The ability of the Smith regime, through its security laws and powers of press censorship, to control and as necessary to distort reports of guerilla activity inside Zimbabwe, has been highlighted in the case of the Elim Pentecostal Mission. 13 British missionaries and children were beaten to death with an axe, bayonets and pieces of wood on 23 June. Two bodies, allegedly of ZANU (Patriotic Front) guerillas who had taken part in the attack, were shown to reporters by the security forces some weeks later, and on 22 August, an official inquest in Umtali also concluded that ZANU (Patriotic Front) had been responsible.
Evidence collected in Mozambique by a team of lawyers from the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, however, convinced them that the massacre had been carried out on the orders of the Smith regime. While in Maputo the lawyers spoke to a black former member of the Rhodesian police, who had deserted to ZANU (Patriotic Front) after taking part in the Elim attack. Flint - an assumed name - spoke good English and was interviewed for two hours in the company of other ZANU members. Notes taken of the interview by Mr. Rudolf Schware, one of the two US members of the team, read as follows:
"Flint 25 years old from Gaza Province close to Mozambique border. Came out of the police force - had been a member since 1972, I was a constable, I had to join because my family could not afford to feed me and to send me to school.
"In 1973 I was working in Mtoko as a security force - my main task was to go around - underground - in civilian clothes - we would go among the civilians - mix with them and ask if they have had any contact with freedom fighters - if yes we contact security forces - they contact army and zappo - village has it.
"At Elim mission - comrades used to get help from them. We, posing as freedom fighters came there a couple of days before. We collected all the whites - they "Comrades how can you do this to us?". We link them with 12 of our men - we were 30 - we captured 7 whites, there were 5 others and 2 children. We dragged them and tried to interrogate them - we asked them info about ZANU forces so they knew we were Selous Scouts. They did give us info - we hit them with gunbutts, hit them with sticks, put cigarette butts on their skins - we tied their hands with ropes. After killing them we wrote some placards saying "Down with Smith", "Up with ZANU". We lined them up and shot them with our AK47 - 7 of us did the shooting."
Flint gave the names of white officers in command at Elim. He also described being involved in the torture and interrogation of civilian suspects, and in the massacre of 800 Zimbabwean refugees at Nyazonia, Mozambique, in August 1976.
While there are discrepancies in Flint's story, equally the regime's version leaves questions unanswered. In a different case, but also one revealing the defects of official communiques, a South African-born white, the resident engineer of the Arcturus gold mine, a Lonrho subsidiary, has been sentenced to death for the murder of two white colleagues, in connection with the theft of the mine payroll. The incident was described at the time as a guerilla attack.
