Localised Insurgency and Politics of Force: Adamson Mushala

 ADAMSON BRATSON MUSANDA MUSHALA

AN OVERVIEW
Adamson Mushala was the leader of a 200 plus man strong force ranged against the Zambian State then under the leadership of Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda, Zambia’s Independence hero and first president. Mushala who at the height of his insurgency sent shivers and sowed blood curdling fear in the hearts of many civilians and security forces alike, ran riot in the jungles of North-Western province between 1976 and 1982 when he was killed in a counter-insurgency operation by Zambia Army Special Forces.
Emboldened by the Stand of UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola) under Jonas Savimbi in neighbouring Angola and the patronage of the South African Military Intelligence through the command of Colonel Jan Dirk “Jannie” Breytenbach of the South African Special forces, Mushala looted, abducted and pillaged and sabotaged the North Western Province of Zambia with impunity.

Zambia through government policy had already made itself vulnerable by actively supporting Liberation movements in the region including the hosting of Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC), and South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) of Namibia. The fear of a home grown insurgency particularly sponsored by regional inimical forces such as the Rhodesian regime of Ian Douglas Smith or the South African Apartheid government was a reality Kaunda’s government faced. In a bid to tighten security and seal loopholes for any dissent political or otherwise, Kaunda painfully turned a personally cherished dream of a democratic dispensation to a near police state for fear of losing the newly independent country.
The ‘Real Politique’ of revolution and a world polarized by dangerous nuclear armed rivals in the guise of the United States of America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) on one hand, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the other, made a quick meal of any illusions Kaunda might have had about “Democracy and Rule of Law”.

A BACKGROUND
Scenario one:
In August 1967 UNITA met with the disapproval of the Zambian government after it blew up a section of the Benguela Railway then Zambia’s lifeline to the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese threatened to cut Zambia’s access altogether if it didn’t reign in UNITA. Though Zambia gave sanctuary to Savimbi and UNITA, it did not recognize the party officially. This was due to its conviction that UNITA had no prospects of forming government and also a complicated situation within liberation and socialist circles where two camps had emerged and competing for influence; the Sino-African block on the one hand and the Muscovite-African block on the other.

There were also personality issues stemming from Savimbi’s GRAE (Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile) days and his competition with MPLA (Movimento popular de Libertação de Angola). Savimbi’s Residential permit was cancelled and was forced to head for Egypt. He did not stay long in Cairo, opting to go into Angola to be with his men. It is from there that he wrote a letter to President Kaunda citing the difficulties of procuring arms, medical supplies and other logistics and pleaded with him (Kaunda) to reconsider the expulsion and have him set up an office in Lusaka. He confessed to have broken an understanding not to target the Railway.

Kaunda had allowed him refuge as long as Angolan émigrés in Zambia were not recruited or crucial infrastructure to Zambia’s well being not targeted. The embargo to the south in Rhodesia and Ian Smith’s UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) in 1965, were hurting Zambia’s economy. The expulsion of UNITA exposed supporters and sympathizers among the Angolan refugee population in Zambia to reprisals with some being forced to switch allegiances to MPLA or the less desirable GRAE / UPA under Holden Roberto.

Scenario two:
On 19th August 1967, Oliver Tambo leader of the ANC in exile and James Chikerema functional leader of ZAPU in exile, called a press conference in Lusaka where both Liberation organizations were being hosted by the Zambian government. The import and content of the press conference was to announce that a military alliance had been founded and joint operations involving armed cadres from their organizations were in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) en-route to South Africa where they were to take the fight. This prompted the quick dispatch of several hundred South African Police with helicopters to shore up Smith’s European and African mercenaries serving his regime. The Rhodesian Air Force went into action against the hapless guerillas that assembled themselves in Wankie Game Reserve out of poor military strategy and leadership.

They were easy target practice for bombarding and strafing Rhodesia Air Force air power. The casualties told the tale and criticism was unrelenting from rival ZANU who through its Lusaka based publication Zimbabwe News scoffed at the need for Rhodesia to be liberated with the help of the ANC when there were four million Zimbabweans who could fight 200,000 white settlers. ZANU however paid tribute to the courage of the fallen men. The PAC of Azania (South Africa) also deplored the ANC’s presence in Rhodesia and in a memorandum presented to an O.A.U meeting in Kinshasa, claimed that Tambo and Chikerema had no idea of guerilla warfare.
This episode embarrassed the Zambian government and put pressure on it. It was clear that managing liberation movements on its soil was not going to be a walk in the park. This was emphasized by another faux pas at the hands of James Chikerema who through the inept invitation of a British Television Channel Granada Television, allowed a documentary of ZAPU’s camps in Zambia that only exposed the political degeneration, corruption, tribalism and cruelty in the camps. This came as a big shock to the Zambian government who couldn’t fathom how Chikerema could so blatantly publicize the presence of guerilla bases on its territory. This episode also shocked the entire ZAPU organization in exile. The Ndebele – Shona rift within the Chikerema run ZAPU erupted into violence with the Times of Zambia front page of 24th April 1970 reporting running battles outside the ZAPU hostels in Lusaka’s Emmasdale Township. Kaunda was so incensed with this Chikerema – Nyandoro inspired violence that he threatened to expel ZAPU if they did not get their act together.

Scenario three:
In the meantime in the Republic of South Africa a clandestine operation code named Operation Plathond, a joint BOSS (Bureau of State Security) and South African Defence Force (SADF) operation, was launched to train a surrogate force of Zambians for operations against the government of President Kaunda, the ANC’s most important backer in Africa. Under the command of the head of South Africa’s first special forces unit, Colonel Jannie Breytenbach, this operation was aimed at destabilisation operations inside Zambia.
Breytenbach was given a mission “to train a hundred guerrillas as a nucleus around which a bigger irregular force could be built. Everything was to be done in utmost secrecy”. Part of the training and operations were carried out in south-western Zambia where small groups would harass SWAPO bases and Zambian army garrisons which gave them support. This became a key component of South Africa’s regional counter-mobilisation strategy.
In June 1974, the journal X-Ray on Southern Africa (IV, 9) published by the Africa Bureau in London reported that the SADF had been training a force of dissident Zambians in the Caprivi with the objective of toppling the Zambian government. The report was largely based on two court cases in which Zambians were charged with actions related to the training of Zambians in the Caprivi.
In 1969, the ANC held its first general conference since its establishment in exile. The conference, held in Morogoro, Tanzania, adopted a new programme called “Strategy and Tactics of the ANC”. The problems experienced in Rhodesia had led the ANC to realise that military success was unlikely to be a rapid process, and that the Cuban ‘foci’ model was not applicable in South Africa. The strategy document thus detailed the strategic need for a “protracted armed struggle” depending on “political mobilization.

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TO BE CONTINUED……. PART TWO (Mulungushi Reforms, The Second Republic and Intra Party dissent, Selous Scouts)

By Eugene Makai