Word: guerrillas
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...weeks, Rhodesia's Supreme Military Commander, Lieut. General Peter Walls, had been receiving intelligence reports of a guerrilla force building up in southwestern Mozambique. Faced with a security problem that would further extend his hard-pressed troops, Walls asked Smith for permission to make a punitive raid on Mozambique's Gaza province, a key infiltration and supply route. Smith readily gave him the go-ahead. Last week the first columns of Rhodesian army trucks, carrying some 500 troops, rolled across the Mozambican border shortly after daybreak and headed toward the village of Mapai, 60 miles away. Overhead, Rhodesian...
...John Graham and U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Stephen Low, left Salisbury for the Mozambican capital of Maputo. Their mission: to discuss a possible settlement with Black Nationalist Leader Robert Mugabe, head of the Zimbabwe African National Union and co-chairman with Joshua Nkomo of the Patriotic Front, the joint guerrilla force that is recognized by the frontline states as the sole legitimate liberation movement. Smith opposes U.S.British demands that any settlement include the guerrilla leaders. He wants the negotiators to come around to his own "internal solution"-meaning turning power over to black moderate Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who leads...
...Rhodesian army ranks among the world's finest fighting units. But it is hamstrung by a lack of supplies and spare parts, and, above all, by the hostility or indifference of black villagers, whose hearts and minds are the key to military success in a guerrilla war. Unless the political climate changes, the best the army can do is keep up the present level of containment. Eliminating terrorism-the basic goal of Smith's regime-will be beyond...
...Rhodesian air force (1,300 men) makes do with a fleet of about 50 planes, many obsolete, and about 20 Alouette helicopters. Spare parts are such a luxury that when choppers are pockmarked by guerrilla small-arms fire, ground crews literally bandage damaged rotor blades with adhesive tape and send the helicopters back into...
Since 1972, only 300 government personnel of all races have been killed, along with 100 white civilians. The black civilian toll is far higher: almost 1,400 killed, including 238 curfew breakers and 342 civilians trapped in crossfire. But as guerrilla skills improve, the kill ratio has dropped in the past year, from 11 to 1 in the government's favor...