Word: truce
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Another problem confronting Soames was the fragility of the six-week-old ceasefire. Though some 21,600 guerrillas have reported to 14 assembly points, the truce is marred almost daily by sporadic clashes and acts of banditry and lawlessness. British authorities attribute most of the violations to ZANU guerrillas loyal to Mugabe, several thousands of whom remain at large or wander in and out of the camps at will. The 1,200 Commonwealth troops monitoring the cease-fire seem powerless to stop them...
...peacefully at 16 remote assembly camps, several thousand others remain at large in the bush. There have been at least 38 confirmed cease-fire violations and 158 deaths since the agreement took effect on Dec. 21. British officials say Nkomo's ZIPRA forces appear to be honoring the truce far more scrupulously than the more numerous ZANLA troops loyal to Robert Mugabe, Nkomo's co-leader in the now divided Patriotic Front alliance...
...against late-arriving guerrillas. Indeed, he could hardly condemn only the Front's few stragglers, since it was the Rhodesian security forces who seemed to be dragging their feet in returning to their bases, and some units continued to carry out unauthorized military missions in defiance of the truce...
...farm near the northwestern town of Sinoia, precipitating a clash with Rhodesian paramilitary police that left seven insurgents dead. The Commonwealth monitoring force suffered its first combat-related casualties when a Land-Rover detonated a mine, injuring a British soldier and a senior Patriotic Front field commander. The precarious truce was also marred by some 180 scattered incidents of banditry and lawlessness, from murder and kidnaping to armed robbery and cattle rustling. Patriotic Front officials insisted they were the acts of armed thugs rather than bona fide guerrillas...
...already accomplished what the white Salisbury government of Ian Smith and the biracial regime of Bishop Abel Muzorewa had spectacularly failed to do: scale down the bloodshed and bring large numbers of guerrillas peacefully out of the bush. Compared with a weekly average of about 200 deaths before the truce took effect, last week's total of twelve was an improvement that boosted the morale of many war-weary Rhodesians. "It's working!" exclaimed a jubilant African shopkeeper near the Mozambique border. "Everybody's happy. I'm even sleeping at night...