$Unique_ID{COW04237} $Pretitle{371} $Title{Zimbabwe Chapter 5A. National Security} $Subtitle{} $Author{Frederick Ehrenreich} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{government security guerrillas south mugabe national african army political white} $Date{1982} $Log{Guerrilla Operations*0423701.scf Figure 19.*0423702.scf } Country: Zimbabwe Book: Zimbabwe, A Country Study Author: Frederick Ehrenreich Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1982 Chapter 5A. National Security [See Guerrilla Operations: The shadowy world of guerrilla operations] In the early 1980s the new Zimbabwean government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe contended with a variety of security problems that, directly or indirectly, had resulted from the seven-year civil war that preceded independence. The war, which had claimed 30,000 lives, also left 150,000 combatants who had served in one of the armed political factions or armies and a like number of unaccounted firearms. With the coming of independence, political and ethnic differences and the struggle for primacy between Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and his rival Joshua Nkomo's Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People's Union were reemerging after having been overshadowed by the exigencies of war. Tensions between black and white Zimbabweans persisted to some degree at independence: many Europeans resented the loss of their political power, and many Africans resented the fact that the economy, the civil service, and the military remained largely under the control of the white minority. Neighboring South Africa, the ideologically hostile last stronghold of white minority rule on the continent, possessed considerable economic and military power that posed a potential threat to the Mugabe government. In the two and one-half years after independence Mugabe moved to control his country's national security affairs. To reduce internal dissent, he initially pursued a policy of reconciliation with his rivals and former enemies along with strong legislative and police action to maintain law and order. Combined with a program to integrate former guerrillas into the security forces, the prime minister's policies helped quell a spate of violent crime and interparty clashes that gripped the country in its first year of independence. Serious conflicts remained, however, with some elements of the white community and, perhaps more seriously, with Nkomo's supporters in western Zimbabwe. In mid-1982 the arrest of several of Nkomo's top deputies on suspicion of treason (after the discovery of arms on land owned by his party) led to a wave of violence in Matabeleland, where Nkomo's party was politically dominant. Mugabe pursued a realistic policy of economic cooperation and verbal confrontation with South Africa while refusing to allow anti-Pretoria guerrillas to operate from his own country. Despite the discovery of several agents working for South Africa and suspicion that Pretoria was behind several acts of sabotage, relations between the two countries remained generally correct. Mugabe used the security forces both as a means to enforce his security policy and as an object of social reform. The regular national army expanded fivefold to 60,000 in less than two years to absorb guerillas from Mugabe's and Nkomo's liberation armies. The air force, the Zimbabwe Republic Police, and the Central Intelligence Organization were also changing to reflect the African nationalists' political victory. The large military establishment proved costly, however, and in 1982 army personnel strength was in the process of being slowly reduced by one-third. Individual units within the security forces were thought to be extremely effective, but most integrated units continued to be troubled by political and ethnic factionalism. In the event of major political or civil strife such divisions would likely strain the effectiveness of the army and could conceivably cause its collapse. Public Order and Internal Security In the wake of 1972-79 civil war, criminal and dissident activity continued at high levels although not on a scale comparable to the wartime violence. Crime and threats to public order during the first year of independence resulted mainly from the large numbers of undisciplined young former guerrillas who lacked jobs or land but possessed weapons. The government was able to exert control by integrating them into the security forces and by acting strongly against criminals and deserters. Later threats to internal security, which appeared more politically oriented, were attributed to a few whites who resented their reduced position in the country and to the political and ethnic conflict between elements of the Patriotic Front: Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU, known officially as ZANU-PF since the 1980 election campaign) and Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU, known as PF-ZAPU since the election campaign). Postwar Violence and Government Security Policy In the year following independence, some 500 deaths were attributed to former guerrillas who had fought in ZANU's military wing-the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA)-or in ZAPU's Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). The postwar violence began during the 1980 election campaign when numerous confirmed instances of intimidation were ascribed to former guerrillas "campaigning" for their parties. The guerillas were supposed to report to assembly camps as part of the cease-fire arrangement that ended the war, but both ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU held back their best troops and cadres. As the guerrillas determined that it was safe to report to the assembly camps, their numbers in the country increased from 22,000 at the time of the elections to 28,700 at independence, to over 35,000 three months later, and to over 50,000 by mid-1981. Acts of violence continued and even escalated after independence as young former guerrillas, armed and living in overcrowded isolated camps with nothing to do, turned to armed robbery and acts of retribution. There were numerous reports of kangaroo courts that dispensed "revolutionary justice" on political rivals or those accused of collaboration during the war. Political violence included an assassination attempt, attributed to ZANLA guerrillas, in June against the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, ZANU's leader before Mugabe took over in the mid-1970s. Even Mugabe's minister of manpower and secretary general of ZANU-PF, Edgar Takere, was arrested in August 1980 for the murder of a white farmer. Mugabe, from the time of his election called upon the former guerrillas and the rest of Zimbabwean society to unite in "reconciliation, reconstruction, and nation building," but words alone did not solve the problem of violent crime. To restore public order and assert its authority over the country, the new government initially relied on the laws, institutions, and many of the personnel of the Rhodesian era. Mugabe followed this course partly because as head of government he had more control and power over government forces than over guerrillas in the assembly camps. Control over the guerrillas was limited in part because about one-third of them were ex-ZIPRA fighters loyal primarily to Nkomo. Moreover the prime minister's restricted power over his own ZANLA soldiers was attributable to the earlier civil war experience in which militarily successful guerrilla tactics placed little emphasis on troop discipline and gave considerable autonomy and freedom of action to soldiers and commanders in the field (see Civil War and the Three Armies, this ch.). The result was that during the war the ZANLA soldiers-who often combined revolutionary fervor with their guerrilla tactics-and not the ZANU politicians came to constitute the real power within the ZANU organization. Mugabe had become ZANU's chairman, and the more moderate Sithole was ousted largely because Magabe was more successful at building ties with the guerrillas and emphasizing his commitment to Marxist ideology and the armed struggle. According to Claire Palley, a noted observer of Zimbabwean affairs, Mugabe's position during the civil war was less that of ZANLA's leader than of spokesman for the guerrillas. Even after he became prime minister in the 1980 victory, Mugabe was still viewed by many in ZANU's collegial central committee as no more than the first among equals. ZANLA commander Rex Nhongo remained loyal to Mugabe, but Nhongo did not have as much prestige among the guerrillas as his predecessor, Josiah Tongogara, who had died in an automobile accident in Mozambique shortly before independence. Mugabe's authority was apparently even more remote to idle young guerrillas in overcrowded assembly camps eager to taste the spoils of their victory and knowing that their weapons were their most important source of political power. The prime minister admitting that "no one is blameless, least of all elements within my own party," came to rely on the police and military forces he had inherited from the previous government only when other attempts to control the guerrillas had failed. After six months of a mounting crime wave it was clear that his calls for law and order were to little avail and that the white-led police force was unable by itself to deal with those popularly identified as the "heroes of the liberation struggle" without stronger political support. It was obvious that attempts to demobilize the guerrillas or engage them in economic development schemes were not solving the crime problem (see Military Manpower: Demobilization and Integration, this ch.). A policy to improve guerrillas" morale by moving them (and their weapons) from their isolated assembly areas to new quarters in townships on the outskirts of major cities only had the effect of heightening crime in the cities, particularly Salisbury (present-day Harare), Bulawayo, and Sinoia (present-day Chinhoyi). In October 1980 Mugabe finally cracked down on what he called "dissident elements and misguided party militants" by sending troops from the national army into rural trouble spots and by reinforcing police patrols in the cities. The measures were effective where they were used; but there were not enough troops to police the entire country, and "drunken rampages" continued to be reported as well as major ZANLA-ZIPRA clashes in the Salisbury township of Chitungwiza and in Bulawayo. In February 1981 the prime minister reemphasized his reliance on the national army by calling in the air force, white reservists, and two white-led battalions of what had been the black, elite Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) to quell a major clash between former ZANLA and ZIPRA members of the national army. Beginning at about the same time Mugabe moved to bring the guerrillas under direct government control by integrating virtually all of them into the national army. Earlier integration plans emphasized the effectiveness of the army rather than the social problem posed by the guerrillas and envisioned the amalgamation with the former Rhodesian forces of no more than 10,000 ZIPRA and ZANLA soldiers. Although the 1981 integration into the national army of most of the remaining 50,000 guerrillas diluted the quality of the army as a whole, it was viewed as a success because most of the civil violence ended and the guerrillas were brought under Mugabe's control. In August 1981 ZANU-PF dissolved its ZANLA military organization, as all the former ZANLA guerrillas had either been incorporated into the national army or demobilized (see Military Manpower: Demobilization and Integration, this ch.). The prime minister, who at the time of his election vowed to uphold law and order and prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of the law, relied heavily on the inherited Rhodesian criminal justice system (see The Legal System, ch. 4). Despite an initial preponderance of whites in judicial offices, the court system was allowed to function independently in the first two years of majority rule, most notably in the November 1980 murder trial of Tekere. After the minister of manpower's arrest, Mugabe stayed aloof from the court proceedings. (Tekere was found innocent on grounds that the 1975 Indemnity and Compensation Act, passed by Prime Minister Ian Smith's Rhodesian regime, granted government leaders immunity from prosecution in their actions to suppress terrorism. The act was soon repealed, and Tekere was removed from his ministerial post and later from his position as ZANU-PF secretary general.) Respect for the criminal justice system was not shared by other partisans and former guerrillas. On at least two occasions in the first months after independence, armed former guerrillas freed accused party members from police or court custody by intimidating guards with their numbers and superior firepower. Such blatant contempt was rare, but in 1982 conflicts between Minister of Home Affairs Herbert Ushewokunze and magistrates over the illegal detentions of black and white Zimbabweans threatened the courts' autonomy. The Mugabe government took advantage of the strict security laws it had inherited from the Rhodesian government. In July 1980 parliament extended for six months the Emergency Powers Act that gave law enforcement authorities power to detain suspects without trial and to arrest or conduct searches without obtaining a warrant. First imposed at the time of Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965, the act had been renewed every six months since that time. Before renewing the act in 1980, the Mugabe government stripped the law of provisions allowing police confiscation and destruction of property, censorship, police power to impose curfews, and police authority to force civilians to leave their homes. In its first two and one-half years in power, the government continued to extend the act for six-month periods, gradually modifying it to restore government authority to impose curfews and confiscate property from those deemed to have prejudiced state security. The latter provision went beyond the powers held by the Rhodesian government, which could only confiscate property if the owner was convicted in court of a crime against the state. In July 1982 the act was further amended and extended to include new laws, similar in effect to the repealed Indemnity and Compensation Act, that protected government leaders, members of the security forces, and civil servants from criminal or civil prosecutions. There was no indication in mid-1982 that the act would be weakened or rescinded, and there was some support in the government for extending it indefinitely. The number of persons detained under the act varied according to the internal security situation. It was estimated in late 1980 that some 200 people were being held, most of them guerrillas absent from their assembly camps; by early 1982 there were thought to be only about sixty persons being detained without charges, but their numbers increased again during the year as conflict between ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU heightened. Other measures also enhanced the government's security powers. In March 1981 the minister of home affairs stated that all residents of the country would in the future be required to carry identity cards. The government also launched several campaigns to persuade residents to turn in their unregistered firearms. In July 1981 the government announced that owners could turn in their guns without penalty until the end of August, but anyone caught illegally possessing a firearm after that time was to be sentenced to a minimum of five years in jail. Relatively few weapons were turned in, however, and it proved difficult to enforce the law. Gun laws were amended the following year to allow farmers to keep semiautomatic rifles but to require police reserves to turn in their weapons. Disaffected Whites Zimbabwe's white minority, who had controlled the country over most of the preceding century, did not pose a challenge to power in 1982. But serious acts of subversion and sabotage were attributed to disaffected whites and were a matter of ongoing concern to government security officials. Such actions were not limited to any known domestic organizations, although South African complicity was suspected. Upon assuming power, Mugabe had moved to neutralize the latent threat of white reaction by inviting the Europeans to stay on and help build the country as Zimbabweans (see Politics, ch. 4). Many whites were encouraged by the prime minister's moderation, but others were discouraged or angered by the economic adjustments the government made, by the inflammatory statements of some government leaders, and by the general influx of Africans into positions of power. In the two years after independence nearly one-quarter of the white population left the country-mostly to neighboring South Africa-but some dissatisfied whites, hindered by restrictions on transferring their capital or other factors, delayed their departure. The whites were not trusted by many of the former guerrillas in Mugabe's government; suspicions were reinforced when, several months after independence, Lieutenant General Peter Walls, the Rhodesian who had served as commander of the armed forces for three months under Mugabe, revealed that he had asked the British government to annul the results of the 1980 elections. There had not been a coup attempt, and there was no evidence that the general was involved in any coup plots, but he was expelled from the country. Several acts of sabotage that had significant national security implications were attributed to white Zimbabweans in the thirty months after independence. White soldiers were suspected of being involved in the August 1981 explosion of a large ammunition dump at Inkomo Barracks, which destroyed most of the army's ammunition stock. A year later, in July 1982, observers suspected white involvement in the sabotage of thirteen air force planes. As many as fourteen white servicemen, including the air force chief of staff, Air Vice Marshal Hugh Slatter, and other high-ranking officers, were held for questioning in the incident along with five Africans who had served with Nkomo's ZIPRA. In 1981 and 1982 several whites in the Special Branch of the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) security service were implicated as agents of South Africa, including the director of security in the Prime Minister's Office, who was directly responsible for Mugabe's personal security. Involvement of disaffected whites was also suspected in the December 1981 explosion of fifteen kilograms of dynamite that destroyed ZANU-PF headquarters in Harare. The inability to distinguish a priori between loyal white Zimbabweans and those seeking to undermine the state has complicated relations between the government and the white community. In calling for more circumspection in the appointment of whites, in early 1982 Mugabe stated. "We do not want to prejudice the chances of those who are loyal, but one must now be satisfied that one is not promoting a [traitor]." In November 1981 the government for the first time used the Emergency Powers Act to detain whites suspected of undermining state security. By the end of the year eight whites were in detention, and twelve had been jailed by February 1982. One was a member of parliament, Wally Stuttaford, who was detained in December on suspicion of "conspiring to overthrow" the government. After eight months in detention Stuttaford was charged with holding two meetings with four others to topple the Mugabe government by force. Dennis Walker, another white member of parliament suspected in the case, returned from abroad after Stuttaford's arrest but later fled to avoid incarceration. The first treason trial held since independence involved a white dentist from Bulawayo (the leader of a fringe rightist political party), his twenty-four-year-old son, and two accomplices. The four were sentenced to prison after being convicted in May 1982 of plotting to foment a secessionist rebellion among the Ndebele, which they hoped would eventually result in a separate, white-ruled Matabeleland. Some observers believed that the threat to Zimbabwean security posed by white dissidents was diminishing, but others thought that disaffected white Rhodesians in southern Africa continued to be a potential source of sabotage, terrorism, or economic disruption to Zimbabwe. Ethnicity, PF-ZAPU, and the Government Zimbabwe's most serious security problem in 1982, one that had long-term implications, sprang from the political competition between ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU. Conflict began in 1963 after Sithole and Mugabe broke away from Nkomo's ZAPU to form ZANU. Partisan violence between the two groups broke out at the time in townships throughout Rhodesia. Owing to circumstances of history and geography, the rivalry between ZAPU and ZANU took on a regional and ethnic character during the civil war despite the nationalist orientation of the leaders of both parties. ZANU, which operated from Mozambique into Shona-populated areas of east and northeast Zimbabwe, appealed to Shona ethnicity as a tactical necessity in building ties with the local population (see Civil War and the three Armies, this ch.). Partly because ZANU was able to capture Shona loyalties and partly because Nkomo was an Ndebele, ZAPU garnered the loyalties of the Ndebele and the Kalanga (a group ethnically classed as Shona but politically aligned with the Ndebele for a century). The regional and ethnic orientations of the two parties as well as Shona numerical dominance in the country were graphically demonstrated by the April 1980 elections (see fig. 18). The postwar conflict was the result of mutual suspicion on the part of the parties. ZANU-PF members, many of whom wanted Zimbabwe to become a one-party state, suspected PF-ZAPU's desire to retain a separate identity within the country's ruling coalition. According to observers, the ethnic component of the dispute was reinforced because many Ndebele feared Shona dominance represented by ZANU-PF's political power. The clashes between the two parties were contained by Mugabe's policy of using force against both ZANU and ZAPU dissidents and by government policy to bring all the guerrillas into the national army. That the integration program risked the destruction of the army was demonstrated in February 1981 when the largest ZAPU-ZANU clash since independence involved soldiers from three supposedly integrated battalions. The trouble started on February 7 with a fight between former ZIPRA and ZANLA soldiers in a bar at a battalion army camp in the Bulawayo township of Ntabazinduna. When shooting broke out between the factions, most soldiers fled-many ZIPRA soldiers to their homes in the Bulawayo area. Despite the efforts of ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU officers to contain the disturbances, within five days the fighting had spread. Two other integrated battalions had broken up; two assembly camps in Entumbane in the Bulawayo area-one ZANLA and one ZIPRA-were attacking each other; armored columns were reported to be traveling toward Bulawayo from ZIPRA camps at Essexvale in the south and at Gwai River Mine in the north. The fighting was stopped by a firm government response. Government officials and PF-ZAPU leaders, including Nkomo and ZIPRA commander Lookout Masuku, called for a halt in the fighting, and two battalions of white-led government troops that had belonged to the RAR along with reserves who had served with the Rhodesian Army imposed order on the situation within a few days. Mugabe also threatened the guerrillas with the use of helicopter gunships and jet fighter bombers circling above the troubled area. As many as 300 were killed, after which some 6,500 guerrillas and soldiers were disarmed, three battalions were dissolved, and most of the combatants were eventually integrated into other units. After the February 1981 disturbances, open fighting between the two groups practically ceased, and the integration process proceeded without further hitches. Nkomo used his influence to get wary ZIPRA soldiers to surrender their arms and leave their assembly points in order to join the national army, effectively dismantling the army he had built up over a period of years. ZAPU's political position was gradually undermined, however. Nkomo was demoted from minister of home affairs to minister without portfolio even before the Bulawayo fighting. His lack of influence was further demonstrated in August 1981 when the government announced the creation of an all-ZANU-PF brigade to be trained by North Korean advisers (see Army Organization, Equipment, and Training, this ch.). Nkomo protested that he had not been consulted about the formation of a brigade that he feared would be exclusively loyal to ZANU-PF. Despite mounting political difficulties, the security situation was disturbed by little more than isolated incidents of banditry for a year after the Bulawayo disturbances. Government security concerns voiced in July 1981 focused on smuggling, the number of uncontrolled arms in the country, and violence in neighboring Mozambique that threatened to spill across Zimbabwe's borders. The relatively peaceful interlude in the conflict between PF-ZAPU and ZANU-PF ended abruptly in February 1982 when large quantities of arms and equipment were found by the CIO cached on farms owned by companies controlled by PF-ZAPU. The materiel included scores of military vehicles, communications equipment, SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, hundreds of machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars, antiaircraft guns, several thousand automatic rifles, and ammunition. One source stated that the weapons amounted to about one-third of ZIPRA's wartime arsenal. Nkomo denied knowledge of the arms and claimed that weapons had been hidden throughout the country by all parties as insurance against a further outbreak of violence. Mugabe charged that Nkomo and elements within PF-ZAPU had been planning a coup against his government. He also stated that former Rhodesian military commander Walls had confessed to arranging meetings between Nkomo and South African officials after the 1980 elections in order to support the overthrow of Mugabe. (Nkomo and Walls both denied the charge.) Within days Nkomo and three other PF-ZAPU ministers and deputy ministers were removed from the cabinet, and about a dozen companies owned by PF-ZAPU were outlawed and their assets confiscated. Within a month four prominent PF-ZAPU leaders were detained, including Lieutenant General Masuku, who was then deputy commander of the national army, and Dumiso Dabengwa, a retired officer who had been the ZAPU military intelligence chief during the civil war. In the wake of PF-ZAPU's humiliation, Ndebele dissidence increased measurably beginning in March 1982. Large numbers of former ZIPRA enlisted men-estimates ranged from 2,000 to 4,000-deserted from the armed forces over the four-month period from March through June. Most of those leaving apparently returned, unemployed, to their home areas, but it was estimated that by June 1982 up to 1,000 deserters were operating as guerrillas or bandits in the bush in the west and southwest of the country. Most of the deserters' actions were not overtly political in motive or military in execution. Operating in bands of ten to forty, the dissidents resorted to kidnapping and banditry and caused some thirty deaths in the March-July period. The rebels emphasized the political nature of their actions when a group of them kidnapped six foreign tourists in July 1982, prompting a national manhunt. The dissidents, who identified themselves in a communique as "Zipra Forces," said they would release their victims only in return for the release of the jailed ZIPRA leaders and the end of government harassment of Nkomo. Mugabe's government acted sternly against the rebels, making sweeps through guerrilla areas, uncovering several caches of arms, and arresting dissidents. The largest operation mounted in the first months after the renewed violence involved joint sweeps by the police and the army through Bulawayo, spearheaded by the national army's elite, white-led One Commando Battalion. Security forces established roadblocks throughout the city and required citizens to show identification or be detained; house-to-house searches were conducted for arms caches and deserters. Nkomo publicly supported the government's tough policies for dealing with the situation but called for a bipartisan commission to be established to determine the causes of the disturbances. The government's repression of PF-ZAPU leaders, even in reaction to a threat posed by the rival party, risked alienating completely the Ndebele and threatened to undermine ZANU-PF as a national party. In 1982 the strife between the two parties did not appear to threaten the government in Harare directly, but an endemic insurgency in the western provinces seemed a possibility. Regional Security Concerns In 1982 the government's security concerns were primarily local in scope, whereas during the civil war period external factors significantly shaped the security perceptions of the African nationalist leaders and the Rhodesian government. The Soviet Union, its East European allies, and China had supplied and supported the nationalist guerrillas; the United Nations (UN) had imposed trade sanctions against Rhodesia; South Africa had supported the Smith government; and the precedent of Cuban military intervention in nearby Angola had threatened wider internationalization of the conflict. As the risk of increased international involvement in southern Africa receded after the 1980 election, independent Zimbabwe's external security concerns focused mainly on South Africa, its powerful, white-ruled neighbor. Zimbabwe's three black-ruled neighbors-Zambia, Mozambique, and Botswana-possessed only modest economic and military structures and posed no measurable threat. Having supported the guerrillas to varying degrees in the civil war, they maintained basically friendly relations with Harare. South Africa, however, was a potentially hostile state, having an economy over fifteen times the size of Zimbabwe's and larger, better trained, more modern armed forces (see fig. 19). [See Figure 19.: Balance of Power in Southern Africa, 1982 Source: Based on information from The Military Balance, 1981-82, London, 1981.] Despite a loathing for the apartheid system, Mugabe realized that his country's economy and security were largely dependent on South Africa. On becoming prime minister, he pursued a pragmatic policy of economic cooperation while refusing official diplomatic relations and emphasizing the political differences between his government and the one in Pretoria (see South Africa, ch. 4). South Africa used economic pressure and demonstrated that it could threaten Zimbabwe's national security despite the two countries' economic relations. In 1981 South Africans used their economic leverage against Zimbabwe by announcing that the preferential trade agreement between the two countries would be allowed to lapse, that locomotives loaned to Zimbabwe's burdened national railroads would be recalled, and that Zimbabweans working in South African mines (and earning valuable foreign exchange) would be repatriated. The South African government later consented to renewal of the trade agreement and the lease on the locomotives. Relations improved, but Zimbabwean suspicions were not relieved. Apart from South Africa's ability to threaten Zimbabwe's government by disrupting its economy, Harare was concerned about Pretoria's ability to use the more direct methods it has employed against other African countries. South African armed forces had openly raided Angola on several occasions in the late 1970s and early 1980s to attack insurgents affiliated with the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), who were seeking independence for South African-controlled Namibia, and South Africa also had supported the antigovernmental National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola-UNITA). Although it had accommodated itself to the introduction of a Marxist regime in Mozambique, South Africa was also widely believed by international observers to support the Mozambique National Resistance (Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana-RNM). An insurgent group originally established by the Rhodesians, the RNM through its operations in Mozambique had damaged Zimbabwe's rail and pipeline links with Indian Ocean ports. South African Prime Minister Pieter Botha asserted that his country had never interfered in the affairs of its neighbors but warned that it would not hesitate to use its strength if Zimbabwe allowed its territory to be used by black nationalists to undermine South African security. There was no evidence that Zimbabwe had provided a base for anti-Pretoria guerrillas, but because of known South African involvement in other African states and the discovery of undercover agents in the Zimbabwe government who were accused of gathering intelligence for Pretoria, suspicions arose among Harare officials that the southern neighbor was conducting a program of ongoing covert operations in Zimbabwe. On several occasions in 1981 and 1982 the government charged-and the South Africans denied-that Pretoria was training 5,000 black Zimbabweans to carry out acts of sabotage and that South Africa was fomenting the Ndebele disturbances. In August 1982 Zimbabwean troops clashed north of the Limpopo with a patrol of former Rhodesians serving with the South African Defence Force and killed three of them. The South African government, although admitting that the incursion did take place, insisted that the territorial violation was not sanctioned by responsible authorities. South Africa was also linked by Zimbabweans to a variety of acts of terrorism and sabotage, including the July 1981 assassination in Harare of Joe Gqabi, a senior official in the anti-apartheid African National Congress. The extent of South African activities having direct security implications apart from intelligence gathering could not be determined in 1982. Although the level of that country's involvement was not comparable in scale to its actions in Mozambique and Angola (which were both supporting anti-Pretoria insurgent movements), most observers believed that South African agencies were at least in contact with opponents of the Harare regime. According to Mugabe in mid-1982, "South Africa continues to carry out its acts of aggression against us and against its other neighbors-and that is happening without any provocation from us. This is a deliberate exercise to disorganize our economies and to upset our newly established political order."