The new government of "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" due to be installed following the April elections has already committed itself to what amounts to a declaration of war against neighbouring independent countries. In a number of pre-election statements, Bishop Muzorewa and other spokesmen for his party the UANC, in particular, have not only pledged themselves to con.inued reprisal raids against Zimbabwean refugee settlements and other targets in Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique, but even to a policy of deliberate sabotage of the latter's governments. Speaking at an election rally in Sinoia on 18 March for example, Bishop Muzorewa stated that any future UANC government would continue the Smith regime's offer of amnesty for guerillas of the Patriotic Front, but only for a limited time. "There will be a deadline and after that date anyone who continues to fight will have declared himself an enemy of the new state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia", he said. After a black majority government was in power, he continued, the Rhodesian security forces would continue to pursue the country's enemies as far afield as Maputo or Lusaka. Since the election results were announced, he has pledged to continue the war against the Patriotic Front, "maybe even more so than the former Rhodesian Government."
At the beginning of April, the UANC Vice-President Mr. James Chikerema told a gathering of businessmen in Kariba that any signs of a revolution in Zambia directed at the overthrow of President Kenneth Kaunda would be "actively supported" by a government led by Bishop Muzorewa. He claimed that a group of such dissidents already existed in Zambia who were waiting for support to overthrow the Zambian president, and even went further to suggest that Muzorewa's followers would actively intervene to foment an uprising. "The UANC is prepared to organise an Ayatollah Khomeini type of revolution in Zambia to remove Mr. Kaunda by force", he said.
The election period saw an intensification of Rhodesian attacks into Botswana, Mozambique and, most notably, Zambia, the implications of which received have little or no coverage in the British press and media compared to the attention paid to the polling process inside Zimbabwe itself. On 11 April, for example, the day after whites had voted in four contested Rhodesian Front constituencies, 136 Zimbabwean refugees were killed and over 200 injured in an air attack with napalm bombs on a refugee camp at Solwezi, in the extreme north of Zambia close to the Zaire border. Many of the casualties were boys under the age of 16, who had been moved to this camp from what was felt to be a less secure location on the outskirts of Lusaka. Solwezi also housed a number of refugees newly arrived from Botswana. Rhodesian forces also bombed a Zambia National Defence Force training area in Kabwe, injuring 12 people. The Times of Zambia reported that it was believed that these attacks may have involved South African long-range planes flown by Israeli mercenary pilots.
Perhaps even more significant in terms of their longer term implications for the stability and security of Zambia however, were the raids that took place during the election period on houses and other buildings used by members of the liberation movement in the middle of Lusaka's residential areas. On the morning of 10 April, a bungalow used by ZAPU to accommodate party workers in the capital's residential suburbs was bombed by Rhodesian jets and totally demolished. One person was killed instantly and seven injured, one of whom, a West German national who had been working in Zambia as a volunteer teacher and staying temporarily in the bungalow at the time, later died. Although there was nothing superficially to distinguish the building from surrounding houses occupied by Zambians, it seems clearly to have been known to the pilots of the Rhodesian jets.
Shortly before 3 am. on the morning of 13 April, in, for Zambia, an unprecedented form of Rhodesian attack, ground troops stormed a house formerly used by President Kaunda but subsequently donated by the Zambian authorities to ZAPU for the use of Joshua Nkomo. The house is situated close to the Zambian State House, President Kaunda's current residence. An estimated 70 to 80 Rhodesian commandos, armed with bazookas, sten guns, grenades and small arms, drove into the district in jeeps and trucks mounted with machine guns and with Zambian number plates, and surrounded the building. It was severely damaged, the roof brough down with explosives and the walls riddled with bullet holes, in the ensuing attack.
During the same two hour period, in which the commandos were apparently able to move around Lusaka without encountering Zambian security forces in sufficient numbers to stop them, a further attack was made on the Liberation Centre. This complex of buildings, made available to the Southern African liberation movements by the Zambian government, comprises offices belonging to ZANU (Patriotic Front), ANC (South Africa) and SWAPO of Namibia. SWAPO's premises were totally destroyed and reduced to a heap of rubble by the Rhodesian attack, as was the building used by ZANU. An administrative building in the Centre was also demolished. The offices used by the ANC, situated farthest from the main gate, survived intact.
The fact that SWAPO's administrative headquarters in Lusaka were destroyed, ostensibly in an attack initiated by the Smith regime but only a fortnight before a renewed police purge of the liberation movement inside Namibia, suggests a degree of South African involvement in the raid. There is evidence from previous Rhodesian attacks against the front line states that South African intelligence is, if nothing more, aware in advance of such plans.
