in the centre of the colony. Five terrorists, it was said, were killed.

Another version of the story, which comes from a man who was there and says he saw it happen is more disquieting. Just before Christmas, his account goes, the son of the village headman returned from a trip outside Angola. He had become a convinced Freedom Fighter and told the villagers that he could vaccinate them against Portuguese bullets—for a price. They agreed. He “vaccinated” each of them over the heart, collected the money and disappeared. On December 23, the Portuguese got wind of the affair and sent an Army unit to look into it. They asked the headman why he had sheltered a terrorist.

“He was my son, who had come home,” the old man replied. He and the other villagers admitted their vaccinations. Without more ado, the soldiers then shot the headman and nine others.

Four days later the soldiers returned and shot 17 more villagers. in spite of such reprisals, the main offensive in the eastern provinces, steered by the M.P.L.A. (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), seems to be enjoying considerable success. Better Armed Colonel R. Machado Souza, a tough, bullet-headed little man, is second-in-charge of about 5500 men who have to cover the whole of eastern Angola. At his headquarters m the garrison town of Vila Luso, astride the Benguela railway, he confirmed that terrorist activity had flared up in recent months and was still increasing. The local population, he admitted, were in trouble. “If they help the terrorists, they get shot by us,” he said. “And if they don’t, they get shot by the terrorists.” Speaking in a tiny office strewn with captured Kalashnikov and Simonov automatic weapons made in Russia and China, Colonel Souza said the M.P.L.A. men were far better armed than the adherents of the rival organisation, U.N.I.T.A. This second group, whose initials stand for National Union for the Complete Independence of Angola, has largely limited itself to sabotaging the partly Britishowned Benguela railway. As this happens to be the chief outlet for Zambia’s copper, its leader, Dr Joseph Savimbi, has not unnaturally found himself flung out of Zambia by the normally tolerant President.

In the first 26 days of January, Colonel Souza said, there had been 10 clashes between his troops and terrorists.

Penetration

This admission goes some way to substantiate M.P.L.A.’s claim that it has penetrated 310 miles into Angola. The rebels say they control the countryside in this area, and have established a rudimentary social structure of their own there.

Even allowing for exaggeration, the depth of the guerrilla penetration is remarkable. The latest January incidents came from near Serno Pinto and Silva Porto, right in the centre of Angola. There is little _doubt, in spite of Zambian denials, that the offensive is being assisted from Zambian soil. Colonel Souza stabbed his finger at a wall-map showing three bases across the border, named the area’s military rebel chief, and said: “If only we were allowed to cross the border and hit those camps the war would be over in weeks.” The rebels themselves can hardly deny that they are assisted from Lusaka. Stumping round the liberation centre in the Zambian capital was one of the movement’s central committee members, Anibal Demeno. Asked about his copious leg bandages, he said he had just come from a 100-mile hike on foot round rebel bases in Angola—a trip that would unquestionably have taken him across Zambia’s western frontiers with Angola. The rebels’ main base is believed to be at Dolisie, in Congo-Brazzaville. Base For 10,000 M.P.L.A. also claims to be operating in a 300-mlle corridor north-east of Angola’s capital, Luanda, there, too, their rival, Holden Roberto, head of the G.R.A.E. (Angolan Exiles’ Revolutionary Government) has made a base for many years for his perhaps 10,000 men. The rebels there grow their own crops and hunt game, according to Lieu-tenant-Colonel Renato Pinto, Portuguese director of a small “inner-cabinet” unit devoted to police and military intelligence.

the Portuguese claim all is quiet on this northern front,

but past terrorist activity keeps fingers on the trigger. Norris visited a coffee plantation surrounded by 10fthigh barbed-wire, with fields of fire cleared inside. All 300 workers sleep inside the wire compound, which is closed at 8 p.m. and floodlit during the night. The main house has its veranda fenced off from floor to ceiling, and when Norris arrived with an official escort in the middle of the afternoon he was greeted by two bounding Alsatian dogs and a young Portuguese brandishing an American rifle. There were sub-machine guns and grenades in a loft, and clearly all were on con slant alert. Yet they blandly declared that they had seen no terrorists for seven years. The officer in charge of one rural police post not far away said he had had 50 or 60 calls for help last year, and had killed or captured “quite a few terrorists.” Lone Fight Roberto continues his fight, domesticated, eclipsed by M.P.L.A. and largely alone. M.P.L.A., on the other hand, has forged close military and political links with two other aggressive and effective rebellions in Portuguese territories. One is Amilcar Cabral’s P.A.I.G.C. (African Party for Independence for Guinea and Cabo Verde), in Portuguese Guinea, 1500 miles to the north.

Eye-witness reports have shown that much of Guinea is in rebel hands. If this tiny enclave fell, the crash would be heard loudly in Angola and in the other territory whose rebels have linked up with M.P.L.A.-Mozarabique.

“To Live, To Die”

“Welcome to Mueda,” says the airport sign at the garrison town in Mozambique which M.P.L.A.'s allies, F.R.E.L.1.M.0. (Mozambique Liberation Front), have completely surrounded. "We come here to live, to fight, to die.”

The town itself has been shelled by guerrillas at least once, and the neighbouring bush is the scene of vicious ambushes which have caused the Portuguese to withdraw almost completely into their strongholds. The frequency of these attacks can be accurately charted, though casualty figures are impossible to establish. Last November, on Portuguese admission, there were in the Mueda district eight ambushes, five boobytrap incidents, one aircraft shot at and one hit-and-run raid on a military post. This tallies well with the guerrilla’s own account of activity for the same month in that area—seven ambushes and two mine attacks, though the Portuguese admitted casualties of three dead were a tiny fraction of F.R.E.L.1.M.0.’s claims of more than 50 killed. As in Angola, the rebels’ assault is quite clearly sustained from the other side of the frontier.

Brigadier Upinto Bessa, a charming, American-trained officer in his mid-forties who is chief of staff for Portugal’s Mozambique Army, said that if outside support ceased the rebellion would collapse. Portuguese intelligence claims to have located no less than 10 training or supply camps in Tanzania, with headquarters at Songea. Tanzania’s closing of the south to “unauthorised travellers” tends to confirm this. Control In Bush Another sign of rebel penetration is the establishment of a rudimentary F.R.E.L.1.M.0. administration in the bush. According to the rebels, the Portuguese system has fallen apart, and they themselves have “virtual control” over a fifth of the country—the two northern provinces—where they are running openair schools and a skeleton economic system.

The Portuguese admit that such schools exist, saying in mitigation that their own language is taught there and that the rebels have even appoached them for school books.

“The Times” team met in Metangula a delightful exterrorist called Fernando, with a flat, pockmarked face and charming smile. Instead of being killed (as one of his companions had been, and he expected to be), Fernando was allowed to watch a film show on the night he was captured. Bored, he left the film halfway through and was allowed to go back to his cell.

Now he roams the base, dressed in combat uniform, and guides the Portuguese marines on patrol. A model captive, he is studying Portuguese at the local school in his spare time, and hopes to open a canteen for the troops outside the base—an ambition his captors are encouraging. Road Mined Metangula is the Portuguese naval base on Lake Malawai, where rebel activity is far less intense than in the northeast. But even the base has had its road link with Vila Cabral, the provincial capital, made almost useless by repeated rebel mining, allied with heavy rains. Norris, who has a pilot’s licence, was reduced to inspecting this part of the front from an aircraft lent him by the Portuguese. Between the Metangula and

Mueda fronts lies a desolate region of thick torest and rock, so ravaged it might have been clawed by the devil’s fingernails. Into here, the Portuguese agree, F.R.E.L.1.M.0. guerrillas have been infiltrating in large numbers along the river beds. “They’re welcome to it,” said one Portuguese. “If ever a hell on earth were created, it would be put here." . Daui Target But while attention is focused on the two northern fronts, the thoughts of both sides are concerned with a great and vulnerable economic project taking shape in the north-west—the Caboro Bassa hydro-electric scheme. This joint Portuguese-South African project, said to be the biggest in tropical Africa, would straddle the Zambesi with a 500 ft-high dam. A two million kilowatt generating station would pump electricity to Pretoria, 800 miles away. Sites surveys have already started. Last September, an arms cache destined for a second rebel movement, the Zambian based C.0.R.E.M.0. (Mozambique Revolutionary Committee) was discovered not far away, at Puato. Already, C.0.R.E.M.0. infiltrators from Zambia are slipping quietly into the area, according to Portuguese intelligence. Brigadier Bessa told “The Times” team he thought C.0.R.E.M.0. might be planning something drastic. He would not, he said, be at all surprised if Caboro Bassa were to be a new target. In Lusaka, Paulo Gumane, the Roman Catholic farmer’s son who runs C.0.R.E.M.0., said: “Our target is the economy of Mozambique. At the right time there will be a major uprising.” From Dar Es Salaam, F.R.E.L.1.M.0., too, is aiming at the same target. Dr Eduo ardo Mondlane, its president, obligingly disclosed his battle plans, apparently confident that the Portuguese knew them already. “If we do not destroy the Cabora Bassa scheme, or at least make it twice as costly, we shall have received our greatest setback,” he said.

F.R.E.L.1.M.0.’s strength in that area is very low at the moment, but all the signs are that they will make a big attempt to smash this industrial symbol of the White South’s unity. But as they strike anew at Portugal, the rebels will find themselves entangled in a spider’s web spun by ' the White South. It is a net far more complex than mere economic co-operation. This is the fuel of a potential racial war in Southern Africa—a war of which President Nyerere of Tanzania said: “It is not really a question of whether this war will break out, but when.”

The relationship between white and Coloured people is fast developing into the world’s dominant issue in the second half of the twentieth century.

The hanging of five Rhodesian-African murderers has widened the split between White and Black Africa.

In the United States, there are preparations for another long, hot summer in which more racial riots are feared.

In Britain, there is growing concern about racial tension, heightened by the controversial issue of Asian immigration from East Africa.

During the last six months, a news team from “The Times” has been exploring the colour question on three continents, and this first article provides detailed facts, examines some surprising influences at work, and sets them against an international and historical background.