Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Rhodesian Civil War, Second Chimurenga and the Zimbabwe War of Independence, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised state of Rhodesia.
The conflict pitted three forces against one another: the Rhodesian white minority-led government of Ian Smith ; militant African guerillas organisations such as the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the military wing of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union ; and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union.
The war and its subsequent Internal Settlement, signed in 1978 by Smith and Muzorewa, led to the implementation of universal suffrage in June 1979 and the end of white minority rule in Rhodesia, which was renamed Zimbabwe Rhodesia under a black majority government. However, this new order failed to win international recognition and the war continued. Neither side achieved a military victory and a compromise was later reached.
Negotiations between the government of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, the government of the United Kingdom, and Mugabe and Nkomo's united "Patriotic Front" took place at Lancaster House, London in December 1979, and the Lancaster House Agreement was signed. The country returned temporarily to British control and new elections were held under British and Commonwealth supervision in March 1980. ZANU won the election and Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980, when the country achieved internationally recognised independence.
Background
The origin of the war in Rhodesia can be traced to the conquest of the region by the British South Africa Company in the late 19th century, and the dissent of native leaders who opposed foreign rule. Britons began settling in Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s, and while it was never accorded full dominion status, these settlers effectively governed the country after 1923.In his famous "Wind of Change" speech, UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan revealed Britain's new policy to only permit independence to its African colonies under majority rule. But many white Rhodesians were concerned that such immediate change would cause chaos as had resulted in the former Belgian Congo after its independence in 1960.
Britain's unwillingness to compromise led to Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence on 11 November 1965. Although Rhodesia had the private support of neighbouring South Africa and Portugal, which still owned Mozambique, it never gained diplomatic recognition from any country.
Although the vote in Rhodesia was constitutionally open regardless of race, property requirements left many Black Africans unable to participate. The new 1969 constitution reserved eight seats in the 66 seat parliament for "Non-Europeans" only, with a further eight reserved for tribal chiefs.
Amidst this backdrop, African nationalists advocated armed struggle to bring about black rule, primarily denouncing the wealth disparity between the races. Two rival nationalist organisations emerged in August 1963: the Zimbabwe African People's Union and the Zimbabwe African National Union, after disagreements about tactics, as well as tribalism and personality clashes. ZANU and its military wing ZANLA were headed by Robert Mugabe and consisted primarily of Shona tribes. ZAPU and its military wing ZIPRA consisted mainly of Ndebele under Joshua Nkomo.
Cold War politics
politics played into the conflict. The Soviet Union supported ZIPRA and China supported ZANLA. Each group fought a separate war against the Rhodesian security forces, and the two groups sometimes fought against each other as well. In June 1979, the governments of Cuba and Mozambique offered direct military help to the Patriotic Front, but Mugabe and Nkomo declined. Other foreign contributions included military officials from North Korea, who taught Zimbabwean militants to use explosives and arms in a camp near Pyongyang. By April 1979, 12,000 ZANLA guerrillas were training in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Libya while 9,500 of its 13,500 extant cadres operated in Rhodesia. South Africa clandestinely gave material and military support to the Rhodesian government.The Rhodesian Front —the ruling party—took an uncompromising position against the communist ideology of the ZIPRA and ZANLA. Ian Smith further expounded this by portraying the conflict as primarily anti-communist in nature. The Rhodesian whites viewed the British demand for majority rule as a direct attack on their way of life. Having previously witnessed the Mau Mau Rebellion, Rhodesians refused to allow the majority-rule policy to come into effect. Much of the Rhodesian economy as well as the land was controlled by white Rhodesians, and, fearing total confiscation by either the ZIPRA or ZANLA, the RF elected to hold onto unofficial minority-rule. In ignoring other contributing factors to the conflict, Smith and the RF were able to strengthen ties with the West, but Britain remained neutral. The division between the communists and anti-communists caused the fighting to spill over the Rhodesian borders. Neighbouring African nations, supported primarily by North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union, used communist material support to begin launching guerrilla attacks on the RSF and on Rhodesian civilians and infrastructure.
The United States took the official position that it would not recognise Rhodesia as an independent state, but some American soldiers who had seen combat in Vietnam joined the Rhodesian Security Forces. The Rhodesian government created advertising campaigns in order to attract soldiers from Western countries, and the security forces amassed a force of nearly 1,400 soldiers who were highly trained in special forces and guerrilla warfare, bringing the total of the Rhodesian military force to over 10,000 men.
The Soviet Union became involved in the Rhodesian Bush War to combat the push from the anti-communist West and to challenge the Chinese presence in the region. Soviet military technology quickly appeared in the Zimbabwean countryside and by 1979 ZIPRA were utilizing SAM weaponry to target Rhodesian civilian assets and Viscount aircraft. Just as they had done in various other African countries and conflicts, the Soviets supported opposition forces with weapons and training. Moscow also launched a propaganda campaign exaggerating British involvement in the conflict in order to boost support for intervention. The Soviets were large suppliers of munitions and training, but refused to directly enter the conflict. The Chinese, on the other hand, were limited in their abilities to offer tangible aid to the ZANLA. Chinese influence throughout the conflict was primarily focused on small scale sabotage efforts and anti-western propaganda.
Because the Bush War occurred within the context of regional Cold War in Africa, it inevitably became embroiled in conflicts in several neighbouring countries. Such conflicts included the Angolan War of Independence and Angolan Civil War, the Mozambican War of Independence and Mozambican Civil War, the South African Border War, and the Shaba I and Shaba II conflicts.
Perceptions
The conflict was seen by the nationalist groups and the UK government of the time as a war of national and racial liberation. The Rhodesian government saw the conflict as a fight between one part of the country's population on behalf of the whole population against several externally financed parties made up of predominantly Black radicals and communists. The Nationalists considered their country occupied and dominated by a foreign power, namely Britain, since 1890.The British government, in the person of the governor, had indirectly ruled the country from 1923, when it took over from the British South Africa Company and granted self-governing status to a locally elected government, made up predominantly of Whites. Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front party was elected to power in 1962 and unilaterally declared independence on 11 November 1965 to preserve what it saw as the self-government it had possessed since 1923.
The Rhodesian government contended that it was defending Western values, Christianity, the rule of law, and democracy by fighting Communists, but it was unwilling to compromise on most political, economic and social inequalities. White Rhodesians typically believed that black grievances were not organic and endogenous in origin but were externally fomented by foreign agitators. The Smith administration claimed that the legitimate voice of the black Shona and Ndebele population were the traditional chiefs, not the ZANU and ZAPU nationalists, whom it regarded as dangerous, violent usurpers.
In 1978–1979, the Smith administration tried to blunt the power of the nationalist cause by acceding to an "Internal Settlement" which ended minority rule, changed the name of the country to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, and arranged multiracial elections, which were held in 1979 and won by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who became the country's first Black head of government. Unsatisfied with this and spurred on by Britain's refusal to recognise the new order, the nationalist forces persisted.
The war ended when, at the behest of both South Africa and the United States, the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian government ceded power to Britain in the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979. The UK Government held another election in 1980 to form a new government. The election was won by ZANU. The new government, headed by Robert Mugabe, was recognised internationally, and the country was renamed Zimbabwe.
Belligerents
Rhodesian Security Forces
Despite the effect of economic and diplomatic sanctions, Rhodesia developed and maintained a powerful and professional military. In June 1977, Time magazine reported that "man for man, the Rhodesian army ranks among the world's finest fighting units."The army was always relatively small, just 3,400 regular troops in 1970. By 1978–79 it had grown to some 10,800 regulars nominally supported by about 40,000 reservists – although by the last year of the war, perhaps as few as 15,000 were available for active service. While the regular army consisted of a professional core of white soldiers, by 1978–1979 the rest was majority black.
By contrast, army reserves were largely white, and toward the end of the war were increasingly called up to deal with the growing insurgency. The regular army was supported by the paramilitary British South Africa Police of about 8,000 to 11,000 men and 19,000 to 35,000 police reservists. The police reserves acted as a type of home guard.
The war saw the extensive operation of Rhodesian regulars as well as special forces units such as the Selous Scouts and the Rhodesian SAS. The Rhodesian Army fought bitterly against the black nationalist guerrillas. The Rhodesian Army also comprised mostly black regiments such as the Rhodesian African Rifles. As the war went on, the frequent call-up of reservists was increasingly used to supplement the professional soldiers and the many volunteers from overseas.
By 1978, all white men up to the age of 60 were subject to periodic call-up to the army; younger men up to 35 might expect to spend alternating blocks of six weeks in the army and at home. Many of the overseas volunteers came from Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Portugal, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States with the latter three being held in high regard for their recent Vietnam War experience.
Considering the arms embargo, the Rhodesian Army was well-equipped. The standard infantry weapon was the Belgian FN FAL rifle as produced in South Africa under license as the R1 rifle and supplemented by the H&K G3 rifle that came from Portuguese forces. However, other weapons such as the British L1A1 variant of the FAL and the older British Lee–Enfield bolt-action rifle were used by reservists and the British South Africa Police. Other weapons included the Bren LMG in both.303" and 7.62mm NATO, Sten SMG, Uzi, Browning Hi-Power pistol, Colt M16 rifle, FN MAG general-purpose machine-gun, 81 mm mortar, and Claymore mines. After UDI, Rhodesia was heavily reliant on South African and domestically produced weapons and equipment, as well as international smuggling operations, commonly referred to as "sanction-busting". South Africa provided extensive support to Rhodesia in the form of a Lend / Lease program and both the official and unofficial support of many branches of the South African armed forces.
The Rhodesian Air Force operated a variety of equipment and carried out numerous roles, with air power providing the Rhodesians with a significant advantage over their guerrilla enemy. The fleet consisted mainly of British aircraft and largely obsolete aircraft, such as the World War II vintage Douglas Dakota transport aircraft and the British de Havilland Vampire. The arms embargo caused a lack of spare parts from external suppliers and RhAF had to find alternative means to keep its aircraft flying. The larger South African Air Force provided extensive training, aircraft and aircrews in support of RhAF operations from 1966. The Rhodesians also used more modern types of aircraft like the Hawker Hunter and Canberra bombers, the Cessna Skymaster as well as Aérospatiale Alouette III helicopters until they were supplemented by the Agusta Bell 205. Very late in the war, the Rhodesian forces were able to smuggle and use a few Agusta Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters.
At the beginning of the first war, much of Rhodesia's military hardware was of British and Commonwealth origin, but during the course of the conflict, new equipment such as Eland armoured cars were procured from South Africa. Several Polish-made T-55 tanks destined for Idi Amin's regime in Uganda were diverted to Rhodesia by the South Africans, in the last year of the war. The Rhodesians also produced a wide range of wheeled mine-proofed armoured vehicles, often using Mercedes Unimog, Land Rover and Bedford truck components, including unlicensed copies of the Mercedes-Benz UR-416.
During the course of the war, most white citizens carried personal weapons, and it was not unusual to see white housewives carrying submachine guns. A siege mentality set in and all civilian transport had to be escorted in convoys for safety against ambushes. Farms and villages in rural areas were frequently attacked by guerrillas.
The Rhodesian government divided the country into eight geographical operational areas: North West Border, Eastern Border, North East Border, South East Border, Midlands, Kariba, Matabeleland, Salisbury and District.