MODERN intelligence services developed out of war.
It is generally agreed that the modern intelligence profession was given birth by the Anglo-Boer war of 1899 to 1902.
As far as wars are concerned it is accepted that everything being equal the side that wins the intelligence game always wins the war.
It is the aim of this article to show that while the Rhodesian intelligence services were heavily assisted by the British intelligence services, the American CIA, Apartheid intelligence services, Portuguese intelligence services, European intelligence services in general etc, they were outsmarted by freedom fighters intelligence leading to the loss of the occupation war by the Rhodesian racists.
We shall highlight some great successes of freedom fighter intelligence against the Rhodesians during the liberation war which started in 1972.
We are also going to highlight some spectacular failures of Rhodesian intelligence services during the above war.
One of the earliest success stories of freedom fighter intelligence had to do with very simple things, ‘names’.
Name and identity changing became crucial to the success of early freedom fighters in entering and staying in the country without being spotted by the enemy.
While Rhodies foolishly said, “a rose by any other name was still a rose,” freedom fighters found that to change their names and entire identities made it difficult for the Rhodesian racists to pick them out from the rest of the community in the operational areas.
When the early freedom fighters changed their names as they entered Muzarabani district e.g. their leader Samuel Mamutse changed his name to ‘Mayor Urimbo’ and went on to change the name of his village, district province etc to simply one name, ‘Zimbabwe’, and his family totem, clan etc to simply being a ‘Zimbabwean’ it became impossible to trace him to his district in Gutu and his real family.
Hence Mayor Urimbo and his colleagues became part of the Muzarabani community and were able to operate anonymously for a long time without being discovered.
Furthermore, freedom fighters did not refer to themselves using high sounding military titles such as members of security forces, Brigadier, Lt. Colonel, Colour Sergeant etc.
They used humble, ordinary titles used by everyone in the community.
They called themselves ‘vakomana’ (boys) a term used for every boy of their age in the areas they operated in.
This made ordinary folk to talk about freedom fighters freely using the name ‘vakomana’ without betraying them.
Rhodesian spies thought villagers were talking of ordinary boys.
Freedom fighters also gave their weapons ordinary names the local folks were familiar with.
The landmine for example, became an ordinary sweet potato –‘chimbambaira’ and the lethal 82mm mortar became known as an ordinary village mortar as in pestle and mortar – ‘duri raMbuya Nehanda’.
One other early intelligence success story was the recruitment en masse of almost the entire St. Albert’s Secondary School pupil population to go for freedom fighter training in Zambia and Tanzania.
To date, Rhodies cannot understand how a few freedom fighters managed one night to come to St. Albert’s Secondary School and take the entire student population while an assortment of their Rhodesian intelligence units such as Special Branch, Ground Coverage, Spies, Special Air Services, the intelligence units proper etc. were plentiful in the area.
To counter freedom fighter intelligence which they were failing to cope with, the Rhodesians decided to form a regiment called the Selous Scouts whose task was to masquerade as freedom fighters so that in the end that regiment would confuse the rural population into believing that they were the real freedom fighters.
However, the freedom fighter intelligence was quick to blow away the Selous Scouts cover.
At the beginning of Selous Scouts operations, 1973/74 one of their leaders Andre Rabie took a section out into the rural areas of Shamva to try and fool the people that they were ZANLA freedom fighters.
However, unbeknown to him, local ZANLA intelligence operatives were able to tell that they were fake.
And so the ZANLA intelligence operatives played the Andre Rabie fakes against their own people and in the confusion that followed the Rhodesian forces fired at Andre Rabie’s party killing him and thinking he was a true ZANLA soldier.
In those early days, a captured ZANLA soldier wiped out an entire Selous Scouts platoon in the Mukumbura area.
The killed Rhodesians had fooled themselves to think that the captured freedom fighter had changed sides fully.
What they did not know was that ZANLA intelligence had learnt that the Selous Scouts were quick to give a captured freedom fighter a gun with live ammunition once they thought the captured freedom fighter had totally changed sides.
And so every ZANLA soldier had been taught to play the fool once captured and pretend to have changed sides quickly, but once given a gun with live ammunition they were encouraged to pick the right moment and turn it on their captors.
That is what happened in Mukumbura.
With time ZANLA’s intelligence improved always being ahead of the Selous Scouts’.
Rhodesian military commanders acknowledge this.
“Individual CT (freedom fighter) leaders adopted a variety of short duration identification methods.
“And Selous Scouts experienced setbacks.
“I recall one scouts group being blown because the locals noticed that their weapons did not have barely scarlet thread tied to weapons trigger guards.
“Another group was blown because its members had not changed boot or shoelaces to the black ones the CT’s (freedom fighters) had adopted. “Switching cigarette brands was another method.”
As the war progressed, ZANLA intelligence became so sophisticated that Selous Scouts were rendered useless.
One of the most sophisticated intelligence system the Rhodesians failed to cope with was the ‘mujiba’ system.
Here is what Rhodesians said of the ‘mujiba’ system.
“ZANLA rely on ‘mujibas’ to provide them with early warning on the movement of troops and fire forces.
“In most ZANLA affected areas high features (mountains, hills etc) abounded.
“Mujibas used these to establish an early warning system in which whistled messages were passed from one point to the next along the line of fire force and troop movements.
“This ZANLA mujibas warning system covered most of their operating areas.
“The system was very effective.
“A fire force flying at 90 knots could not hope to outpace the whistled warnings that passed ahead of their flight line at the speed of sound.”
The sophistication of the ‘mujiba’ intelligence system in the military arena was duplicated in the political area.
When the independence elections in Zimbabwe came about in 1980, the British and American intelligence services who wanted to enter the rural areas to destabilise them to benefit sell-out parties found out to their cost that it was impossible.
They discovered that it was difficult to enter villages or townships etc whether openly or covertly.
And once found out, they were exposed and thrown out by the masses.
In the end, their rotten racist agenda to impose puppet parties on the people failed.
It’s therefore not surprising why the freedom fighters won the war and elections in the end.
They had better intelligence services than those of the Rhodies.