to their assembly points, these Scouts teams found that many unarmed ZANLA guerrillas and political commissars had eschewed the assembly points to conduct an aggressive and apparently successful propaganda campaign on the sugar estates and in the rural areas. Intimidation was rife, especially in ZANU-controlled areas.5
Fearing the worst, the moment Rhodesia returned to British rule, many security-force members had started resigning and relocating to South Africa, taking with them not only counter-insurgency expertise but also equipment. Cross writes that the Rhodesian chemical and biological warfare programme ‘almost certainly ceased operations by late 1979 – and the materials and records at both the Bindura and Mount Darwin forts were transferred to South Africa by February-March 1980.’ Among those who went south was Major Neil Kriel. In late 1978, he resigned his commission in the Selous Scouts. ‘I then worked with the Special Branch, still continuing with the war in Rhodesia and then in 1979 I came down to South Africa,’ he recalled decades later.6
After 15 years of bitter war that had seen civilian casualties top 6 000, security-force casualties of nearly half of that, and insurgent casualties just behind that in 1978 alone,7 the hawks in the Rhodesian establishment had a secret back-up plan: Operation Quartz. According to Parker, this was not a planned coup d’état, as it has been characterised by some, but rather a contingency to militarily eradicate Mugabe’s ZANLA at their assembly points once they lost the elections, as most of the authorities expected. Joshua Nkomo’s smaller ZIPRA would not be targeted, as his ZAPU could be expected to form a coalition with other parties to form a government in which its radical influence would be diluted.
Operation Quartz would have involved a combined Rhodesian-South African assault: after a softening up of the targets by the Rhodesian and South African Air Forces, the Rhodesian Light Infantry and Selous Scouts as well as South African Recces and Parachute Battalion soldiers would attack ZANLA assembly points. The Rhodesian SAS and elements of the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment, with eight ex-Soviet T-55 tanks at its disposal, were tasked with assassinating Mugabe, his deputy, and the top ZANU leadership – and with destroying its political and military headquarters.
Special Branch’s Detective Inspector Johnny de Gray Birch, formerly a major in the SAS, drew up the attack dossiers with his old SAS colleagues based on SAS and SB intelligence (both units had been unconfined and allowed to patrol the country to maintain the peace). Parker writes that Quartz was ready to go: the SAS and Police Support Unit had secretly placed homing beacons near the assembly-point targets for the bombers and jets, the South African Air Force (SAAF) planes being on standby at the Pietersburg Air Force Base and the SADF’s 1 Parachute Battalion on the ready line at a forward base just south of the border. The South African part of Operation Quartz’s contingency plans were under the umbrella of Operation Concept, the largest SADF battle group joint operation mounted to that date, and its medical component was headed by rising star Major Wouter Basson. In his judgment in the Basson trial, Judge Willie Hartzenberg determined: ‘From the cross-examination is it clear that … at the beginning of 1980, he [Basson] was put in command of the medical component of Operation Concept, which had to look after the consequences of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe elections.’8
But at 9:00 am on 4 March 1980, the election results were announced: Mugabe’s ZANU had won by a landslide, with 63% of the vote. Nkomo’s ZAPU had received 24% and Muzorewa’s UANC just over 8%. The Selous Scouts and other battle-worn soldiers listened to the announcement in shocked silence while the guerrillas cheered. The code name ‘Quartz’ never came over the radio. Rhodesia was dead, and Zimbabwe had been born.
Hard-line Rhodesians, many with sought-after specialist military skills, packed their bags, though Armstrong claimed that ‘the majority of our troops, although nervous about their future, wished to remain in the unit under the new government’.9 At a ‘most cordial’ meeting with Mugabe, the new president assured his former enemy that there would be no settling of wartime scores with the Scouts.
The South African Special Forces stepped in and offered Armstrong the command of a new Reconnaissance Commando, to be stationed on the farm Schiettocht just outside Phalaborwa near the Kruger National Park. Armstrong visited the massive new base under construction, which would later include a 240-house satellite town, Hebron, complete with its own school, clinic, shopping mall, recreation centre, church (the multi-denominational United Church of the Conqueror),10 and cemetery. In the end, Armstrong decided rather to end his military career and take early retirement. But during April 1980, ‘I met with the officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] of the [Scouts] unit, many of whom intended taking up the South African offer, and subsequently called a unit parade [at which] I reminded the troops of the South African Special Forces offer, including a caveat that [black] African soldiers who chose to go to South Africa might not be able to return [home] later … This resulted in only a small number of African troops opting to go to South Africa.’11
The Scouts itself would shortly cease to exist – at least in name and intent. Incriminating documents and records were shredded and many members either vanished (some with their weapons still in hand)12 or left for South Africa before the Scouts became 4 Battalion (Holding Unit) of the RAR, the foundation of the future Zimbabwe National Army’s Parachute Battalion.
Selous Scouts Adjutant Captain Ian Scott recalled: ‘Following the elections, members of the South African Army visited André Rabie Barracks with a view to recruiting selected members of the Selous Scouts. The South African Recces were very interested in the unit’s methodology, the many years of experience in counter-guerrilla warfare, and the quality of their soldiers.’13 It was widely known that the Special Forces had a standing offer – communicated by General Loots in 1978 – that they would absorb and employ Rhodesian pseudo-operators and paratroopers should Rhodesia collapse. Curiously, according to Peter Stiff, neither prime ministers Ian Smith nor PW Botha were informed of this offer, which originally had been made exclusively to the SAS and Scouts. It was later widened to embrace specialists from the BSAP Special Branch and other units.
‘A fair number were recruited and made plans to move out of Rhodesia,’ said Scott, who later served as an operator in 5 Recce. ‘Just prior to independence, big Cecil “Vise Grips” van den Bergh14 led a convoy of 20-ton trucks through Beit Bridge [the border with South Africa]. No questions were asked at the border. At the final destination, a Special Forces base in Phalaborwa, they unloaded tons of captured ZANLA weaponry …’
This haul would come in useful in the Recce’s future pseudo-operations. Armstrong recalls that ‘the majority of Selous Scouts remained in the rebadged unit. The Training Officer, Major Geoff Atkinson, with Captain Ian Scott, the Adjutant, co-ordinated the move to South Africa of those European soldiers who joined the South African Special Forces.’
Stiff writes: ‘Many black operators, both black detectives and turned guerrillas, agreed to leave, although some changed their minds later. Most of the policemen and some of the ex-soldiers were married, while the ex-guerrillas were single. The transportation of wives and families to South Africa was arranged.’15 But Stiff notes that, when it came down to business, only 28 black Selous Scouts pseudo-operators and some support personnel made the move south under Operation Winter. The chief recruiter for the SADF was former SAS paratrooper Major Mike Curtin.
‘Not a single former guerrilla’ made the trip south – remarkable in view of the gruesome reprisals meted out to these men when they were captured by the enemy. Trooper Moses Morrison Nyati, turned guerrilla and Scouts guide on the 1976 Nyadzonya raid, had been ‘gruesomely flayed alive’ by ZANU. More than ten black Scouts were likewise abducted and surreptitiously murdered; others curiously rose in the ranks of the new Zimbabwe National Defence Force. Scott notes that ‘Boet Swart facilitated an airlift of the volunteer African soldiers and their families to South Africa’.
The TRC estimated that about 5 000 Rhodesian military personnel were recruited into the SADF during this period. ‘Apart from skilled counterinsurgency specialists, other security personnel who joined this southern exodus at independence
