Who Dares Loses?
2007; Routledge; Volume: 152; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/03071840701863067
ISSN1744-0378
Autores Tópico(s)African history and culture studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. This article describes the forces, places and the authorities as they were then constituted and denoted. 2. At the peak by 1979, made up of around 3,400 regulars with the remainder conscripts. This figure was supplemented by around 45,000 BSA police (of which 8,000 were regulars, the remainder reservists). 3. By the Rhodesian Security Forces’ own estimates, the number of guerrillas operating inside Rhodesia grew from 350 or 400 in July 1974 to 700 by March 1976, 2,350 by April 1977, 5,598 by November 1977, 6,456 by March 1978, to 11,183 by January 1979 and as many as 12,500 by the end of the war. At the time of the ceasefire in December 1979, an estimated 22,000 ZIPRA and 16,000 ZANLA guerrillas remained outside the country, although not all were trained. See Ian Beckett, The Rhodesian Army: Counter-Insurgency, 1972–1979, accessed at http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/rhode sian%20army%20coin%2072_79%20part2.htm. 4. The First Chimurenga is celebrated in Zimbabwe as the First War of Independence, also known as the Second Matabele War, referring to the 1896–97 revolt against the British South Africa Company's colonial rule. 5. See, for example, Ron Reid-Daly as told to Peter Stiff, Selous Scouts: Top Secret War (South Africa, Galago, 1982); Barbara Cole, The Elite: The Story of the Rhodesian SAS (South Africa: Three Knights, 1984); and Peter Stiff, See you in November (South Africa: Galago, 1987). Some Rhodesians came to belief their own mythologies: As TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter quoted one senior noncommissioned officer in 1978: ‘We have created a top-rate bush fighter. You can drop an average reserve troopie [private] anywhere in the country at night with a compass, and he can give you a six-figure grid reading which can put you within 100 yards of his position.’ See TIME, 27 February 1978, accessed at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0, 9171,919355-1,00.html. 6. A notable exemption is Jakkie Cilliers’ account of the conflict, Counter Insurgency in Rhodesia (London: Croom Helm, 1985), written originally as a MA thesis and the result of travel and interviews throughout Zimbabwe. 7. Including civilians in Mozambique and Zambia. At http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/gukurahundi.html. Officially the war cost the deaths of 410 white and 691 black civilians, but these figures were clearly understated. 8. Not including external casualties of the guerrilla organizations, 9. ZAPU was formed in 1962, and almost immediately banned by the Whitehead government; ZANU was formed in August 1963 as a result of Nkomo's expulsion from ZAPU of Ndabaningi Sithole, Robert Mugabe, Leopold Takawira, and Washington Malianga, as a result of their opposition to his leadership. 10. Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation. 11. Cilliers, op cit, p.12. 12. Cited in Cilliers, op cit, p.13. 13. Made up of Dakota paratroop and helicopterborne troops comprising 97 SAS, and 88 RLI soldiers. 14. Some estimates put the base numbers as high as 12,000. The attack is vividly described in Chris Cocks’ sobering account of his service in the Rhodesian Army, Fireforce: One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (South Africa: Covos Day, 2001), pp.144–46. The raid led to the largest air effort yet marshaled by the Rhodesians, though the age and serviceability of the aircraft was one indication of their problems: 42 helicopters, eight Hawker Hunters, six Vampires, three Canberras, six Dakotas and around one dozen Lynxes (a militarized version of the Cessna Super Skymaster). At the peak of its strength during the insurgency, the Rhodesian Air Force had a maximum strength of 2,300 personnel. Of this number, only 150 were pilots actively involved in combat operations. In the Chimoio raid, the largest such joint-force operation of the war, over 1,200 guerrillas and dependents, some of them women and children, were killed. 15. The name, after the 19th century explorer Courtney Selous, was originally given to an armoured car unit constituted in 1961 and later relinquished to the special forces pseudo guerrilla unit upon its creation in 1973. 16. Note that the figures only refer to the insurgents killed within Zimbabwe. The wounded can be computed on the ratio of 6.5:1. 17. Muzorewa was teamed in an alliance that included the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau. 18. It is estimated that, by the war's end in 1980, the South African government was directly and indirectly footing the bill for around half of Rhodesian defence expenditure. 19. Officially, in 1971 the country had 9,403 white immigrants; in 1976, 7,072 residents left, and in 1978, 13,709. 20. Cocks, op cit, p.272. 21. Ronald Weitzer, Transforming Settler States: Communal Conflict and Internal Security in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, sourced at http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2199n7jp/ 22. From 1971–1972 to 1976–1977 the budget for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (previously the Department of Native Affairs) jumped from R$9.7 million to R$42 million; that for the Ministry of Law and Order (including police) jumped from R$17.5 million to R$50 million; and expenditure for the Ministry of Defense grew from R$20 million to R$98.7 million. See Government of Southern Rhodesia, Estimates of Expenditure. Salisbury: Government Printer, 1971–1972 and 1976–1977. 23. Beckett, op cit. 24. For example, under ‘Operation Overload’ in July 1974 over 46,000 Africans were removed from the Chiweshe area into 21 protected villages and some 13,500 people from the Madziwa area. Officially there were 116 PVs by August 1976, 178 by September 1977 and 234 planned or built by January 1978. 25. Beckett, op cit. 26. Beckett, op cit. 27. It is estimated that over one-third of the African cattle herd died during the war while, with only 1,500 out of 8,000 cattle dips still in operation in 1979, disease such as anthrax and tsetse, again became rampant. 28. Beckett, op cit. 29. Beckett, op cit. 30. Major-General Arthur Bruce Campling, ‘Pseudo-Terrorist Operations in Rhodesia,’ undated mimeo. 31. See http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/rhodesian_army.htm. 32. On the parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan, see, for example, Edward Luttwak, ‘Dead End: Counter Insurgency as Military Malpractice’, Harper's, February 2007, at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081384. 33. By 1979 blacks comprised 40 per cent of the 15,000 army personnel and 60 per cent of the British South African Police. Many, however, apparently enlisted for economic reasons. See Weitzer, op cit. Additional informationNotes on contributorsGreg MillsDr Greg Mills heads the Johannesburgbased Brenthurst Foundation, and was a special adviser to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2006. Major (rtd)Grahame WilsonGrahame Wilson is the most decorated officer to have served in the Rhodesian Army, serving after the transition to Zimbabwe as Officer Commanding: Special Air Service (SAS) from April 1980 to the unit's disbandment in December that year
Referência(s)