The extensive press and media publicity surrounding the exodus into Botswana of nearly 400 African school students from south-western Rhodesia at the end of January gave ample scope to the Smith regime to elaborate on the theory that the children had been forcibly "abducted". It shed relatively little light, however, on the situation which the students left behind them, and generally failed to relate the incident to the large-scale outflow of refugees from Rhodesia in recent years.
The majority of the students in this case came from the Manama Secondary School, a mission school run by the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission about 100 km from the town of Gwanda and close to the border village of Tuli. The mission is 25-30 km from the Botswana border and situated in a Tribal Trust Land. According to the Botswana government, a number of students were from primary schools run by the same mission, named as Bengo, Mapape and Kafusi. The schools are in the "Operation Tangent" military zone, whose existence was officially revealed by the regime in December 1976, although it is believed to have been designated as such several weeks earlier. The closing months of 1976 saw a substantial build-up of troops in the area.
In explaining to Botswana government officials and the press why they had left Rhodesia, many of the students were adamant in their desire to take some positive action against the Smith regime. According to a 17-year-old girl who spoke to the international press in Francistown, "We are going to be freedom fighters and we know what that means. I don't mind killing people because look what Smith does to our people. We want to rule ourselves and we will choose our own leader when we have won." A boy, described as the secretary of the Students' Youth League Committee, said that "we were all willing and determined and the arrangements were entirely ours. My main reason for leaving Rhodesia is freedom and then later will come the general problems we are confronted with as Africans in that country."
In setting out at night through the bush to reach the Botswana border, the students had to run the gauntlet of the regime's curfew regulations. As soon as their departure was discovered, follow-up operations were mounted by the security forces using helicopters which dropped flares to light up the area. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed along a 400 km length of the Botswana border in August 1975, intially extending over a 5 km deep strip of land. Similar measures had been imposed shortly before along the Mozambique border. The explicit purpose of the curfews at that time was not so much to stop guerillas entering Rhodesia, but to prevent school students leaving the country to join the guerilla camps. The summer of 1975 saw the beginnings of an exodus of students and other young people, particularly from mission schools in the border regions, that has continued up to the present time and shows no signs of stopping.
Under the Emergency Powers (Maintenance of Law and Order) Regulations 1976, protecting authorities (i.e. senior police officers or members of the defence forces) may direct that any area be made subject to curfew. Villagers in curfew zones are warned that anyone who "fails to stop when challenged" is liable to be shot on sight. Commenting on the Manama Mission student exodus, the permanent secretary to the Botswana president, Mr. P. Steenkamp, said that "the main reason for fleeing is to escape death at the hands of the Smith forces, who, according to numerous reports from refugees, shoot innocent people to maintain a kill quota of 10 (guerillas) to one (member of the security forces)".
On 16 February, in the aftermath of the Manama Mission exodus, the regime announced that a 30 km strip of the Shashi Tribal Trust Land, adjoining the Botswana border, north-west of Tuli, had been declared a military restricted area or "no-go" zone. Any unauthorised person, found in such a no-go area, regardless of the time of day, is automatically suspected of being a guerilla and liable to be shot by patrolling troops. This is the first such restricted area of its kind on the Botswana border, although they have been a feature of the north-eastern Mozambique border section for some time.
The Manama Mission students said that Rhodesian troops frequently visited their school and asked them why they did not join the security forces and fight the guerillas. Two girls aged 17 and 18 added that they had heard of a Rhodesian radio broadcast which threatened all mission pupils with induction into the security forces - presumably a reference to the regime's plans, included in the 1976 National Services Act, to conscript certain categories of Africans for national service. Student sources also said that the Swedish missionaries who formerly ran the schools and mission had left the previous year because they were being forced to join the army. In July 1976, the Swedish Church decided to recall its missionaries from Rhodesia on account of the increasingly tense situation, and all those stationed in the rural areas had left by the following month. The National Services Act, which came into effect on 10 September 1976, provides for certain categories of people previously exempted, including priests, nurses and certain civil servants, to be made liable to compulsory military service.
Another specific grievance concerned the regime's requirements on Africans to carry registration certificates or passes. "I left because the soldiers were always after us", said one boy. "They would wait until we left the school going to a store nearby and they would ask for a registration certificate. Well, I have not got one. Maybe I am too young and they would beat me. They would say that I was a terrorist and asked why I was not fighting terrorists in the army. We are not terrorists. We are freedom fighters". Under the African (Registration and Identification) Act, all African males over 16 are required to carry a registration certificate complete with photograph and finger-prints. In certain areas the age limit is reduced to 12. According to the students, those under 16 were required to carry a juvenile certificate costing R$3. At the present time, arrangements are in hand to issue identity documents to adults of all races and both sexes.
Over the last eighteen months or so, up to 50,000 Zimbabweans are estimated to have crossed the Rhodesian border into Mozambique and Botswana, as exiles or as refugees from stepped-up security force activity. The flow of refugees through Botswana during 1976 is put at between 10,000 and 14,000, while 36,000 are thought to have entered Mozambique. During the early part of 1976, three refugee camps were set up jointly by the Mozambique government and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Tete and Manica provinces, Mozambique, and by May 1976 these were estimated to contain 23,000 non-combatants. A correspondent from the London Times confirmed at that time that guerilla recruits were accommodated separately in special training camps. The Botswana government, too, has repeatedly stressed that guerilla recruits are not permitted to remain in Botswana but are in all cases sent on to Zambia. Between 900 and 1,000 Zimbabwean refugees are accommodated in a camp outside Francistown. The economic burden on the Botswana government is such that funds earmarked for development projects have had to be diverted to strengthening security on the country's border with Rhodesia. As a result of cross-border raids by Rhodesian security forces, several villages on the Botswana side have virtually disappeared, huts have been burned and broken up, and stores looted. Botswana villagers have come under fire when watering their cattle in the rivers which mark the border itself, and it is now proposed to provide alternative watering points at an estimated cost of £1 million. Senior Botswana government officials who have drawn up a list of costs directly attributable to the Rhodesian war, put the total at over £43 million. Further refugee camps will cost around £3 million.
