Review of MR Article - part 2
Quote:
In this climate, soldiers had greater freedom to stretch the rules. The reporting of a significant number of “killed in crossfire” was now accepted, while in the early 1970s Special Branch still treated each death as regular police work.[74]
74. Cohen, 488-89. Barry Cohen, “The War in Rhodesia: A Dissenter’s View,” African Affairs 76 (October 1977).
DKI as to the source. De Boer never cites "the rules" that he claims were "stretched". The disconnect in effect between applying "Rule of Law" versus "Laws of War" in irregular warfare was early on picked up by Trinquier, Galula and McCuen. Civil authorities are generally slow to react to an oncoming insurgency - and the peacetime setup often fails.
Ciliers noted that with respect to Rhodesia (pp.220-222 type):
Quote:
In general, the Rhodesian intelligence community was geared for peace-time operations. Although the insurgent threat was very real, and recognized by Special Branch as such, neither the organisation nor its methods of collecting information was suited to the more specific needs of operational intelligence. ... With the outbreak of armed attacks in late 1972, the Special Branch network of paid informers and police patrols in the North-east came close to total collapse within a matter of weeks. ... The character of the war and Special Branch method of operation within this climate were incompatible. Apart from the fact that the source of paid informants dried up almost immediately owing to a spate of insurgent 'disciplinary killings', the ambushing of normal Police patrols also severely curtailed this source of information. Within a year of the activation of Operation Hurricane it had become evident that the traditional Special Branch intelligence network had run into serious trouble.
The insurgents engaged in classic "selective violence" against civilians (Cilliers' term - "disciplinary killings"), which is really part of the "political struggle" as a facet of its own violence program. So also, ambushing "normal Police patrols" is more of the "political struggle"; though it also marks the transition to a more militarized phase. If the civil authorities do not adapt by shifting to at least a localized "Laws of War" construct, advantage insurgents.
Quote:
One soldier probably described the new attitude accurately: “If in doubt, shoot. It kept you alive.” He, for example, opened fire on a hut if he saw an insurgent hiding amidst civilians. Soldiers also disclosed that they shot at unidentified figures running at a distance.[75]
75. Cocks, 93, 97; Wylie, 144, 152. (1) Chris Cocks, Fireforce: One Man’s War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, 4th ed. (Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers, 2006); (2) Dan Wylie, Dead Leaves: Two Years in the Rhodesian War (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002)
DKI as to the sources. Since the quotes resemble Haditha, they are plausible.
Whether the practices are within or outside of the various MOUT and SASO tactical doctrines - and also within or outside of the conflicting ROEs - could be a topic for debate. That's a debate I won't presently engage in -
"Some cases shouldn't be settled. ... Some cases shouldn't be brought. ... Some cases shouldn't be debated."
As to Haditha, "best practices COIN" and FM 3-24 clearly made their point. "Hearts and Minds", gentlemen - which I believe our young men should not be sent to die for.
Quote:
Dennison’s war diary gives some idea of the number of civilians killed this way. Between 29 November 1975 and 28 July 1979, his company killed 364 insurgents and captured 39 while killing 170 civilians (the number of wounded civilians is not recorded).[76]
76. Wood, 27, 347. J.R.T. Wood, The War Diaries of André Dennison (Gibraltar: Ashanti Publishing Limited, 1989)
DKI as to the source. A brief word on "insurgents" and "civilians". The measure of "insurgent" may be a person with AK in hand or nearby; with "civilian" being anyone not fitting that measure. That doesn't mean that those "civilians" were all "innocent".
Quote:
Interestingly enough, soldiers did not consciously execute government policy when they targeted civilians. The above-mentioned soldier who shot to stay alive thought that higher-ranking officers tried to adhere to the Geneva Conventions while “the troops in the field tended to sneer at the idea.”[77]
77. Cocks, 93.
DKI as to the source.
De Boer here transits from "civilians killed" (in both quotes above this quote) to "civilians targeted". "Killed" and "targeted" are two very different things - which de Boer knows full well as an educated attorney.
As to the GCs (not the APs), the 1949 Geneva Conventions, with the exception of Common Article 3, apply only to armed conflicts of an international character - which the Rhodesian conflict was not. Therefore, in order to discuss the many issues that de Boer asserts, one would have to present the actual rules to which the Rhodesian government and its "higher-ranking officers" adhered - and how the "lower rankers" violated them. De Boer fails completely in that task.
Quote:
Another soldier explained how troops beat up uncooperative civilians to extract information. Such treatment was actually illegal, and usually ineffective, but often happened.[78]
78. Warren, 39-40. Charlie Warren, At the Going Down of the Sun . . . (Zanj Press, 2006).
DKI as to the source.
Quote:
An instructor also told Rhodesian Light Infantry recruits that if a civilian saw him on a cross-border operation, he would kill the person so there was less risk of compromising the mission. He would never do this in Rhodesia, because there, “the Rule of Law applied.”[79]
79. Croukamp, 410. Dennis Croukamp, The Bush War in Rhodesia: The Extraordinary Combat Memoir of a Rhodesian Reconnaissance Specialist (Boulder: Paladin Press, 2007).
DKI as to the source. There is a difference in rules vice an internal insurgency (CA 3 based at the time); and a cross-border operation (an aspect of the Law of Neutrality - my post on Ashley Deeks' article). Not to say that either set of rules provide an open hunting license on "civilians".
Quote:
Given this notion among soldiers that the killing of civilians was illegal, we cannot explain the large number of persons killed in crossfires as government policy. It was probably another manifestation of Rhodesian soldiers embracing a punitive approach toward counterinsurgency and taking it one step further than (they thought) was allowed, by showing little regard for civilian lives.
No source given.
To the extent that this work of art purports to be either a piece of legal scholarship - or a legal brief - in regard to the Rhodesian "rules of engagement", it flunks. I am no more enlightened after reading it, than I was before reading it.
It may or may not hold up as an attorney's "Statement of Facts" (one should expect that to be biased; as also legal scholarship - or a legal brief - will be biased) - that depends on what its sources actually say; and how accurate they are.
Regards
Mike
A Rose By Any Other Name ...
JMA: You mentioned in another conversation that you were not acquainted, when in RLI service, with the term "rules of engagement". I don't question that, as such, since our own current FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, does not use the term "rules of engagement" once.
Of course, FM 27-10 is full of ROEs for different situations - as have been US service regulations and doctrinal publications since the 1863 Lieber Code (which is mostly ROEs). In both the US and UK, the ROEs have come under different names from before WWI - e.g., U.S. War Dept. Doc. No. 467, Rules of Land Warfare (1914), and J.W Spaight, War Rights on Land (1911).
So, unless Rhodesia was a rara avis in British colonial terms, it should have had "field service regulations" (including "rules of engagement") for both its police and military services. De Boer's sin was not one of illogic, as such - though, of course, one cannot over-extend or violate rules that do not exist. His sin was in not researching to find the rules that probably did exist for both military and police. If he couldn't find such rules, then he should have said so - and altered his conclusions.
Of course, just because written rules exist does not mean that everyone is aware of them (much less that people are really trained in them). So far as ROEs are concerned, I think Spaight's joke is on point (and perhaps not really much of a joke today):
Quote:
..... for an ambitious subaltern who wishes to be known vaguely as an author and, at the same time, not to be troubled with undue inquiry into the claim upon which his title rests, there can be no better subject than the International Law of War. For it is a quasi-military subject in which no one in the army or out of it, is very deeply interested, which everyone very contentedly takes on trust, and which may be written about without one person in ten thousand being able to tell whether the writing is adequate or not.
cited here (in a prior conversation with you).
As to MR, I think the discussion here justifies the article's publication. I also could name a half-dozen writers who would say the article is just great - based on their own articles re: "war crimes", etc.
As an aside, I went back to Bruce Hoffman's 1991 RAND piece on Rhodesia. His Appendix C, Cross-Border Raids, summarizes several dozen raids in Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Angola. A study of those raids (if there is more available factually than Hoffman's brief summaries) seems presently material in light of the loosening of restrictions by two US administrations on those direct actions.
---------------------
Another topic - briefly. Going into what soldiers call their enemies is not going to be useful here. I don't need an education on what those terms mean. If you want to know where I stand, I stand with Randall Kennedy (my gosh, JMM agrees with a Princeton, Oxford, Yale Law grad, who teaches at Harvard Law). If you want to know where he stands, buy and read his book. I'd suggest termination of "gook" posts.
Regards
Mike