The subject of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' role in the war could be the subject of a book in itself, so is beyond the scope of this little work on personal reminiscences. A broad description of some of our functions may be of interest. It will avoid where possible the identification of individuals all of whom were of course only carrying out the duties allocated to them by their superiors.
As the war spread to all parts of the country, a system of "JOCs" (Joint Operations Centres) was set up under the control of the army and accountable to COMOPS (Combined Operations). Each major sector of the battleground had a JOC, the first of which was JOC Hurricane, based originally at Centenary then at Bindura and eventually at Harare. This was responsible for the North East sector, the original "sharp end" where the war really started in 1972. Matabeleland had JOC Tangent and the other JOCs were established at Gweru (Grapple), Mutare (Repulse) and Masvingo (Thrasher). The members of the JOC committees consisted of the Brigadier and his Brigade Major, from the army, the Senior Assistant Commissioner of the BSAP province, the officer in charge of special branch BSAP, the local Air Force representative, a representative from the Ministry of Information's Psychological Action department and the Provincial Commissioner. Sub JOCs were set up at various points like Wankie, Gwanda and Bulawayo in Matabeleland. Their members consisted of district representatives of the same branches of the service and the local District Commissioner was our representative. He had to look after the interest of other District Commissioners contained in the geographical area of the sub JOC. For example, District Commissioner Wankie represented Binga and Lupane, but the District Commissioners there were also ex-officio members of the sub JOC and could attend as equal members.
JOC meetings were held every day of the year. The daily "sitrep" (Situation Report) was read, while the junior officer pointed out the location of each incident on a large scale map. Discussion then followed on the incidents and on any action that was necessary from a combined services point of view. Discussion of military tactics and planning was not held at these meetings but was the subject, for reasons of security and the need to know, of meetings by the armed services concerned.
Possibly the most controversial programme in which District Commissioners were involved was the "Protected Village". It was agreed, based on experience gained in Malaya and other countries where "terrorist" wars had been fought, that the only way to deny the "enemy" access to food, shelter, home comforts and most important, information, was to seal the populace off.
The first protected village (PV) was established in the Centenary district, and thence the project expanded to the Mazoe district where the entire population of the Chiweshe communal area were placed in 23 PVs in a massive operation codenamed Op Overload. Shamva district was then "PVed" and later, after the establishment of the famous Mukumbura in the Zambesi Valley, on the Mozambique border, the Mount Darwin district was done. Plans were made for the whole population of the communal areas and African purchase lands to be placed in PVs but fortunately peace came before this could be implemented.
Briefly, PVs consisted of a security fenced area, with access to reliable water supplies, into which the people from the surrounding areas were moved, together with their possessions and a supply of poles and thatching grass. Each family was given a small stand with the assistance of the kraal heads, who ensured that the families in his charge were allocated stands in the same general area. The dwellings in the old villges were not destroyed but many were burnt when it was found that they were being used by the enemy.
Livestock were brought in and kraaled near the PV. Each day the gates were opened at sunrise and closed at sunset and the people streamed out to tend to their fields, herd their livestock, gather firewood or go visiting. They were searched and their identities recorded on the way out and on their return. No food was allowed to be removed in case it fell into the wrong hands. At night the Chiweshe PVs switched on their outward facing floodlights and patrols were mounted to ensure no fence cutting took place. It was planned to equip all PVs with floodlights in due course but peace came before the programme expanded much beyond Chiweshe.
The disadvantages suffered by the population were many - temporary loss of their old homes which deteriorated due to neglect, lack of living room, poor housing, long distances to walk to their lands and grazing areas, and the rigours of a disciplined and semi-penal existence. Advantages which nobody really appreciated were piped water close at hand, school close at hand, medical facilities available in some cases, and shops and grinding mills within the perimeter of the village.
The PVs were staffed entirely by Internal Affairs white national servicemen and black security assistants who were volunteers. As the war progressed it became obvious that Internal Affairs would need a vast number of men to staff the PVs and the other installations which I shall describe later and so the complex machinery of the paramilitary civilian army of Internal Affairs was set up.
By arrangement with COMOPS a certain number of recruits on call-up were seconded to us. They did their initial training at Chikurubi, which we shared with the Prisons Department and were then allocated to Provincial Commissioners who in turn allocated them to the District Commissioners under their control. A hierarchy of training staff with military experience was seconded to us, and promising national servicemen were promoted to carry on training and administrative duties at each province. A rank structur e was formulated with the equivalent of commissioned and non-commissioned officers.
To avoid confusion with the army, they were called "Vedette Officers". Uniforms were designed, approved, manufactured and distributed, based on khaki clothing and rank flashes. Normal headgear was a khaki floppy hat and NO 1 headgear was a red beret. The Internal Affairs national service symbol was based on the "oliphant" a stylised powder horn.
Regular Internal Affairs staff when on para military duty also wore the same type of uniform and all ranks, right up to the Secretary for Internal Affairs were permitted to wear uniform. As a Provincial Commissioner I never wore uniform as I wished to preserve my civilian image.
District Commissioners and Provincial Commissioners were in charge of hundreds of men and their rank structure and the number of men under them equated to a certain extent with that of the army:
Provincial Commissioner Brigadier
District Commissioner Colonel
Assistant District Commissioner Lt Colonel
Senior District Officer Major
District Officer Captain
Assistant District Officer Lieutenant
Senior Cadet Second Lieutenant
Apart from the protected village, there were some unfenced consolidated villages and numerous protected sub offices.
In each Protected Village and Consolidated Village there was a "keep" or fortified strong point which was the administrative centre and which contained barracks for the district security assistants (DSAs) and living quarters and an office and armoury for the vedettes or cadets in charge. All were equipped with radio communications. Each was supposed to have a vehicle but not all did.
Numerous protected suboffices (PSOs) were established at strategic points within the communal lands. They were similar to the "keep" in the PVs but were designed for the purpose of maintaining administration within the area and the staff carried out regular armed patrols to show the flag and try to maintain some semblence of administration and development.
It was terribly sad for District Commissioners and their staff to see the collapse of services in the communal areas - schools burnt down, clinics abandoned, the dipping tanks destroyed and road work neglected and at least in the area of influence of the PSOs, some attempt could be made to revive these services.
When the Internal Affairs national service unit (Intaf) was set up we were armed with .303 rifles but gradually we were equipped with more modern weapons and towards the end of the war 90% of staff were armed with 7.62 mm self loading rifles. In an attempt to bolster the morale of the men who still had .303s an interesting demonstration was set up from time to time to try to show the firepower of a .303 compared with a 7.62. 200 litre drums were filled with water, placed on blocks and deliberate shots were fired at them with an AK47 captured from the enemy, an FN 7.62 and a .303. The drum did not move when hit with an AK bullet, shivered when hit with an FN bullet and jumped clean off its blocks when the good old .303 bullet struck. Very impressive for our staff and for the populace who gathered to watch.
The keeps were also in time equipped with machine guns, flares and mortars. The deterrent worked well and few were attacked with any degree of enthusiasm and none were overrun.
Our vehicles were mainly mine-proofed Landrovers but there was a fair number of the strange custom built armoured vehicles such as the Leopard, built on a Volkswagen chassis, the Rhino, a converted Landrover, and the Puma, built on an Isuzu 7 tonne chassis. Our staff designed a fair number of black powder cannons of all sorts of shapes and sizes ranging from a four inch monster on wheels to a 1.5 inch vehicle mounted model. All were designed to fire electrically and they were loaded with bits and pieces of scrap metal. The effect was terrifying to the onlooker, although I cannot recall any of the enemy actually being killed or wounded by these fearsome weapons. I am sure they were a most effective deterrent.
In time, all the vehicles were equipped with two way radios and as we were instructed in sensitive areas always to travel in convoy, we felt reasonably secure but unfortunately we suffered casualties mainly from vehicle ambushes and many fine young administrators and national servicemen were killed or wounded. The hardest part of any officer's job is to inform the next of kin of the loss of a loved one and this dreadful task fell on my shoulders twice.
Our Intaf unit was an arm of the armed forces in every way except that we were part of a civilian ministry, but when the time came for disbandment and the armed forces were offered greater monetary rewards in the so called "incentive scheme" to stay, which was in effect an inducement to take early retirement, we were treated just like any other civilian ministry which took no direct part in the was at all. Many and bitter were the recriminations against the Government, but to no avail.
Part of the Intaf war effort was the formation of the Administration Reinforcement Units (ARU) which were stationed one in each province. They were the elite commandos of Intaf, better trained, better armed with adequate transport and radio communications. They were 50 to 60 strong and were sent by the Provincial Commissioner (who had to obtain approval of the Secretary of Internal Affairs who took a special interest in the work of the ARUs) to those districts where it was considered that special attention should be given to the restoration of any particular facet of the administration. Thus they were instrumental in restoring the dipping service in some places, assisting in the collection of dip fees and council rates, the repair of vital portions of road by providing protection and generally showing the flag of government and Intaf. They were successful in contacts with the enemy on a few occasions and were well thought of at JOC meetings.
In recognition of the unique role of the district assistants, a special medal was struck for those who had served over six months in an operational area - the District Service Medal. Government also decreed that the regulars and the national servicemen of Intaf should be recognised together with their service counterparts and we were awarded the General Service Medal.
The new government of Prime Minister Mugabe also agreed that we should be awarded the Independence Medal.
In many ways we were the forgotten and neglected fourth quarter of the armed services (after the army, the airforce and the police) and the public did not realise that our boys too needed their goody bags and comforts like the troopies. However, the wives of Intaf got together and saw to it that they were not neglected. They baked, sewed and knitted, scrounged vast numbers of oranges and other little luxuries and sent regular parcels to all the boys, black and white.
One Christmas day my wife and I together with our four teenage children, set forth in an armoured Leopard and visited all the keeps in the PVs of the Shamva District. At that time, Christmas 1975, the number of guerillas known to be in the operational area was down to its lowest level since the start of the troubles, otherwise I would not have taken the risk. It did the staff morale a lot of good to see that the Provincial Commissioner was thinking of them on Christmas Day and that he had even brought his wife and children (including two attractive daughters!) to see them.
Intaf wives did a wonderful job during the war, not to mention in peacetime. Without their presence on station their husbands' morale would have been considerably lower. In remote stations like Tsholotsho, Lupane and Nkayi which were barricaded armed camps, they had to make their own amusements, care for their children and invariably wait anxiously for their husbands to come home from patrol. They had to learn to use firearms and operate radios. When they came into town for groceries they drove in armed, and risked their lives. Whenever possible we tried to fly them in and out, especially when children came home or returned to boarding school.
Intaf accumalated quite an impressive squadron of aircraft including a beautiful twin engined Cessna 420. The remainder of the aircraft were single engined Cessnas, mainly 172, 182 and 206, accomodating 3 to 5 passengers. The air wing had been started long before the war with one aircraft and the fleet had gradually grown. Initially they were used for flights over the districts so that the District Commissioner and his staff could more efficiently plan development such as roads, dip tanks and especially soil conservation. Members of the tribal land authorites were also taken up to see for themselves the ravages of soil erosion. As the war intensified the aircraft became more and more useful and clocked up many thousands of hours. After the enemy started its use of heat seeking surface to air missiles, the Intaf fleet was painted a dull dark green colour in common with the Viscounts of Air Rhodesia. One of our aircraft was blown up by a mine on an airfield and one was shot down but the pilot, wounded though he was, managed to make a successful forced landing and survived to fly again.
Aircraft were used for conveying staff from their isolated keeps to district headquarters, although we continued to use ground transport for the majority of the journeys. The aircraft were also used for propaganda pamphlet drops and even for reconnaissance purposes from time to time. The ultimate ambition of Secretary for Internal Affairs, Don Yardley, was an aircraft for each district but we never got beyond 13 for the 51 districts. It was Don Yardley who initiated the pilot - training scheme for certain District Commissioners and Provincial Commissioners. I never found out exactly how he chose his trainee pilots but a privileged few received training and managed to get their private pilot's licences. They were then able to fly themselves about their provinces or districts, thus releasing the professional pilots for other purposes. However, the acquisition of hours is very important for young professional pilots seeking to attain their commercial pilot's licences and an official complaint was made that the newly licenced amateur pilots were preventing them from accumulating their hours. Thereafter our amateurs were only permitted to fly if a professional pilot was not available.