Tendai Ruben Mbofana
That is why personally I have always harbored huge disdain and aversion to any kind of military conflict.
I honestly do not believe there can ever be any justification for the killing of other human being or the destruction of property – simply because a certain group is convinced they need to fight for a particular cause.
Nonetheless, the entire history of humankind has been shaped and molded on wars – which have been the basis of most nations that have either existed or still exist today.
It has all been about ‘survival of the fittest’ or rather ‘conquering of the mightiest’ in how the world’s as we know it today has been founded.
And, indeed, the victors have always sought to glorify their conquests in the most glamorous ways – as a sign of their brilliance, mastery, and superiority.
Where there have been defeats of any kind, these have been packaged either as unfair or a result of acts of cruelty and barbarism on the part of the opposite side.
In fact, that is why after the gruesome and heinous Second World War (1939 to 1945), the global community decided to formulate the Geneva Convention (in 1949), in the hope of coming up with so -called ‘international humanitarian laws’.
These were four treaties and three additional protocols that established international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war.
The ‘Geneva Conventions’ extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians, and military personnel; establish protections for the wounded and sick; and provide protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.
They also define the rights and protections afforded to non-combatants who fulfill the criteria of being protected persons.
The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries.
In so doing, there are clearly defined international guidelines on what is or is not a legitimate military target in times of war.
This is meant to protect civilians wherever there is a military conflict.
With this in mind, this brings us to the issue of the so-called ‘Chimoio massacres’, which were carried out on camps in Mozambique by Rhodesian forces on 23rd November 1977 at the height of our liberation struggle.
As the country commemorates the 46th anniversary of this brutal and merciless attack, the Zimbabwe government propaganda machinery has been all-out painting the entire incident as some sort of egregious ‘war crime’.
I need to reiterate what I have already stated at the onset: as far as I am concerned, military conflict of any kind, for whatever cause, is unjustified due to its savagery and cruelty.
However, when it does occur, we need to be truthful with each other and cease from spreading disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation as to what actually transpired.
As such, was the ‘Chimoio attack’ really a war crime – regardless of its gruesome and harrowing nature?
Of course, no one can ever treat the killing of an estimated 1,200 people – no matter who they were – lightly or seek to trivialize this brutal act.
Nevertheless, deliberately lying about it is counter-intuitive and counter-productive.
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians, amongst a whose host of other things.
In other words, this would be the willful violation of the Geneva Convention, to which I made reference earlier.
This begs the question: was the Chimoio attack in violation of intentional law?
To understand this, let us first give some context and background to what the Chimoio camp was all about.
Chimoio was a large ZANLA encampment and training facility in Mozambique, which was a launch-pad for armed liberation fighters infiltrating into Rhodesia.
It was located at New Farm, known locally as Adriano’s Farm.
New Farm was a farm acquired by Mozambique’s Frelimo Government in 1975 from its Portuguese owner, known as ‘Adriano’.
It was then leased to ZANU/ZANLA, who made it their forward, or main, operating headquarters for war against Rhodesia.
New Farm was a political and military hub rolled into one and would have included some family members of the camp’s military and political occupants.
As such, on 23rd November 1977, Rhodesian forces launched an attack (codenamed ‘Operation Dingo’) on the camp.
They used hawker Hunters, six Vampire ground attack aircraft, three Canberra bombers, six Dakota troop-carrying aircraft, 12 Lynx ground attack light aircraft, and 185 ground troops parachuted and landed within vicinity.
In the process, an estimated 1,200 guerilla fighters and some civilians perished – although the real figure is still disputed.
Be that as it may, as most tragic and brutal this bloody incident was, the question is: was this a war crime?
In other words, was Chimoio a legitimate military target?
To understand this, we need to go back to the earlier reference to the Geneva Convention.
Let us be brutally honest, regardless how horrific and ruthless a military conflict may be, there are still rules of engagement or international laws that govern what is or is not acceptable.
A legitimate military target is an object, structure, individual, or entity that is considered to be a valid target for attack by belligerent forces according to the law of war during an armed conflict.
Article 52 states, “In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
Any attack must be justified by military necessity: an attack or action must be intended to help in the military defeat of the enemy, it must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to protected civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not ‘excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated’.
Therefore, some targets are clearly legitimate, including all military personnel directly engaging in hostilities on behalf of a belligerent party who are not ‘hors de combat’ or are not members of a neutral country.
Some civilian infrastructure, such as rail tracks, roads, ports, airports, and telecommunications used by the military for communications or transporting assets, are all considered to be legitimate military targets.
The same applies for military encampments and training facilities – such as Chimoio camp, which ZANLA used as its forward, or main, operating headquarters for war against Rhodesia.
It then becomes rather disingenuous and clearly a brazen distortion of our country’s history when there are those (particularly in the ruling ZANU PF regime) trying to paint this attack as a cold-blooded war crime.
There was absolutely nothing that violated international laws of war, which was committed by the Rhodesians.
As a matter of fact, the downing of a civilian Vickers Viscount Air Rhodesia Flight 825 plane – which had absolutely no military significance – by ZIPRA combatants on 3rd September 1978 was an indisputable war crime.
In this regrettable incident, ZIPRA forces hit the plane’s starboard wing with a Soviet-made Strela-2 surface-to-air infrared homing missile, critically damaging the aircraft and forcing an emergency landing.
An attempted belly landing in a cotton field just west of Karoi was foiled by a ditch, which caused the plane to cartwheel and break up.
Of the 52 passengers and four crew, 38 died in the crash – whereby ZIPRA combatants then approached the wreckage, rounded up the 10 survivors they could see, and massacred them with automatic gunfire.
In February 1979, ZIPRA shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 827, another civilian flight, in an almost identical incident.
We can go further to the post-independence period, where the ZANU PF regime massacred in cold-blood over 20,000 innocent unarmed non-combatant civilians in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces between 1982 and 1987.
As much as the Zimbabwe government was ostensibly fighting an insurgency in the area during that time, the vast majority of those targeted had absolutely nothing to do with the so-called ‘dissidents’.
Now, those were instances of war crimes!
Is the ZANU PF administration going to acknowledge these blatant violations of international law?
In fact, what transpired in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces were more than just war crimes – but genocide, which is another crime under international law.
The Genocide Convention is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and was the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948.
The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 152 state parties as of 2022.
If there is anyone who needs to be held accountable and brought to book for committing horrendous crimes, then the Zimbabwe government should be the first.
Whereas for the Chimoio attack, as much as it was a terrible act, there was no war crime committed.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: http://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/