Selous Scouts - Turning of Guerrillas

Turning of Guerrillas

Part of the problem in the early days of the Selous Scouts and Rhodesia, was that the security forces and the guerrillas had clearly defined roles. In the first days of the Selous Scouts in 1973–1974, the objective of the government and the military was to kill or incarcerate as many guerrillas as they could, which was deemed good for public morale.

There was no previously accepted convention that one could absorb “real” or “tamed” guerrillas within the ranks of an elite pseudo-guerrilla group, so as to be able to extract intelligence, be aware of how they dressed, behaved and thought, used callsigns or observed operational security. The thinking of the leadership of the Selous Scouts was that if a guerrilla—for example a regional or detachment officer of ZIPRA/ZANLA—were to be captured and turned, then the existing network already in place could be used in order to boost their numbers of kills as well as gather further intelligence.

When the Scouts captured a guerrilla in the field they had to make a decision between three options: execute him immediately; hand him over to others in a special division for trial and certain hanging under the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act; or try to absorb him into the Selous Scouts. If the guerrilla were injured in a skirmish, the first thing would be to make sure that no one knew of his existence: neither the locals in the area nor anyone at the security base. While still wounded the guerrilla would be brought into the Selous Scouts' fort and given the best medical attention. With the realisation that his life was being saved, a feeling of gratitude would normally follow.

The next step was to send a former guerrilla or "tame terr" to visit him in the hospital. A conversation would be initiated and eventually steered round to a reminder of hardships in the bush, and of the probability of a trial and hanging under the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act without his compliance. He would next be examined by the Selous Scouts only, in order to ensure loyalty; if passed, he would be given a lump sum of money as well as a regular paying job for joining. Additionally, and where possible, the guerrilla's family would be moved into protection where they would receive free rations, housing, education, and medical care.

In most cases the guerrilla chose to side with the security forces. The Selous Scouts had to make a final, difficult decision on whether to allow the turned guerrilla into their group or not. This decision had largely to do with their gut feeling of how the guerrilla presented himself: was he trustworthy or was he just biding his time? A fail-safe to test his loyalty was to hand him his weapon back, without prior knowledge that his ammunition had been rendered harmless. This was only temporary though, as the “tame terr” would soon become an integral member of the unit.