WHEN the Rhodesian racist regime’s forces completely failed to stop freedom fighters from winning the Second Chimurenga in 1980, they decided at general elections time in that year to snatch victory from freedom fighters through chicanery.
And into the picture came an operation they code named ‘Quartz’ or ‘Hectic’.
The above plan was two-pronged, which resulted in freedom fighters calling that diabolic plan ‘the two-headed monster’.
The first ‘head’ of the monster was created by the Rhodies together with the British.
One source said the plan was conceived with the clandestine collusion of the British M16 that would ensure Cde Robert Mugabe never became Prime Minister of a future Zimbabwe.
What the British and the racists were going to do was to rig the election in favour of their puppet Bishop Muzorewa.
“The British preference was for a coalition Government to be formed between Abel Muzorewa, Ian Smith, Ndabaningi Sithole and Joshua Nkomo,” said the source.
What this meant therefore was to have President Mugabe out of the way before independence was granted.
And so, ways were going to be found ‘to assassinate Cde Mugabe and his top hierarchy’ once the general elections had been rigged.
After this, independence was then going to be handed over to the above coalition Government already mentioned.
We once covered how the first part of Operation Quartz was intended to be carried out in The Patriot.
In this article we are going to look at how the second part of ‘Operation Quartz’ was going to be carried out.
One Jim Parker helps us with our story.
“The final stage of ‘Operation Quartz’ was planned by the Rhodesians as a coup d’état.
Its purpose was to eradicate ZANLA’s military machine.”
So the whole idea of the second part of Operation Quartz was that once the elections had been rigged in favour of the puppet parties and Cde Mugabe was then out of the way, ZANLA was to be destroyed if their surrogates were going to rule the country peacefully.
“Rhodesian Combined Operations was certain that when ZANLA lost the election (through rigging mentioned above) guerillas (freedom fighters) at the Assembly Points would immediately return to the bush; Mugabe would overthrow the newly elected Government by force and snatch power for himself.
To prevent this scenario, Combined Operations planned to launch attacks against the ZANLA Assembly Points and destroy the organisation’s military capability as soon as it became known that ZANU PF had lost the election.
It would be ensured that the Security Forces knew the result before Mugabe did,” says Parker.
What a dirty plan this was!
Below we highlight some of the Rhodesian units as well as some of the South African units who were going to attack some of the ZANLA Assembly Points.
“Dendera mission Nyamapanda – the Rhodesian Light infantry, Boli Chiredzi – SA Special Forces and Paratroopers – Sabi Tribal Trust Land Buhera – the Selous Scouts, Kotwa Rhodesian Light Infantry, Zenzani Mission Gwanda, SA Paratroopers, Mutandawe Mine, Chiredzi, SA Special Forces etc etc.”
The above deployment of troops to the various ZANLA Assembly Points were to be done before the election.
“Shortly before the election the ground forces would be moved into position in areas close to their targets (this was done in some areas as we see below).
The plan included major air strikes by Rhodesian Air Force and SAAF aircraft to soften up the targets before the ground assaults.
The Rhodesian hunters and Canberras were based at Thornhill Airbase in Gwelo (Gweru) and at New Sarum (Manyame) in Salisbury (Harare).
They were tasked to make strikes against assembly points in the northern and north-eastern areas.
The SAAF Mirages and Canberra bombers were based at the Pietersburg (Polokwane) Airforce Base.
The South Africans were tasked with hitting the Assembly Points in the southern and eastern sectors of Rhodesia.”
The above planning was not to be crafted by Rhodies alone.
They worked together with the South African apartheid racists.
According to Parker, “The planners of Operation Quartz were ordered by Combined Operations to work with their SADF counterparts.”
What were the details of this devilish Operation Quartz plan?
“An attack dossier was prepared for each Assembly Point showing guerilla numbers, weaponry held by them, mortar positions and anti-aircraft positions.
For instance, while one detective inspector John Birch of Special Branch was preparing the attack dossiers for some of the southern Assembly Points, he was eagerly assisted by members of the Scots Guards and Royal Marines with the Monitoring Force at Assembly Point Juliet.
The Brits gladly supplied information on the exact positions of mortars and anti-aircraft guns and provided up-to-date counts of guerillas in the camps.”
Did the Rhodies put into action some aspects of the plans outlined in Operation Quartz?
Yes indeed!
Above we have already shown that they compiled a lot of information regarding numbers of freedom fighters in the camps, the weapons they had and how these were deployed.
They went a step further.
“A few days before the election (held in March 1980), patrols of the Rhodesian SAS and Police Support Unit, covertly placed homing beacons close to every assembly point in the country to guide strike jets onto their respective targets when the time came.
800 South African troops were moved into Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and were based in the Beitbridge area on both sides of the bridge.
One parachute Battalion was moved into the Kezi area.
During the evening of March 2 RLI troops with a squadron of Eland 90 armoured cars from the Rhodesian Car Regiment and a battery of 25 pounders from the Rhodesian Artillery Regiment deployed as a battle group and set up base at the airstrip at Kotwa.
Assembly Point Charlie, said to be housing 5 000 ZANLA troops, was nearby and assembly Point-Delta was not far away at Dendera Mission.”
This act was duplicated all over the country.
There you have it.
But this Quartz plan of theirs was in the end never put into action when ZANU PF won a landslide victory.
The question, however, is: Was this plan ever going to succeed anyway if it was executed?
The answer is a big NO.
First there was nothing new to ZANLA to being attacked by the Rhodesians teaming up with South Africans using aircrafts.
The Rhodies and racist South Africans were fighting together when they were defeated by ZANLA at Mapai only the previous year in September 1979.
There they had used all their ‘big guns’ – the Canberra bombers all the way to mirage jets.
A month later that year, the Rhodies and South Africans were again defeated at the biggest battle of the entire war at Mavhondo where they used tanks, artillery etc.
Therefore, if Operation Quartz had been put into action, Rhodies were going to be defeated at Assembly Points such as Dzapasi, Mutandave, Kotwa and Chiredzi, among others, as in the past.
But what is interesting with Operation Quartz is the amount of effort, dirty tricks, chicanery and planning the Rhodies put in, to prevent Zimbabwe from becoming independent.
It is therefore very important for our youths to always remember to guard our independence jealously because white racists in this country, to the very last day, never wanted Zimbabwe to be ruled by blacks.