The bishop's private army

Richard West

Enkeldoorn, Rhodesia r,he diplomatic mission of Cledwyn rl, ughes, Labour former minister, is awaited ilere in Rhodesia with quite controllable excitement and some complaints that yet another Welshman should follow Ivor R„lehard and David Owen. It appears that riughes, like previous envoys, will stay only a day or two, knows little of recent events in „Africa and offers no fresh terms of debate. _moreover Hughes comes here only a few weeks after a visit by one of his Labour c,01leagues who made himself rather a laughing stock. One morning at the Meikles Hotel in 'alishur.Y, some British journalists were approached by a solemn, unprepossessing Man who claimed to be Alex Lyons, an MP „a.nd former minister, apparently in the confidence that his fame would be known to Tent. Since the hacks had not heard of him eY assumed him to be a member of Ian .inith's Rhodesia Front, and began to berate him over his party's refusal to scrap the Land Tenure Act. Then Mr Lyons explained that he was a British Labour MP and had just been to Mozambique — the Place of exile of Robert or 'Bob' Mugabe, the ZANLA guerrilla leader, whom Mr LPns appeared to admire. During his few aYs in Rhodesia. Mr Lyons claimed to have 1%1nd that all the blacks supported 'Bob' and that the Rhodesian army was on the verge of collapse, which views he proc a1ned at various lunches and dinners to the `flerision or irritation of listeners. He asked Or an interview with Smith and also a ilearing on local TV, but was turned down tor both things on the quite reasonable grounds that nobody cared what he had to ;sayBefore leaving he told a journalist that Ile would take back to Britain the same advice he had previously given David °wen, that Britain 'should give Bob all the arms he needs to win the war quickly'. It is believed here that the British govedrnment, and therefore Cledwyn Hughes, ,? not share Mr Lyons's infatuation with ‘'sob' but favour the other guerrilla leader Joshua *Nkomo whose ZIPRA forces are based in Zambia. For one thing Nkomo is an old and trusted (by British governments anYwaY) contender for leadership in Rhodesia: apart from the shooting down of Viscount, the ZIPRA guerrillas go in less tor atrocities than do 'Bob's' merry men who last July hacked to death twelve white Missionaries and have recently issued a death-list of those whom they mean to kill on achieving power. Perhaps most important of all, Mugabe is some sort of Marxist whose advent to power would threaten Britain's financial ambitions. British interests in this part of the world are not purely altruistic and, indeed, Labour governments outdo the Tories in ruthless intrigue on behalf of British capitalism. It was Tony Benn, as I think I have mentioned before, who provided South Africa with the world's largest uranium mine (run by RTZ) in South-West Africa, soon to be renamed Namibia. Britain also supported Nigeria's war against Biafra in order to safeguard Shell and BP's oil-wells; it was in 1969, under a Labour government. that British intelligence' men in Uganda plotted Amin's coup d'etat, because the Obote regime threatened to introduce a mild form of socialism.

The importance of British investment in Africa is even greater under a Labour government, when there is less profitability on investment at home. To put it crudely: the more work done by black Africans in gold mines or tobacco plantations, the less work needs to be done in South Wales coal mines or British Leyland. Hence the paradox that socialist European governments, from Russia through eastern Europe to this great movement of ours in Britain, are engaged in a new 'scramble for Africa' — to win, not territory, but raw materials. Although Rhodesia lacks the resources of, say South Africa and Nigeria, it is a well-run and hard-working country compared to the rest of Africa — or compared to Britain for that matter. Britain would like to exploit it again. Whatever Cledwyn Hughes does in Rhodesia, I think I can predict that he will not leave Salisbury to try and find out what is happening in the countryside, and what people are thinking; there is something about politicians that makes them want to meet nobody but their fellow politicians, and not to listen even to them. Of all the grievances that the whites hold against people like David Owen the fiercest concern his apparent lack of interest in their country. `Why can't he stay on our farm for a week; we wouldn't eat him?' is the complaint I have heard in one form or another many times in Rhodesia.

I heard it again on the way down to Enkeldoorn, when we stopped to visit some friends on a farm about forty miles south of Salisbury. They had just come back from a holiday in Scotland where, so they said, two union officials, seeing their airline bag emblazoned 'Rhodesia is super' had expressed solidarity and the wish that Dr Owen would get back to doctoring. The talk as usual was mostly about security: I shouldn't have come down on that road, it's not safe any more. . . the so-and-sos lost their farm last week, burned to the ground . . . they were attacked at the wrong time, they were having their daily bath together at six in the evening. When the firing started, he ran for his FN rifle and she ran for a towel'.

The farmer on this cattle ranch told us that foot-and-mouth disease was now almost as big a problem as security. The 'ters' made holes in the fencing so that infected animals can spread the disease until 'our cattle become like those in Zambia or Mozambique'. The `ters' also fill in the dips used against tick disease which has also spread; rabies, too, is widespread. These diseases, of course, also affect the cattle of Africans on the tribal trust lands. But, according to this farmer, they are too scared of ZANLA to complain.

The town or village of Enkeldoorn ('single thorn') has always had rather a joke " reputation, like Wigan, but unlike Wigan it rather enjoys the joke — having declared itself an independent republic with entry and exit stamps to put in the passports of visitors. The joke began, like most things in Enkeldoorn, in the bar of the local pub, whose landlady explained: 'Enkeldoorn was always against the government in Lord Malvern's time; so when Smith won we found ourselves in the embarrassing pos ition of agreeing with him. That's when Buck Rogers (a local businessman) made himself president of the republic.'

The landlord of the pub went along with the joke, pinning up republican proc lamations next to the type-written quo tation from Albert Schweitzer, warning against the dangers of treating black people as social equals. There is even a cell in the saloon bar. 'Henry's cell,' reserved for non-drinkers and Wilson supporters. The president of the republic at first accused me of being a spy, but turned out to be friendly and everyone joined in singing the praises of Enkeldoorn. `Enkeldoorn, was always considered the back of everything', said one lady, 'if a member of the police force or nursing staff was sent here, they'd say "oh god, what have I done?" But when I came here in 1934, I thought it was everything I had hoped for in Rhodesia. It was simple, basic fun. Lots of surprise parties and paper chases on horseback. Then somebody would get the banjo out and there'd be a sing-song, often in Afrikaans.'

This was a reference to the many Afrikaners, some of them third or forth generation, who live around Enkeldoorn and who may partly account for its joke reputation which is something like that of the South African comic Boer bumpkin, Van Der Merwe. I was introduced at the bar to one of these Afrikaners, a tall, rather stout man in a camouflage uniform, a very dark tan over his broad, kindly face and thin band of white beard, like a narrow moustache on the chin instead of the lip. He said he no longer thought of himself as an Afrikaner but a Rhodesian who spoke Afrikaans. 'The Rhodesian way of life is different,' he went on 'although the country is going all tribal, with Shona against the Matebeele. When I took my servant down to Fort Victoria, the people there threatened to kill him'.

Many Afrikaners from Mayo, another centre, have left Rhodesia, or 'taken the gap' to use the local expression, which seems to derive from rugby slang. In Enkeldoom, I was told, there had not been much of an exodus, although one large family had gone south: 'the head of the family had worked in the bank but on the day that they took on a black teller, he took the gap'. Such a reaction should not suggest that race relations are worse at Enkeldoorn than elsewhere in the country: Africans drink in the pub and one, to my knowledge, has been awarded citizenship of the Enkeldoorn republic.

Some twelve miles from Enkeldoorn on the following day we got a chance to see one of the private armies or bands of auxiliaries that have been formed by 'internal' politicians. Some auxiliaries are 'ters' or guer rillas who have had a change of heart. On this occasion some hundredS auxiliaries were to provide security for a rally addressed by Bishop Muzorewa, who has been touring the country attempting ' to explain why he stays in a government that has declared elections and now threatens to call up young blacks into the army.This meeting was to be held in a tribal trust land about ten miles east of the highway over a winding, dirt road. This seemed an unneccessary journey since almost the whole crowd of supporters had come down from Salisbury in a convoy of thirty-seven buses. It was not, however, a dull journey. Shortly after leaving the main road the convoy was stopped to be searched by the auxiliaries who were stationed at intervals on the side of the road. Their appearance did not inspire reassurance. They were decked out in various uniforms from the blue denims worn by ZANLA to the camouflage of the Rhodesian forces and even the chocolate coloured fatigues worn by South Africans. Most had brilliantly coloured hats of various shapes, scarves, head-bands and bullet-stuffed bandoliers. Hair-styles ranged from long, lank ropes as worn by the dreadful Congolese `simbas' to what turned out to be one man's blue rinse wig. Most carried the Russian AK-47 assault rifles favoured by the 'ters' to many of which were added flags of the bishop's political party, bayonets or grenadelaunchers. Some auxiliaries wielded hand grenades and some were far from sober.

As our slow convoy wound through .the hills, we were greeted at intervals by a pair of auxiliaries, often the same ones who had leap-frogged the convoy to afford, us extra security and a second welcome. This took the form of a clenched fist salute, shouts of 'Smith is a bloody -' waves of a gun and even, on one occasion, a man pushing ft hand grenade near my face and demanding 'are you happy?' We came to St Mark's school, Zimondi, whose sign said that 'cleanliness and good learning are next to godliness' but still the convoy pressed on through what appeared to be uninhabited country until at last we came to Chambara.

The thousands of supporters who had been brought from Salisbury sat down in a circle round a clump of trees where a platform had been erected. Meanwhile the auxiliaries posed for photographs for the press. A serious looking fellow who, at twentyeight, was older than most of his comrades, described to me how he had joined ZANLA in 1974 and trained in Mozambique, before serving here as a guerrilla. He had always been a Muzorewa supporter, he said. At the time he joined the guerrillas, Muzorewa had been an ally of Mugabe. Now he wanted a ceasefire and the internal settlement. Another 'turned ter' said that if he was not satisfied by the bishop's explanation of why there was going to be call-up and no election this year, he would go back to 'the boys in the bush' at once.

A grinning young rascal with dark glasses told me a not very likely story of how he had been abducted by ZANLA and then escaped from them by getting captured bY the Rhodesian army. He-had been a guitar: ist but liked his present job as an auxiliary at 50 dollars (40 pounds sterling) a mouth,. Which is not bad money by African so diering standards. Only about a third ° these auxiliaries even claimed to have been guerrillas, the rest having been taken froin the unemployed of Salisbury. The leader of these auxiliaries and

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undoubted star of the day was Comrade Mick Jagger, who had assumed his nom de guerre out of reverence for the musician' He is only twenty-one and some of tls doubted his claim to have been a guerrill: leader four years back, but he seems to hay' some kind of hold over his men in the sat° way as 'Comrade Marx', another army commander. Before the bishop delivered his sPee A

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private twelve auxiliaries formed up and march° round the platform with a peculiar bouncitig step, like the chorus of a musical comedy ,...o.11 guerrilla war: slogans were shouted, songs yelled, a man on the platform fired ni AK-47 into the air, and the crowd fr°111 Salisbury ullulated, the bishop waved a pin_ and a hand grenade and a woman started: war dance, shrieking curses and spitting in,t s people's faces, reminding rue of the rabies scare. Several women rolled about oil t" ground in convulsions and one auxilil joined the dance with a series of nligL bounds in the air, one of which came d0''.1 on my left big toe. As political spectacle, I beat last October's Conservative party con' ference at Brighton. The rival political party, led by the gevt Ndabaningi Sithole, issued a staternerl claiming the bishop's auxiliaries are sPivs and hooligans who have conducted a reign of terror, forced people to attend meetingids at gunpoint, forcibly adbucted 12-year-0 Os, abducted fowls and even cows.' Ther: may be some truth in this and similar cini111,made by the bishop's men about Sithole 5 private army. A nearby farmer, who alSfj° spends much of his time with the forces, s,al simply, 'we treat them all as ters'. Certa1n-11 those auxiliaries were unpleasant reminiscent of private armies and me'' cenaries in the Congo and other African counn tries. On g to the auxiliaries we repaired a pub whose barmaid was armed with bayonet as well as the familiar revolver. As usual the conversation turned to terrorists, or as Rhodesians say vastitig ters, revving floppies and slotting go0ks,,,,;,' the last name imported from Vietnam. pub was distinguished by the fact that on the top shelf, beside a whisky bottle and PO grenades, there rested the actual skull of a 'ter' who had been done to death by the barmaid's boy-friend. As she explained t° us: 'at a braai (a barbecue) one day theY boiled the head and served up the liquid as, soup. There was a ITV entertainer there ago when we told him about the soup he throw up all over the place and gapped it from the party'.