Mugabe says Army has plot against him

Press, 20 February 1980, Page 8

Mugabe says Army has plot against him

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury The Rhodesian guerrilla leader, Robert Mugabe, has urged the British Governor (Lord Soames) to disband and disarm Rhodesia’s security force auxiliaries and the crack Selous Scouts Army unit.

Two members of the Selous Scouts, a highlytrained tracking unit, died when a bomb wrecked their car last Thursday, the night three other bombs were planted at Salisbury churches. Mr Mugabe said that the two scouts were planning to plant their bomb at a fourth church as part of a plot to discredit his Marxist party as anti-Church and anti-reli-gion. “It is high time the Governor disbanded and disarmed them (the scouts and auxiliaries) completely,” Mr Mugabe told a press conference.

Earlier yesterday a huge bomb demolished part of a two-storey building in the Midlands city of Gwelo used by several black political parties. The police said they had not figured out who planted the bomb or who was the intended target.

“Grenades, and equipment of Communist origin were found near the site of the explosion,” a police spokesman said.

Among the three parties housed in the building was Mr Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) which has been the target of violence. Mr Mugabe, himself, has escaped at least two assassination attempts. No injuries were reported in the incident, but the police at the scene said they found two Soviet-made rockets, a hand-grenade, and fully loaded magazine from an AK-47 assault rifle. Lord Soames who began a fresh round of consultations with black political leaders yesterday, is scheduled to meet Mr Mugabe in the next two days. The Governor is hoping to defuse the political climate in Rhodesia in the last full week of campaigning for pre-independence elections. British officials insisted, meanwhile, that Mr Mugabe’s forces were responsible for most of the intimidation in the country.

Lord Soames’s spokesman, Nicholas Fenn/ released a map of Rhodesia with wide areas shaded blue or red to

denote areas controlled by Mr Mugabe’s party where other parties found it difficult or impossible to campaign. - All the areas marked were in those eastern regions where Mr Mugabe -draws most of his support. British sources said a high proportion of the 22,000 nationalist guerrillas in cease-fire assembly camps had told Lord Soames’s staff in a British circular that they wanted to pursue military careers in an independent Zimbabwe.

The election commissioner (Sir John Boynton) told reporters there would be 657 polling stations set up throughout the eight electoral districts. About half, of them would be mobile polling stations, largely deployed in remote rural areas. The counting of the votes, carried out at provincial level, should be completed by the morning of March 4, when the result would be announced, he said. Sir John said about 540 unarmed British policemen, being sent to invigilate at rural polling stations, would be arriving this week-end and would be sent out throughout the country on Sunday.