'See You In November' by Peter Stiff

Page 139 of my first read of 2018 “See You In November” by Peter Stiff

“the newly fanned animosity between ZANU and ZAPU made it unlikely they would ever succeed in unifying their forces and wage combined war against the Rhodesians. ZANU too, had finally lost the opportunity to establish rear base facilities for guerillas in Zambia. The intense dislike that their newly appointed leader, Robert Mugabe, felt for Kenneth Kaunda remains to present day.

After the British- supervised elections in Rhodesia in 1980, Jameson Avenue a wide street of six traffic lanes lined by imposing buildings – the financial center of Salisbury- was renamed after Samora Machel of Mozambique. The equally grand Kingsway was renamed after Julius Nyerere the President of Tanzania.

When Kenneth Kaunda came to the city, by then named Harare, to collect his share of the glory and to have his memory perpetuated by a street name, he discovered that Robert Mugabe had contrived a biting insult for him.

The street chosen in his honour was Railway Avenue which as the name suggests, was in the most squalid part of town where old papers gusted between the buildings adding to a litter of moulding mealie rusks, dumpy beer bottles, old cans, packets and the like.”

The book is about Allan Taffy Brice; he was some type of Jack Bauer or James Bond of Britain’s SAS regiment who led a three man Rhodesian CIO operation in Zambia that destabilized the entire Zimbabwe liberation struggle.

Taffy along with his two colleagues planned and executed the “elimination ZANU’s Chairman Herbert Chitepo and stood and watched while the Zambian Government assumed that the car bombing was the result of internal divisions within ZANU. The result was the arrest of ZANU top leadership including Cde Tongogara and a one year disruption in ZANU’s war efforts

In 1976, Brice organized the delivery of the parcel bomb that killed Jason Moyo. The chosen parcel was a Reader’s Digest. Can we call it Death by reading…?

Taffy and crew conducted several operations that include bombing the ZANU Headquarters in Zambia and leaving Russian ammunition to give the impression that the attack had been ZAPU initiated. A few days later they would burn a ZAPU house to make it seem as if ZANU was retaliating against the bombing. This was all in a bid by the Rhodesian CIO to stall war and have ZANU and ZAPU concentrating on fighting one another instead of fighting the Rhodesians. Once they burnt the Zambian Lusaka Post Office and left clues that made it seem as if ZANU was protesting against Zambia’s bias towards Nkomo’s ZAPU.

Taffy and co planned several Joshua Nkomo assassinations but these were always called off at the last minute. According to him, Nkomo seemed to be under some high level protection that preferred him to the “radical Mugabe, who had made his intention to turn the country into a one-party Marxist state very clear” (the book’s words, not mine).

 In 1979, he was assigned to handle the Mugabe situation “the feeling was that with him out of the way, a power struggle will develop within ZANU. While that is in progress it will leave the way clear for Bishop Abel Muzorewa to remain in office, or for Joshua Nkomo to be put in as a puppet. Both will need white support to survive. The same is not true for Robert Mugabe (who had gained the support of the majority of blacks” (again, the book’s words not mine). This mission was also called off at the last minute for undisclosed reasons.  

Let me conclude here and leave a bit for the curious mind to look for this riveting read…