Is Zimbabwe Violence a British Operation?
by Douglas DeGroot
African military intelligence sources have told EIR that the brutality and professional, execution-style nature of the killings and violence during the period leading up to the June 27 Presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe were obviously not the actions of misguided youth, but reminded him of the British-style special-forces counterinsurgency operations that were used against the freedom fighters in Zimbabwe before independence, which were carried out by the Rhodesian Selous Scouts. Reports indicate that the gruesome violence, unprecedented since independence (in 1980), that the London-based Anglo-Dutch financial cartel-dominated international press is using to work world opinion into a frenzy against Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, is controlled top-down as a high-level British-run counterinsurgency operation.
Those concerned about Zimbabwe should stop googling for stories that blame everything on the government, and look at reality instead. The London-centered financial cartel is intent on eliminating the sovereignty of Zimbabwe, and South Africa, to clear the way to turn Africa into a globalized free-trade looting zone. South African President Thabo Mbeki's understanding of this strategic reality has helped Zimbabwe stave off the ferocious British attack, up to now.
The Selous Scouts special forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army, the most vicious of the Rhodesian special forces groups, was a more advanced form of what the British had deployed in Kenya, and Malaya (today Malaysia) before that, in the respective struggles of those countries for independence from the British Empire. The Scouts regiment, named after Frederick Courtney Selous, a friend of the southern African champion of the British Empire, Cecil Rhodes, was set up in 1973 by a Rhodesian, Ronald Reid-Daly, who was a veteran of the British SAS counterinsurgency in Malaya. The charter of the Selous Scouts directed the clandestine elimination of freedom fighters inside and outside the country, according to the June 2 Zimbabwe Guardian.
The British-controlled operatives are singling out members of the British-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for brutal attacks, including the mutilation of bodies, and then blaming the attacks on the ruling Zanu-PF party of President Robert Mugabe.
How the Operation Works
According to the Zimbabwe Sunday Times June 1, top opposition MDC officials have been "working in cahoots with some Rhodesian elements to set up underground structures that are behind the anti-immigrant attacks in South Africa and the terror campaign in Zimbabwe." The Times reports that, "Although the MDC has been claiming that its supporters have fallen victim to political violence, top party officials are allegedly recruiting young Zimbabweans in South Africa who are being deployed to cause terror in Zimbabwe." The Times said that people are being recruited from universities in South Africa, and others are Zimbabwe National Army deserters and former policemen.
Zimbabwean sources report that the modus operandi for these forces, in Zimbabwe, is to have their operatives dress up in the regalia of the ruling Zanu-PF, and go out to commit an atrocity. They then alert the press that an atrocity has taken place. The press arrives on the scene, hearing witnesses saying that the attack was carried out by Zanu people.
The Times reports that one group of recruits is known to be based at a farm in South Africa near Pietermaritzburg, where youths are being trained by former Rhodesian Selous Scouts.
Selous Scouts and Rhodesian forces, according to the Guardian, are said to have introduced the form of attack called necklacing (tying up a person, and killing him by burning a tire placed around his neck) into South Africa. Following the dissolution of Ian Smith's Rhodesian regime at the time of independence, the Guardian reports, many of its soldiers travelled south "to join the South African Defence Force, especially the 5 Reconnaissance Commando."
MDC Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was, in the 2005 election, the candidate of choice for Smith, Rhodesia's last leader as a British colony, under whom the Scouts carried out their murderous campaign. Tsvangirai is still backed today by veterans of Smith's Rhodesian Front, such as Roy Bennett, who has become his chief fundraiser. Bennett has crisscrossed British Commonwealth countries to raise funds, and was also in the United States a few months ago.
On June 23, at a UN Security Council meeting at which Britain wanted the UNSC to name Tsvangirai as President, because, ostensibly, violence by the government made a fair vote impossible, Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the UN, Amb. Boniface Chidyausiku, neutralized the British initiative, when he told the Security Council meeting "that there have been numerous cases of MDC-T (Tsvangirai's faction of the MDC) supporters going around dressed in Zanu-PF regalia and beating up people."
"This is an outdated strategy used by the Selous Scouts during the liberation struggle," Chidyausiku said, "and with the predominance of Selous Scouts in the MDC-T, it is obvious what is going on." As a result of the submissions by Chidyausiku and the South African ambassador, the Security Council decided not to call for halting the run-off, and not to call for installing the British-backed Tsvangirai to replace Mugabe, without a run-off.
