Jakkie Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia [Routledge Library Editions: Terrorism and Insurgency,
Volume 4] (New York, NY: 1985/2015), 284 pp., US $ 112.00 [Hardcover], US $ 36.00 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-138-88789-3.
This is a highly systematic account of the Rhodesian government’s counter-insurgency campaign during the war’s crucial period of 1972 to 1979. It begins with a history of the period from 1890 to 1979, with
successive chapters examining the Rhodesian security forces command and control management of the campaign; how their forces approached the concept of protecting and consolidating control over the country’s villages; conducting border minefield clearing operations; engaging in psychological operations to gain population support; conducting external military operations against insurgent base areas, including against insurgent sanctuaries in neighboring countries; and the role of intelligence in penetrating insurgency forces and gaining situational information advantage against them. The author concludes that when the war for Zimbabwe officially ended on December 21, 1979, despite the execution by the Rhodesian Security Forces of their counter-insurgency strategy, “very few of these had in fact proved successful.” (p. 243). One of the problems, the author explains, is that a “racial preconception …permeated all levels of white/black interaction, specifically in rural areas. Counter-insurgent operations were conducted to the exclusion rather than the support of environmental improvement. Population and resources control, a means to the end of regaining and re-establishing government control, became an end in itself: the object simply being to facilitate counter-insurgent operations” (p. 246). Above all, “At no stage was attention at high level seriously directed towards redressing grievances exploited by the insurgents to justify their criticism of the existing white administration” (246). This important book was originally published in 1985, but its approach and findings continue to be pertinent to the current period, with unresolved insurgencies in countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere.
The author is Chairman of the Board and Head of African Futures & Innovation at Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa.
COIN in Rhodesia
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