Dingo Firestorm (13 page)

Mozambique already had a Marxist party in power. In Angola, however, three rival former anti-Portuguese guerrilla forces were fighting each other for power, with the Soviets and Cubans supporting one, the Chinese another and South Africa, with covert backing from the US, a third.

In August 1975, at the time the Victoria Falls conference was convened, Vorster sent South African forces into Angola to seize and protect the South African–funded hydroelectric complex on the Cunene River. The Americans and President Kaunda were anxious to prevent the Marxist MPLA (the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, or Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) from securing power in Luanda. Even so, the political world at large strongly condemned South Africa’s presence in Angola. The US responded by suddenly withdrawing its covert support for South Africa.

According to Ian Smith, the US was keen to make amends to South Africa for its about-face in Angola and also to reinstate South Africa’s standing in the OAU. Solving the Rhodesian problem would enhance the standing of both countries. So the Americans became directly involved in the Rhodesian issue. US president Gerald Ford’s fix-it man, Henry Kissinger, was called in.

Kissinger, under his previous boss, Richard Nixon, had brokered the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, which were supposed to end the conflict in Vietnam. Like Vorster’s détente-inspired ceasefire in Rhodesia, the Vietnam ceasefire gave North Vietnam and their communist allies in the south time to regroup and rearm. When North Vietnam was ready, the Paris ceasefire agreement was torn up and the north invaded the south, finally taking Saigon in April 1975. The rapid communist victory in Vietnam achieved what more than 50 000 Americans and a lot more Vietnamese died trying to prevent.

In classic Kissinger deal-making style, known in America as ‘meat-axe diplomacy’, Kissinger promised Vorster important incentives on condition he made the Rhodesian prime minister, Ian Smith, fall on his sword.

While Kissinger was touring the region to get an understanding of the issues, the Rhodesian forces were planning an audacious raid on a prime ZANLA camp in Mozambique.

The Selous Scouts, operating in the Holdenby TTL near Inyanga, had a lucky break. They captured Morrison Nyathi, a senior ZANLA sectoral commander (equivalent to a brigadier), who had recently crossed into Rhodesia from Mozambique.

Chief Superintendent ‘Mac’ McGuiness of the Special Branch interrogated Nyathi, who revealed there was a massive ZANLA transit camp north of Chimoio, called Pungwe. Nyathi even described the position of the huts housing the senior camp commanders. The Selous Scouts officer commanding, Lieutenant Colonel Ron Reid-Daly, was keen to attack the base, but he needed more than Nyathi’s description – he needed an aerial photograph of the camp.

Try as they may, the air force’s high-flying Canberra jets could not find the Pungwe camp. They were looking for the camp – quite logically – on the banks of the Pungwe River, but there was nothing. Then, in a stroke of luck, a Canberra flown by Squadron Leader Randy du Rand flew over a gap in the thick cloud cover. Suddenly, there it was: Tekere’s camp. It was not on the banks of the Pungwe River, however, but eight kilometres up a tributary called the Rio Nhazonia, or Nyadzonia River. The navigator managed to set the camera rolling before the cloud closed over again. The photographs revealed a large camp with a parade square, on which an estimated 5 000 personnel were clustered.

Reid-Daly was delighted. He took the pictures and McGuiness’s dossier to his commander, an old colleague from the Malaya campaign days, Lieutenant General Peter Walls. Reid-Daly outlined his plan for 60 men to go into Mozambique by vehicle, disguised as FRELIMO, and then attack the camp. The element of surprise, backed up by 20-mm Hispano cannons mounted on Unimog trucks and armoured cars, meant the risky plan should be achievable.

‘Peter Walls tends to whistle through his teeth when he is anxious,’ recalled Reid-Daly. ‘Jesus, Ron, this is a hell of a risk’ was his response. ‘Peter Walls was supportive, but he had to go to South Africa the next day on urgent government business, so he asked me to brief the heads of the army, air force, CIO, SB and Foreign Affairs.

‘I was called to Milton Building by Walls’s second in command, General John Hickman. I told the assembled gathering that trying to stop the gooks in Rhodesia was like emptying a bath with a teacup with both taps fully open. What is needed is to tackle the problem at its source,’ said Reid-Daly. ‘John Hickman and Archie Wilson (air force) were supportive, but the CIO, SB and Foreign Affairs weren’t.’

There was serious concern that the political fallout from the raid might exceed the gains. If no trace of a Rhodesian presence was left, however, maybe it could work. Hickman dismissed Reid-Daly and had a private discussion with the chiefs about the audacious plan.

When Reid-Daly got back to his HQ at Inkomo Barracks, the phone rang. It was Hickman: ‘It’s a go, Ron, you owe me a beer, good luck!’

There was one condition: no air support would be provided, so Reid-Daly’s men would have to fight their way out of trouble.

The Unimog trucks were painted in FRELIMO camouflage and the men kitted in FRELIMO uniforms, manufactured in the tailor shop at Inkomo Barracks. Captain Rob Warraker, formerly with the RLI and SAS, would lead the raid.

‘After I bade my men farewell, I was very anxious,’ recalled Reid-Daly. ‘I slept on a hard bench near the radio, only leaving for a pee or a crap.’

Keeping away from main roads as much as possible, Warraker’s convoy of 10 Unimogs and four armoured cars threaded its way across the border into Mozambique. They drove into the camp in the early morning, singing a FRELIMO song. The inhabitants, assembled on the parade square, welcomed them enthusiastically. The Scouts opened up, wreaking death and destruction. Only four Selous Scouts were injured when fire was eventually returned.

Reid-Daly’s radio receiver remained silent until later that morning.

‘The first news I heard was when one of my men manning an OP [observation post] on Mount Inyangombe radioed to report a massive explosion in Mozambique. I knew then that Robbie Warraker and the team had blown the Pungwe River bridge to prevent a FRELIMO follow-up. They were on their way home.’

As it turned out, the column did get air support as they were threading their way out of the now well-alerted Mozambican countryside. Two Hawker Hunter jets blasted a troublesome FRELIMO mortar position.

‘Rob Warraker’s callsign was Zero Whisky, so I made sure I had plenty of Bell’s Scotch whisky waiting for him and his men when they eventually got back to Inkomo,’ said Reid-Daly. But the men were so dog-tired that only superficial damage was done to the whisky stocks.

A FRELIMO board-of-inquiry document, found a year later at the ZANLA HQ at Chimoio by Detective Superintendent Keith Samler, confirmed 1 026 had been killed. It also confirmed that Nyadzonia was indeed a camp for combatants and recruits.

Nevertheless, Reid-Daly was castigated by some senior military figures for engaging in an external operation, which was the domain of the SAS. ‘I said to them, “Listen, we can do things externally that you can never do because you haven’t got black troops.”’

The man who had chosen the Nyadzonia site for ZANLA regretted his choice: ‘We lost more than 700 people,’ wrote Edgar Tekere in his memoirs. ‘What had attracted me was the Nyadzonia River, which flowed in a horseshoe shape around the camp. The Rhodesian forces attacked from the west, at the narrow entrance, forcing our soldiers into the deep river where they were either drowned or eaten by crocodiles.’

The political fallout after the Nyadzonia raid was serious. Much of the world press took the ZANU line and instantly judged that Nyadzonia was a refugee camp. John Vorster was extremely embarrassed and let Ian Smith know in no uncertain manner how angry he was. Vorster made sure Smith understood his anger by sending his air force commander, Lieutenant General Bob Rogers, to Salisbury to tell the Rhodesians that all helicopter crews and signals technicians would be withdrawn immediately. The South African pilots flying on Fireforce duties around Rhodesia were astounded when they were told to pack up and leave immediately for home.

The Nyadzonia raid took place while Kissinger, Vorster, Kaunda, Nyerere and the British government were finalising a new Rhodesian settlement deal. That explained, in part, Vorster’s anger. He soon summoned Smith to South Africa to tell him about a ‘reasonable plan’ the South Africans and Henry Kissinger had worked out for Rhodesia. Vorster let Smith know early on that the stakes were high.

Smith recalled Vorster’s warning to him: ‘If we were not prepared to accept this offer of the hand of friendship from our only friends in this world, then we would be on our own, with sanctions tightening, terrorism increasing and finally the Russians coming in.’

Vorster explained the plan, which, in a nutshell, meant full majority rule in two years, with various guarantees, including a $2 billion trust fund to secure pensions and foreign exchange for those who wished to leave Rhodesia.

‘After lunch,’ recalled Smith, ‘we came to the conclusion that it would probably be a good thing to bring the Americans in, since this might have a stabilising effect on the South Africans.’ The scene was set for Smith to meet Kissinger a week later.

Smith arrived for the meeting in Pretoria a day early, on 18 September 1976, to watch the Springbok rugby team play the New Zealand All Blacks at Ellis Park. The home side prevailed by one point, winning 15–14. The celebration of the victory was brief; Ian Smith’s mind was on the next day.

While the rugby game was being played and to demonstrate his determination and the gravity of the situation, Vorster closed the rail bridge over the Limpopo River at the Rhodesian–South African border town of Beitbridge. With Mozambique’s ports closed to Rhodesia, the landlocked country’s main supply line was suddenly throttled.

Sunday 19 September 1976 was a warm, dry, hazy day in Pretoria. Smith turned up at the US ambassador’s house in the pleasant suburb of Waterkloof for his fateful meeting with Kissinger.

‘On the Sunday morning, after the introductions, Kissinger suggested that he and I go into a small adjoining room,’ recalled Smith. ‘He told me that, as he saw it, he was being asked to participate in the demise of Rhodesia.’ After the one-to-one meeting, and then a joint meeting, Kissinger made Smith walk the plank.

A dejected Ian Smith and his team flew back to Salisbury to explain the deal to cabinet, discuss it and then make the toughest television announcement of his life. The man who had proclaimed that one-man-one-vote majority rule would not happen in Rhodesia ‘for a thousand years’ had to announce to his people that he now accepted the very principle of majority rule.

In that historic broadcast on Friday 24 September 1976, Smith made it quite clear he had been told what to do: ‘The American and British governments, together with major Western powers, have made up their minds as to the kind of solution they wish to see in Rhodesia, and they are determined to bring it about.’

The fact that Smith made no secret of the fact that this plan had been imposed by external parties made it all the more shocking to Rhodesians. Many people’s conclusion was that their friends had all deserted them, including South Africa.

Wing Commander Prop Geldenhuys, then forward airfield (FAF) commander of the Buffalo Range (FAF 7) base in the south-east, summed up the feelings of many military personnel in his book
Rhodesian Air Force Operations
: ‘General Walls briefed us, psychologically persuading the field commanders while Ian Smith was meeting with his full cabinet. I can unashamedly record that the tears ran down my cheeks – the end was in sight – it was capitulation.’

The Kissinger plan called for a conference in Geneva between leaders of both sides.

With all the bravado of his ‘meat-axe diplomacy’, Kissinger had simply not grasped the fundamental issue: the serious divisions within the black nationalist movement. Who would represent them in Geneva?

The front-line states (Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana), countries that were suffering terribly from the effects of the Rhodesian War, desperately wanted a settlement, so it fell to them to galvanise an effective alliance to negotiate with Smith in Geneva.

The front-line leaders tried a number of combinations, but eventually decided to summon Nkomo and Mugabe to Dar es Salaam and bang their heads together, forcing them to negotiate as one, as the Patriotic Front. This was a bittersweet turning point for Mugabe. Although he would have to sit at the negotiating table with his archenemy, Nkomo, he was for the first time being recognised as a leader. Not
the
ZANU leader, but at least
a
leader. The front-line leaders invited Sithole too, so ZANU would be a two-headed beast.

When Mugabe left for the meeting in Dar es Salaam, ZANU divisions were opening up again. This time it was a clash between the new educated and old uneducated classes. A group of young Marxist– Leninist idealists called the
vashandi
, or workers’ group, publicly rejected Mugabe’s leadership. Mugabe was deeply worried that his quest would be derailed. So he reacted to this challenge in a way that would become his hallmark – first outsmart and then snuff out his opponents.

With very few cards to play, Mugabe then produced his ace. His main military colleague, Rex Nhongo, sympathised with the
vashandi
, so Mugabe demanded the release of Josiah Tongogara as a precondition to attending Geneva. Kaunda could hardly refuse, so after 18 months in a Zambian jail, Tongogara and his colleagues were set free.

Mugabe got ZANU’s most effective military leader on his side in return for allowing him to resume his role as supreme military commander of ZANLA, and Tongogara now supported Mugabe’s bid as party leader. Samora Machel, a great fan of Tongogara, accepted this alliance, which gave Mugabe at least some recognition.

Mugabe knew that he had to be seriously radical if he were to win over the
vashandi
and keep the party together. He wasted no time letting everyone know, not least his own party, that he was in no mood to compromise. Soon after arriving in Switzerland, a journalist asked Mugabe what sort of Rhodesia he wanted. ‘What I am saying is that we are socialists and we shall draw on the socialist systems [state control of the economy] of Tanzania and Mozambique’ was his reply.