WHENEVER the story of the Zimbabwe liberation war is narrated, useless former Rhodesian racists quickly jump into the ring, pick up the proverbial ‘loud speaker’ and go on to shout with ugly voices saying: “The terrorists (freedom fighters) did not match us at all.
“They were poorly trained and so did not cause us any headaches at all.”
These blue liars will, however, never explain to our young people why, if what they are saying is true, they are presently crying in limbo after the so-called ‘poorly trained terrorists’ dislodged them from power.
The fact of the matter is freedom fighters were well-trained fighters who sent the racist Rhodesians packing.
From day one, the racist Rhodesians were put on the back foot resulting in them embarking on one desperate project after another to try to contain the situation.
These desperate projects reached the level of insanity at the height of the war when the Rhodesians invented some anti-ambush weapons which, when looked at today, everyone agrees that these crazy weapons of theirs were the works of madmen.
To put the invention of the anti-ambush weapons into its proper context, we are going to give some brief highlights of some of the desperate projects the Rhodesians embarked on from early on to defeat freedom fighters.
In a desperate attempt to swell the ranks of the Rhodesian army with large numbers of soldiers, the Rhodesian Government forced every young white male of high school-going age as well as young blacks in parastatals and Government institutions they could lay their hands on to become soldiers overnight through what was called ‘call-up’ or conscription – press ganging.
Every young white male became a soldier, like it or not.
Even Jehovah’s Witnesses and so-called conscientious objectors were forced to become soldiers or face a jail term.
Coming to the fighting itself, Rhodesians, after failing to get the right intelligence about how the freedom fighters operated and their whereabouts, decided to form the Selous Scouts regiment.
The founding commander of the regiment, one Lt Ron Reid Daly tells us that the Selous Scouts were formed out of desperation.
One day he was called by General Peter Walls, who was overall commander of the Rhodesian forces, to his office and asked to form the regiment.
“General Walls is a direct man.
Direct in his speech and manner.
And on this occasion he did not beat about the bush but came straight to the point.
He told me the war was not going well, information I was no stranger to incidentally because I well knew the general problems regarding the lack of intelligence that was coming in to the security forces.
He then went on to stress the enormous potential of properly organised pseudo groups such as the Selous Scouts and the effect they could have on the outcome of the war.
Ron, said General Walls with a quiet intensity.
I think you are the right man to raise and command this unit.”
And so was formed the diabolic Selous Scout regiment, which specialised in civilian massacres, using poisons.
Rivers, wells and clothing were poisoned.
Diseases such as cholera and anthrax were also unleashed in the countryside and freedom fighter camps.
But the Selous Scouts were not able to halt the freedom fighters from gaining a lot of ground.
Thus the Rhodesian desperation continued unabated.
Now coming to the fighting.
The Rhodesians did not find the going good.
They resorted to helicopters which they armed with machine guns and bombers but freedom fighters used RPG7 bazookas to bring them down.
The resort to the use of bombers gave rise to the construction of numerous airbases across the country with massive runways like those found at international airports in some cases.
If you go to obscure places like Centenary, Mt Darwin, Mutoko and Chiredzi, you will be shocked by the enormity of runways that were constructed there.
The height of Rhodesian desperation grew.
They embarked on inventing crazy anti-ambush weapons which they hoped that even under the control of one individual they would destroy a whole ZANLA company at an ambush site.
Which are these crazy weapons and how effective were they?
There were quite many, but we are going to highlight a few.
There was one called the ‘grenade launcher’.
This was the first ambush device.
Redundant 303 rifles’ cut barrels were filled with grenade discharger cups.
These were arranged in banks of three on each side of a vehicle.
The rifle actions were loaded with ballistic cartridges.
The device was fired by means of a pull cable from the vehicle cab.
It was a high risk vehicle which was potentially lethal and so was never successful.
When fired they could in fact blow up the vehicle.
Then there were what were called ‘Land Rover AK Gunships’.
Two AK assault rifles, minus butts, were welded to a frame inside a Land Rover.
Practically the ‘effect of these AK devices was more psychological comfort to vehicle occupants than any physical danger to the ambushers’.
Almost all police Land Rovers had this device, giving them a false sense of security.
A number of Rhodesian soldiers were sent to the slaughter thinking they were well armed when in fact they were not.
Then there was the mother of all crazy anti-ambush weapons called the ‘spider anti ambush shotgun’.
It literally bristled with barrels – 36 in all, in a circle.
It was mounted on the roof of a vehicle.
The freedom fighters called this zombie the ‘zhamu-zhamu’ – the noisemaker.
This was because while it fired a lot of bullets at once at an ambush site, however, from an accuracy point of view, it being on top of a vehicle and the freedom fighters lying on the ground, it was totally useless.
Therefore what it was able to do was to make a lot of noise but kill nobody.
Furthermore, because its barrels discharged bullets at once in full circle, it was more likely to injure or kill ‘friendly’ forces in their convoy than the freedom fighters way out there lying in ambush on the ground.
Anti-ambush weapons were pure desperate measures like the rest of the others during Rhodesia’s desperate days.