South African Destabilization Policy of Zimbabwe
South African destabilization policy of Zimbabwe contributed to the oubreak of Gukurahundi ,as countries in southern Africa began to gain their independence from 1975 onwards, white-ruled South Africa began an increasingly coherent policy of destabilising these nations, in order to prolong its own power. Independent nations most notably affected by South African destabilisation in the early 1980s were Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. This policy and some of its ramifications for Africa were documented in Joseph Hanlon's Beggar your Neighbours: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. During South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission progresses in the democratic South Africa, further details of these events are come to light.
South African intervention in Zimbabwe in the 1980s was basically two-fold: it consisted of the systematic supply of misinformation to the Government, and also of military attacks on the government and on the country's infrastructure. Many ex-members of the Rhodesian army, police and CIO became integrated into the South African armed forces.
Some remained in the country after Independence and actively recruited people for sabotage duties or to act as double agents. Some became trusted Government informers, ideally placed to exacerbate tensions between ZAPU and ZANU-PF by the use of misinformation. ZAPU was blamed for various events, which were in fact often at least partly the work of South African agents. This created an atmosphere in which distrust and dislike between ZANU-PF and ZAPU escalated.
Physical attacks by South Africans in Zimbabwe included the destruction of a huge arsenal at Inkomo Barracks near Harare in August 1981, an attempt to kill Robert Mugabe in December 1981, and the sabotage of the Thornhill Air Base in Gweru in July 1982, which resulted in the destruction of a substantial percentage of Zimbabwe's Air Force aircraft. This last attack was coordinated by ex-members of the Rhodesian Special Air Services working for South Africa, although this was never confirmed. Initially, local white officers (including the Chief of Staff) in the Zimbabwe Air Force were accused of the crime and brutally tortured. They were later acquitted by the High Court of Zimbabwe but were promptly re-detained and only released on condition they immediately left their country.
In addition to these major bombings, there was a steady stream of minor incidents. One of these resulted in the killing of 3 white members of the South African Defence Force in a remote part of Zimbabwe near the eastern border, in August 1981. They were part of a bigger group of 17, and their deaths were incontrovertible evidence of South Africa's forays into Zimbabwe. Of the 3 dead, 2 were former members of the Rhodesian armed forces. They were believed to be on their way to sabotage a railway line from Zimbabwe to Mozambique when they were intercepted and killed.
Major arms caches which were discovered in early 1982, and which caused the final rift between ZANU-PF and ZAPU, were almost certainly engineered by a South African agent, Matt Calloway. Calloway was in fact head of a branch of the Zimbabwean CIO at the time the arms were stockpiled, although he later defected to South Africa. South Africans were also implicated in the timing of the "find", and in the susequent trial of Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku.
The kidnapping of 6 foreign tourists in July 1982 was also blamed on ZAPU and Joshua Nkomo but confessions by ex-Rhodesian CIO members indicated that South African agents kidnapped and killed these tourists, with the direct aim of fuelling antagonisms between ZANU-PF and ZAPU. According to these South African agents, the operation took three weeks to plan and involved 8 ex-members of Rhodesia's notorious Selous Scouts, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. From the time of the tourists' disappearance, the Zimbabwean Government referred to the kidnapping as the work of dissidents.
Operation Drama
Operation Drama was the South African code name for the undercover support of Zimbabwean dissidents. It was carried out under the direction of Col Moeller and Col Jan Breytenbach. Operation Drama's primary role was the formation and funding of "Super ZAPU". This was a small band of dissidents, recruited from refugee camps in Botswana and trained in four camps in the Transvaal. Super ZAPU operated in southern Matabeleland in 1983 and 1984, exacerbating the security situation already in existence. Precise numbers of Super ZAPU and the degree of material support offered by South Africa to Zimbabwean dissidents remain largely conjecture, although it is clear the Zimbabwean operation was far less extensive than those in Angola and Mozambique, which operated concurrently.
