The Boys in the Bush

The black nationalist rebels of Zimbabwe Rhodesia have come a long way to a ceasefire. In the early days of the war, when they crossed the Zambezi River in dugout canoes carrying rusting shotguns and hunting rifles to make hit-and-run attacks on isolated farms, a white Rhodesian officer dismissed them as "a bunch of bloody garden boys." Such sarcastic putdowns no longer apply. The Soviet-and Chinese-trained "freedom fighters " of the Patriotic Front have been forged into an efficient guerrilla force. Despite their edge in air power, some of Zimbabwe Rhodesia's white-led array units have been routed by rebel forces that are now equipped with Soviet Kalashnikov automatic rifles, portable antiaircraft missiles and other sophisticated arms. Employing classic hide-and-seek guerrilla tactics, the "boys," as they are affectionately called by the villagers who harbor them, have achieved control over much of the countryside. On occasion they have even left the bush to strike in Salisbury: a year ago, a raiding party blew up a gasoline depot, destroying a month's supply of fuel.

The rank and file of the Patriotic Front have been recruited mainly from rural Tribal Trust Lands, where 40% of the country's 7 million blacks, employed mostly as day laborers, are concentrated. Zimbabwe Rhodesia's biggest black groups are the Shona, who form some 80% of the population, and Ndebele, who make up about 15% (whites constitute 3%). Like its leader Robert Mugabe, the bulk of the Mozambique-based Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) are Shona. The Zambia-based Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) is dominated by Ndebele, like Leader Joshua Nkomo.

Tribal enmity,* along with ideological disputes between the left-leaning Mugabe and the more pragmatic Nkomo, could pose a serious threat to the cease-fire plan. The two groups considered joining their forces under a single command and mounting a unified campaign in the forthcoming elections. Nevertheless, many guerrillas have been killed in intramural gun fights between the rival factions. Says James Chikerema, a former guerrilla leader: "The security forces sit on tops of hills and wait for ZIPRA and ZANLA to knock each other to pieces. Then they move in and kill." In November ZIPRA and ZANLA units clashed 100 miles north of the capital as both sides attempted to gain control of a contested slab of territory before the cease-fire takes effect. To minimize such battles, Mugabe's troops will probably assemble at ten of the so-called guerrilla collection points, while Nkomo's men gather at the other six camps. But even if word of this complex plan can be relayed to the isolated bands of fighters spread throughout the countryside, the problem may not be over. Guerrilla commanders concede that many of their troops are young, in their teens or early 20s, undisciplined and unwilling to end the war before the government's forces have been decisively defeated. Exhorted a ZANLA manifesto found near the bodies of several whites killed in a town near the Mozambique border: "Down with the ceasefire. Forward with the war." More important, many of the guerrillas are unlikely to passively accept any result other than a victory by the Patriotic Front in the elections. Rather than turning in their guns, a number of them are known to be caching them in caves or underground. Warns a white Rhodesian officer: "Whoever loses the election will say to them, start digging."

The two groups have been hostile since the Ndebele, an offshoot of the Zulu, conquered the Shona during the 19th century.

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