Free Dingo Firestorm by Ian Pringle

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    And so the chants would continue, accompanied by clenched fists for emphasis.
    The peasants in the north-eastern border area were descendants of the old kingdoms of the Monomotapa and Rozwi, and shared the same culture and language. To these people, the border between Rhodesia and Mozambique was of little consequence. FRELIMO were able to cross the border into Rhodesia to obtain supplies and avoid detection by the Portuguese. FRELIMO slowly garnered sympathy for their cause among the peasants in Rhodesia. By the time ZANLA arrived in the area years later, they pushed at an open door.
    Building on FRELIMO’s contacts, many of whom were schoolteachers and sympathetic local chiefs and headmen, ZANLA found a receptive audience for their propaganda. The FRELIMO support enabled the guerrillas to spread their message quickly and effectively across a sizable area of the north-east. Simultaneously, ZANLA was able to bring large quantities of war materials across the border and cache them in Rhodesia.
    ZANLA named this new war zone the Nehanda Sector, after the spirit medium who was a catalyst in the Mashona Uprising, or First Chimurenga, in 1896. The adjacent sectors east of Nehanda were named Chaminuka, after the most famous Shona spirit, and Takawira, after Leopold Takawira, ZANU’s vice-chairman, who died of diabetes in Salisbury Prison in 1970.
    The Rhodesian CIO soon got a whiff of Tongogara’s new strategy. ‘The lull in the war showed signs of being over in the latter half of 1971,’ recalled Ken Flower. ‘Intelligence reports coming from the northeastern districts indicated a guerilla presence in the border regions and fleeting contact was made with columns of porters passing southwards through the Mazarabani and surrounding areas … More and more frequently the words Chaminuka and Nehanda appeared in reports.’
    The risk was perceived to be low, which gave ZANLA the best part of a year to politicise the peasants. Flower recalled: ‘The guerilla presence and activity were not defined clearly enough for the Security Forces to react militarily.’

9
Phase 2: The hit-and-run war begins
    Within a year of the first ZANU commissars beating a path into Rhodesia, ZANU had managed to politicise pockets of peasants across a vast area stretching from Sipolilo in the north-west to Mtoko in the east, a distance of 170 kilometres.
    Making up a large chunk of this area was fertile commercial farmland along the Zambezi escarpment. Here, the Rukowakuona and Mavuradonha mountain ranges rise sharply above the Zambezi Valley, creating ideal conditions for summer rain, essential for growing tobacco and maize. The summer rains also filled the rivers and greened the bush, providing cover for Tongogara’s forces.
    Tongogara told the Dare in November 1972 that it was time to start the war in north-eastern Rhodesia. He chose one of his best commanders to organise the first attack, Soviet-trained Rex Nhongo, who was by now totally converted to the Chinese military way of doing things. Nhongo (real name Solomon Mujuru) slipped into Rhodesia in late November 1972 and blended into the Chiweshe Tribal Trust Land (TTL), ready to strike when the time was right. By that stage, the Chiweshe population had been well politicised by ZANLA, with the blessing of its most senior citizen, Chief Chiweshe.
    The TTL nestled in the centre of the major commercial farming areas of Centenary, Mount Darwin, Bindura and Umvukwes. From this ideal vantage point, Nhongo studied the lay of the land and in particular the commercial farms. Tongogara wanted multiple attacks on farms to take place between Christmas and New Year, when the Rhodesians would be enjoying the holiday and least expect an attack.
    Meanwhile, the Rhodesian SB was gaining ground in the intelligence field. The SB had pieced together information that would confirm the ZANLA presence in the north-eastern border area. Detective Inspector Winston Hart based himself in Bindura, a farming and mining town