Dirty War: Rhodesia and Chemical Biological Warfare 1975-1980

[davidbfpo]

Notice landed today that this book 'Dirty War: Rhodesia and Chemical Biological Warfare 1975-1980' is due out in April 2017, publihed by Helion Books (UK). From Amazon's summary:

At times in the conflict, the Rhodesians thought that their poisons effort would bring the decisive blow against the guerrillas. For months at a time, the Rhodesian use of CBW accounted for higher casualty rates than conventional weapons. In the end, however, neither CBW use nor conventional battlefield successes could turn the tide.

From the author's bio:

Dr. Glenn Cross currently works for the US Government on WMD issues. Since the early 1990s, he has worked on biological weapons (BW) issues for several U.S. intelligence agencies....He also was a post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University where he conducted an exhaustive study of the Rhodesian CBW program as an example of a CBW program that had slipped under the radar of most other nations.

Link:https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-War-Rho...y+War+Rhodesia

In the UK publication is November 2016:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dirty-War-R...fare+1975-1980

When I was in Zimbabwe in 1985 there was very little known, rumours abounded and the guerillas had their own memories.

[flagg]

Having read as much as I can about the Rhodesian Bush War and the related Selous Scouts the two anecdotal examples that stand out to me include embedding contact poisons into clothing to be injected into ZIPRA/ZANLA supply chain and the poisoning of water sources along infiltration routes during the dry season.

I also found this and in July 2018 the link was not working:

http://peterbaxterafrica.com/index.p...e-in-rhodesia/

[davidbfpo]

Flagg,

Good catch there!

Peter Baxter's hitherto unknown - to me - website has plenty to read. I have emailed him to ask for details of the 2017 Rhodesian Military History & Tactics speaking tour with Chris Cocks and him - which I know will be of interest here. See:http://peterbaxterafrica.com/

His Amazon bio:

Peter Baxter is an author, amateur historian and African field, mountain and heritage travel guide. Born in Kenya and educated in Zimbabwe, he has lived and travelled over much of southern and central Africa. He has guided in all the major mountain ranges south of the equator, helping develop the concept of sustainable travel, and the touring of battlefield and heritage sites in East Africa. Peter lives in Oregon, USA, working on the marketing of African heritage travel as well as a variety of book projects. His interests include British Imperial history in Africa and the East Africa campaign of the First World War in particular. His first book was Rhodesia: Last Outpost of the British Empire; he has written several books in the Africa@War series, including France in Centrafrique, Selous Scouts, Mau Mau, SAAF's Border War and Somalia: US Intervention, 1992-1994.

In the recent Selous Scouts thread I added two references to the use of poisoned clothing: Google search on poisoned clothing + Rhodesia finds many references to this activity; accounts appeared later in Rhodesian memoirs and became very controversial, for examples view http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1347508 and http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/sep3_2006.html

[davidbfpo]

It appears the book has yet to reach the printer, due to production difficulties over copying original documents - via Amazon.co.uk

[davidbfpo]

This book is now available in the UK and from May 2017 in the USA from Helion Publishing. The UK price is just under £20.

Link to Helion:http://www.helion.co.uk/dirty-war-rh...1975-1980.html

There is a second USA publisher, details in the next post.

From a BSAP History email it appears that two senior BSAP SB officers helped with documents, plus some papers held by the Selous Scouts have been traced.

[davidbfpo]

Yesterday I posted (in part):

There is a second USA publisher, but details have gone astray and an inquiry is underway.

There is distributor in the USA for Helion; they are Casemate Publishers, from Pennsylvania and their website is:www.casematepublishing.com

The book is priced at just under US$40.