International Rhodesian planes hit inside Zambia again as poll draws near

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 8

International Rhodesian planes hit inside Zambia again as poll draws near

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury Rhodesian aircraft have raided guerrilla targets in Zambia for the fourth time in a week as part of fierce 1 ground-and-air assaults claimed to be aimed at protecting the General Election this week in Rhodesia.

Military headquarters in Salisbury announced the raid shortly after the military commander, LieutenantGeneral Peter Walls, said Rhodesia was on the offensive against guerrillas pledged to disrupt the election. The poll will give Rhodesia its first black-majority Government.

He told a press conference: “You can’t sit back and allow people to punch you. The best form of [defence is attack — some of [ our people are on hunting-land-killing operations.”

The General confirmed that his troops had penetrated the Botswana city of Francistown and kidnapped people belonging to the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance. Botswana announced that black troops dressed in Botswana Defence Force uniforms had captured 14 persons in a house occupied by members of Mr Joshua Nkomo’s guerrilla movement on Friday.

Rhodesian commandos raided Lusaka, the Zambian capital, on Friday and destroyed Mr Nkomo’s home.

The air raid on Saturday was against a Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Armybase at Mulungushi, about 160 km north of Lusaka. It had been bombed earlier last week.

During the raids last week, claimed to have been made to pre-empt guerrilla attacks to sabotage the election, the Rhodesian forces sank a ferry linking Zambia with Botswana across the Zambezi River, alleging that the craft was used to carry guerrilla supplies. General Walls said the i commando raid into Lusaka

on Friday had not been aimed at assassinating Mr Nkomo. “Our record shows that if we wanted to kill Mr Nkomo, we would have done so,” he said. “We were striking at the command and control organisation and logistics, there was no question of us striking at Nkomo,” he said. Rhodesia is putting about 100,000 black and white, regular and irregular forces into the field to protect the five days of polling, starting tomorrow. About 2.8 M blacks are franchised to vote for black I members of the country’s ; first black-dominated Parliament. The 28 white seats in the 100-seat Assembly have already been secured by Mr lan Smith’s Rhodesian Front | party. ! Rhodesian forces had killed 90 black nationalist i guerrillas in the previous 48 |hours, military headquarters ( announced in Salisbury yesterday. 1 Two Government soldiers,

five black civilians, and one guerrilla collaborator had also died in the same period, a communique said. It was one of the highest I guerrilla death tolls in a two-day period inside Rhodesia in the six-year waf. A spokesman said the guerrillas had been killed in small groups in scattered incidents in various war zones.

More than 12.000 guerrillas are believed to have’ infiltrated Rhodesia for the! Patriotic Front alliance, which has pledged to disrupt; the election. Security forces claim to (have killed almost 1200; ; guerrillas inside Rhodesia 1 I this year for the loss of 130 men. • International observers ar- ;[ riving in Salisbury to moni- - tor the General Election » have found the city on a war footing and white resi- ; I dents jubilant over the com- . mando assault in Lusaka. > The Rhodesian Govern- . ment is expecting to accommodate up to 60 observers, t many of them representing political parties or private s organisations. »| They include representa- , Itives of the British Con- ’ (servative Party, Americans, 2 |and West Europeans. H The streets of Salisbury ; | have changed their charac- . ter overnight since the i mobilisation of almost all ; able-bodied men up to the f age of 59 to protect polling, t “Welcome to Sin City,” a woman said ironically to her 1 female visitor at Salisbury t Airport. “There’s not a man 1 in sight.” > At night men on urban patrols many of them in their fifties, guard the empty , streets.