# Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia

> In the 1960s, Rhodesian forces met insurgents crossing the empty Zambezi valley with “track and kill” operations. By 1972 the insurgents had learned to live among local people, and a commander complained: “No tracks … no information.” The opening chapter of this military history shows how the war changed once both the tracks and the local information dried up.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1985-cilliers-counter-insurgency-rhodesia/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** J.K. Cilliers
- **Year published:** 1985
- **Journal or source:** Book (Croom Helm, London, Sydney and Dover, New Hampshire). Excerpt: front matter, Introduction and Chapter 1 (pages 1 to 21)
- **Full citation:** Cilliers, J.K. 1985. Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia. Croom Helm, London. ISBN 0-7099-3412-2. Excerpt: front matter, Introduction and Chapter 1, A brief history of the war for Zimbabwe, pp. 1–21.
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://www.routledge.com/Counter-Insurgency-in-Rhodesia-RLE-Terrorism-and-Insurgency/Cilliers/p/book/9781138887909

## Tags

- **Region:** Africa > Zimbabwe
- **Tracking:** Tracking; Trailing
- **Methods and technology:** Interviews; Literature review
- **Data type:** Existing data
- **Observer qualification:** Not reported
- **Discipline:** Human tracking; Social science
- **Year published:** 1985

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: humans (insurgents of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army, and the Rhodesian Security Forces). Animals mentioned only in a 1978 curfew poster: cattle, yoked oxen, goats, sheep and dogs (all dogs were to be tied up day and night “or they will be shot”). No scientific names given.
- **Location and habitat:** Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), with neighbouring Mozambique (Tete province), Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania and South Africa. The Zambezi River valley (sparsely populated, the main infiltration route of the 1960s); the north-east (Centenary, Sipolilo, Mutoko, Chiweshe and Madziwa Tribal Trust Lands) with the rugged Mavuradonha mountains and dense vegetation that hindered observation in the summer rainy season (November to March); the border minefield from the Musengedzi to the Mazoe river.
- **Topics:** history of the war for Zimbabwe; counter-insurgency strategy; “track and kill” operations; tracking and eliminating insurgents in depopulated “no-go” areas; loss of intelligence and of tracks when insurgents hid among local people; Operation Hurricane; cordon sanitaire and border minefield obstacles; protected and consolidated villages; curfews and collective punishment; pseudo-insurgent units (the Selous Scouts name, given to such a unit in 1973); local support for insurgents; politicisation of the rural population. Internal inconsistencies: the text says the Tribal Trust Lands lasted “until independence in 1981”, but the Introduction gives independence as 18 April 1980; Chapter 1 refers readers to Chapter 4 for the Army’s view of protected villages and to Chapter 5 for border minefields, while the contents list protected villages as Chapter 3 and border minefields as Chapter 4; the resettlement of people from Madziwa Tribal Trust Land is placed “in the Beit bridge area”.
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Existing data: historical analysis based on a 1981 Master’s dissertation in Strategic Studies (University of South Africa), the Africa Research Bulletin, Herald newspaper subject files in Harare, classified documents from former Security Force members, and in-depth interviews in South Africa and Zimbabwe (dates not given). Covers 1890 to 1979, with emphasis on 1972 to 1979. Only the front matter, Introduction and the first 21 pages of Chapter 1 are in this file.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

This book is a history and analysis of the strategy the Rhodesian Security Forces used against the insurgent armies during the war that ended with Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. It grew out of the author’s 1981 Master’s dissertation in Strategic Studies at the University of South Africa. He drew on the Africa Research Bulletin, newspaper files, classified documents from former Security Force members, and many in-depth interviews in South Africa and Zimbabwe, which he used to cross-check details of operations and methods.

The file here holds only the opening of the book: the contents, list of abbreviations, Introduction and the first 21 pages of Chapter 1, a brief history of the war. The full book goes on to chapters on command and control, protected villages, border minefields, pseudo operations and the Selous Scouts, psychological operations, external raids, auxiliary forces and intelligence.

### 2. What they found

The early years (1960s)

- The first insurgent incursions came from Zambia across the sparsely populated Zambezi River valley, in fairly large groups that the Security Forces found easily. The counter-measures were “largely track and kill type operations”.

- In 1967 a force of 90 insurgents entered near Victoria Falls; 47 were killed within three weeks and more than 20 captured.

- Early in 1968 a group of 123 stayed undetected for three months and set up six base camps about 30 km apart, until a game ranger reported them.

A new kind of war (from 1972)

- The Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) entered the north-east through Mozambique’s Tete province. Rugged mountains and dense vegetation, especially in the rainy season, hindered observation.

- ZANLA first won the support of local people. Within weeks, information from the population dried up. A Security Force commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Reid-Daly, wrote that the insurgents no longer hid in remote bush camps where they “could eventually be tracked down”, nor in villages where local people would report them: “This time there was nothing. No tracks … no information.”

Operation Hurricane

- The plan was to channel insurgents into areas cleared of people (“no-go” areas), where the Security Forces “could easily track and eliminate” them before they reached populated areas.

- Rural people were moved into protected villages under strict curfews, to cut their link with the insurgents. Some 750,000 people were eventually resettled in more than 200 protected villages. In one 1974 operation, all 46,960 people of Chiweshe Tribal Trust Land were moved into 21 protected villages within six weeks.

- A 1978 poster set curfews for people and for cattle, oxen, goats and sheep, and ordered all dogs tied up day and night.

- A border minefield, begun in 1974, was meant to stop all cross-border movement, but lack of people and money meant it could not be watched, patrolled or even maintained.

- Between December 1972 and late 1974, 468 insurgents and 48 Security Force members were killed.

### 3. What they concluded

- The Rhodesian authorities were lulled into a false sense of security by their success in the 1960s, and believed military action alone would defeat the insurgency.

- Once the insurgents won local support, the government’s harsh and punitive measures (collective punishment, curfews, forced resettlement) were likely to turn rural people against it. The protected village scheme was inconsistently carried out and eventually failed.

- The border minefields showed the lack of a coherent national strategy.

- The author’s overall verdict on the war is given in the book’s later chapters, which are not in this file.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

The excerpt does not describe tracking methods. It mentions tracking as a military tool: the “track and kill” operations of the 1960s, the plan to track and eliminate insurgents in depopulated areas, and the commander’s remark that insurgents hiding among local people left “no tracks”. Chapter 5 of the full book (not in this file) covers pseudo operations and the Selous Scouts.

### 5. Tracker or observer certification

Not reported. The excerpt does not say who did the tracking.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- The contrast between the 1960s and 1972 shows how much trailing depends on terrain and on the people being followed: tracks were easy to follow in empty country, but lost their value once people moved among villages where their tracks mixed with everyone else’s.

- The “no-go” areas were in effect an attempt to create clean ground, where any fresh human tracks could be followed.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia (Cilliers, 1985). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1985-cilliers-counter-insurgency-rhodesia/