Mugabe guerrillas open fire on police patrol

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 6

Mugabe guerrillas open fire on police patrol

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury Militant guerrillas loyal to the nationalist leader, Robert Mugabe, yesterday opened up with mortars on a Rhodesian police and Army patrol close to the perimeter of a cease-fire assembly point in remote north-eastern Rhodesia, a British military spokesman has said. The incident happened at Assembly Point Charlie at Marymount Mission near the Mozambique border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

A Rhodesian police patrol supported by soldiers was seen close to the perimeter of the camp, apparently inside a “no-go” buffer zone around the assembly area, military sources said. The guerrillas opened up with mortars for 15 minutes, the sources said. The incident was the second this month and further illustrated mounting tensions at the 14 Commonwealthmonitored assembly places

across Rhodesia with the embattled British colony’s first pre-independence elections only a week away. The assembly place houses about 660 of Mr Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army guerrillas monitored by small detachments of Australian and British troops from the 1300-man Commonwealth cease-fire force in Rhodesia. Z.A.N.L.A.’s high command in Salisbury held an emergency meeting following the incident, Z.A.N.L.A. sources said. Some 22,000 guerrillas, three-quarters of them from Z.A.N.L.A. and the rest from Joshua Nkomo’s rival Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army have gathered in the assembly places under the December 28 cease-fire that formally ended Rhodesia’s seven-year bush war.

Technically they are classified by the British Governor (Lord Soames) as “lawful forces.” But Z.A.N.L.A.

commanders are expressing mounting concern that theif men are slowly being ew circled by Government troops taking advantage of the confinement of the guerj rillas. There is also growing apt prehension about the fate of the monitoring force ones the outcome of the February 27-29 vote is announced) possibly on March 4. » The Commonwealth monitors, only lightly armed and vastly outnumbered by thd guerrillas, could be at th£ mercy of the guerrillas it their political leaders lost* the elections, military sources said. » In Salisbury, the Rhode* sian police have raided the; homes of four officials ofJoshua Nkomo’s party searching for weapons, af party spokesman has said; No weapons were found, he added. ’ The spokesman said the search was “a premeditated act of harassment, in* timidation, and humiliation.”