armies of africa?: the british military advisory and training team and the creation of the zimbabwe

365 Pages·2014·2.15 MB·English

by  Blake Whitaker

THE ‘NEW MODEL’ ARMIES OF AFRICA?: THE BRITISH MILITARY
ADVISORY AND TRAINING TEAM AND THE CREATION OF THE ZIMBABWE
NATIONAL ARMY

A Dissertation
by
BLAKE HUMPHREY WHITAKER

Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Chair of Committee, R.J.Q Adams
Committee Members, Arnold Krammer
Larry Yarak
D. Bruce Dickson
Head of Department, David Vaught

May 2014
Major Subject: History
Copyright 2014 Blake Humphrey Whitaker
ABSTRACT

The British Army provided military assistance missions for friendly nations
throughout the 20th century. The majority deployed to Africa during the decolonization
process. By 1980 London had thirty-five years of institutional knowledge on how to
train armies in newly independent nations. Most notably in Kenya and Zambia, where
the transition to independence was fraught with racial and economic difficulties. In
1979, after the conclusion of the Lancaster House Conference the British government
was called upon to provide newly independent Zimbabwe with military training
assistance. The British Military Advisory and Training Team helped combine three
former belligerent armies into the Zimbabwe National Army.
London intended to create a military force that reflected Britain’s own army and
maintained a distance from domestic politics while serving as a bastion for Western
military values and interests. While the British had both Kenya and Zambia to draw from
as models, policymakers in London overestimated the cache of British power in a
changing world. Rather than facilitating an effective transition to representative
government in Zimbabwe, the British enabled the creation of a one-party state under
Robert Mugabe. The fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence as to the expectations of developing
nations and military assistance handicapped British policy goals in Southern Africa for
the next two decades.
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DEDICATION

This project is dedicated to those who provided so much support throughout the
process; my family and friends, but mostly my beautiful wife Danielle.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. RJQ Adams for his guidance and
patience during this process. His sound advice has helped bring this project from being a
simple tentative idea to a completed research project, and I cannot thank him enough. I
would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Krammer, Dr. Yarak, and Dr.
Dickson for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research.
Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues in the Department of History at
Texas A&M for their support and advice during my tenure here. I also want to extend
my gratitude to the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the
Texas A&M University Department of History for providing travel and research funds
which made my archival trips possible. I also must thank Jeff Crane for his constant
encouragement since I was a Master’s student at Sam Houston State University. His
insistance that I could be a successful historian has helped lead me to where I am today.
Finally, thanks to my mother, Terry Humphrey and my father, the late Neal
Whitaker, for their encouragement and love.
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NOMENCLATURE

2IC Second In Command
AFZ Air Force of Zimbabwe
ANC African National Congress
BSAP British South Africa Police
CAF Central African Federation
CIO Central Intelligence Organization
CMF Commonwealth Monitoring Force
FRELIMO (Frente de Libertaçao de Moçambique) Liberation Front of
Mozambique
EAC East Africa Command
GOC General Officer Commanding
KAR King’s African Rifles
NRR Northern Rhodesia Regiment
OAU Organization of African Unity
OC Officer Commanding
PATU Police Anti-Terrorist Unit
PSU Police Support Unit
RAF Royal Air Force
RAR Rhodesian African Rifles
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RENAMO (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) Mozambican National
Resistance
RhAF Rhodesian Air Force
RLI Rhodesian Light Infantry
RNR Rhodesia Native Regiment
RSF Rhodesian Security Forces
RSM Regimental Sergeant Major
RR Rhodesia Regiment
SADF South African Defence Force
SAP South African Police
SAS Special Air Serivce
TTL Tribal Trust Land
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence
ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army
ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union
ZAPU Zimbabwe African People’s Union
ZIPA Zimbabwe People’s Army
ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army
ZRP Zimbabwe Republic Police
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………….. ii
DEDICATION …………………………………………………………………….. iii
ACKNOWLEDEMENTS …………………………………………………………. iv
NOMENCLATURE ……………………………………………………………….. v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………….. vii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………… 1
Historiography ………………………………………………………. 4
Kenya ………………………………………………………………... 13
Zambia ………………………………………………………………. 16
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe ………………………………………………… 24
CHAPTER II FROM ASKARIS TO GENERALS: TRANSFORMING THE
KING’S AFRICAN RIFLES INTO THE KENYA ARM…………………………. 33

Origins of the Kenyan Military Establishment ……………………… 33
Post-1945 Colonial Military and the rise of Mau Mau ……………… 42
Africanization and the foundation of the Kenyan Army ……………. 52
“National consciousness is a political fact” …………………………. 59
The Kenya Army from the KAR …………………………………….. 70
The army is tested: The East African Mutinies ……………………… 77
Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 88
CHAPTER III NORTHERN RHODESIA BECOMES ZAMBIA: CREATING A
DEFENCE FORCE OUT OF SCRAPS …………………………………………… 92

The Federal Period …………………………………………………… 95
The end of the Federation …………………………………………..... 103
Dividing the assets ………………………………………………….... 107
Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 146
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CHAPTER IV THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE ZIMBABWE NATIONAL
ARMY: THE RHODESIAN ARMY AND THE LIBERATION FORCES ……….. 150

Rhodesian Security Forces …………………………………………….. 151
Tactical success, strategic failure ……………………………………… 176
Volunteers from abroad ……………………………………………….. 181
The end is near …………………………………………………………. 188
The expansion and decline of the security forces ……………………… 195
The liberation armies …………………………………………………… 201
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 210
CHAPTER V HOW DO YOU CREATE AN ARMY?: BRITISH PLANNING
FOR THE END OF THE ZIMBABWE CONFLICT ………………………………. 212

Planning for a new army ……………………………………………….. 214
Negotiating an army .…………………………………………………... 222
Introducing the Commonwealth Monitoring Force …………………… 229
Training a new force …………………………………………………… 234
Crisis of command ……………………………………………………... 243
Playing the game ……………………………………………………….. 250
A plan takes shape …………………………………………………….... 254
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 265
CHAPTER VI THE RISE OF ZANLA DOMINANCE IN THE ZNA AND THE
BIRTH OF 5th BRIGADE …………………………………………………………… 268

Planning for 1981 ………………………………………………………. 269
Chaos in Bulawayo ……………………………………………………... 275
Too many actors on the stage …………………………………………... 284
5th Brigade takes shape …………………………………………………. 301
BMATT moves into a new phase ………………………………………. 308
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 321
CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION: MILITARY ASSISTANCE AS A DIPLOMATIC
WEAPON ……………………………………………………………………………. 325

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………. 342

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

An independent Zimbabwe first appeared on the world’s stage fifteen long years
after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Rhodesian Front in 1965. Robert
Gabriel Mugabe’s new government held great promise for the future. After all, Mugabe
was a highly educated man, holding no fewer than four Bachelors and two Masters
degrees. The Commonwealth Monitoring Force (OP AGILA) supervised the elections
and deemed them free and fair. After the conclusion of Operation AGILA, a British
military training team tasked with creating the new Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA)
deployed to Zimbabwe.
By February of 1981, elements of the newly created army mutinied against the
government and were defeated at the Battle of Bulawayo by what had formerly been the
Rhodesian Army’s 1st Battalion, Rhodesian African Rifles.1 Only a few months later
Mugabe’s regime began training a new brigade of the Zimbabwean military. Unlike
other units of the ZNA, it operated outside of the normal chain of command and reported
directly to Mugabe. The unit, trained by the North Korean Army, had the express
purpose of suppressing political opposition to the Shona-dominated Zimbabwe African
National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government. This notorious unit, simply
called the Fifth Brigade, was deployed to the ethnic minority homeland of Matabeland in

1 Luise White, “‘Whoever Saw a Country with Four Armies?’: The Battle of Bulawayo Revisited,”
Journal of Southern African Studies 33 (September 2007), 619-631.
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January of 1983 to stamp out political opposition.2 What followed, Robert Mugabe
called the Gukurahundi, “the early rain that washes away the chaff before the spring
rain.” The Fifth Brigade and other elements of the ZNA killed, raped, and burned their
way through Matabeland until 1988. In the process, they killed at least 10,000 civilians
and secured a one-party state for Robert Mugabe and ZANU.3
The use of military power in an African state to secure control is not, in itself,
unusual. In this case not only was the British government actively involved in training
the ZNA, but they were attempting to create a professional, Western-style army that
remained aloof from domestic politics. The reliance of the Mugabe regime on the
military to maintain power demonstrates that this mission ended in failure. The British
government’s involvement in Africa after the end of colonialism has often been defined
by the presence of military training teams or military advisors. Additionally, it was often
teams of military trainers that were sent to assist newly independent nations during their
first few years of self-government.
The military involvement of British forces in Africa since 1945 has taken a
number of forms. In some places it was rather innocuous, as in the 1960 Defense
Agreement with Nigeria which allowed Britain over-flights as well as the staging of port
rights in the country.4 In other areas it was a much more pronounced presence, such as

2 Daniel Compagnon, A Predictable Tragety: Robert Mugabe and the Collapse of Zimbabwe
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 24-25. Up to this point in Zimbabwe, the Shona
composed roughly 80% of the African population while the Ndebele speakers composed about 20%.
3 Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: A History of
50 Years of Independence (New York: Public Affairs , 2005), 622-624.
4 Ashley Jackson, “British-African Defence and Security Concerns,” Defence Studies 6 (September 2006),
351-376.
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