Peter Baxter (2) (1962–)

Selous Scouts were a very unique regiment formed in troubled times for Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In the mid-60's state of Rhodesia was constant low-intensity conflict. Ruled by white minority it was seen as impostor/occupier state (very similar to the way South Africa was seen by the local population and the world) and many a liberation group (all called fronts and all trained by Eastern Bloc in neighboring African coutnries) was trying to push the Rhodesian ruling body (together with all whites) out of the country.

I will not go into political details because in conflict zones - more precisely contested zones where Cold War caused utter mayhem and quasi-humanitarian struggles and political story spins caused sometimes more damage than conflict itself - like Rhodesia it is not that clear what political situation was at the time. What is clear is that because of white ruling council fears of losing influence to black majority population caused Rhodesia to secede from Commonwealth. This brought the ire of the British that had profound effect on the the way drama in this land-locked African country ended.

Author gives rather objective view of the society - was there racial segregation and mistreatment in Rhodesia? Most definitely there was. Problem was that government did not manage to discern between guerillas and locals and this just caused further division and proved to be a critical point in entire war.

Formed with the role to win over hearts and minds of the local populace and help fight the insurrection from within Rhodesia's borders Sealous Scouts did great.
But did they truly work in wining-hearts-and-minds? They surely managed to incorporate former guerillas and work with them against their former outfits, care for their families (and thus win over their allegiance) - but as far as I can see in the book in overall Rhodesian government failed in task of uniting all of the populace. I did not see any attempts at betterment of life conditions for local populace (like it was case in always mentioned Malaya) - local black population was constantly treated as if they were handicapped and could not achieve much (again in stark contrast to Malaya where British worked with local Malayan government and considered them equals when it comes to rule of the law and government). Also police/local civil authority did not operate in the troubled areas. Although under control of Special Branch Selous Scouts were military unit in everything but perhaps organization chart lists. You cannot achieve nothing in civil society with use of military except occupation and resentment.

Author constantly mentions that Selous Scouts were unique in that they after some time became aware of martial prowess of the local population while rest of the army just did not want anything to do with them considering them sub-par on many levels. Even C squad SAS never recruited anyone from the local population becuse of the constant fear of whites-against-the-blacks, which again comes down to the question of trust. This constant segregation and lack of trust only caused constant militarization of white populace (as an only mean of minority to control majority) and further estrangement between whites and black population.

Executing so called pseudo operations (masquerading as guerillas, infiltrating their bases and then calling in armed strikes) was regiment's bread-and-butter and very soon they had guerillas on the run and becoming more and more paranoid and untrustworthy to everyone including their own people.

With retreat of Portuguese from Zambia and Mozambique besides internal fighting (within Rhodesia) Selous Scouts found themselves executing assaults on Mozambique and Zambia based guerilla camps. Soon they started participating in shady covert ops as secret agents and deep penetration reconnaissance teams wreaking havoc on foreign country infrastructure (bridges, electricity power lines etc). All of these controversial actions painted Selous Scouts in very unfavorable light - so much so that even Rhodesia's secret service stopped sharing information with them.

Add to all of this pressure on the Rhodesia from the outside - press, governments all presenting Rhodesia as oppressive country to the extreme - very soon people who fought for Rhodesia started to lose their compass because entire political structure they gave their lives to endure was eroding. Soon they started weird and completely insane operations (like assaults to smear the revolutionary movements prior to official elections after the peace agreement, assassination attempts at Mugabe etc) that just further estranged the Rhodesia's white populace from the world and were completely counterproductive.

As author states what exactly was the role of UK and South Africa is not clear but it seems that Rhodesia was deemed lost for all means and purposes and the world wanted just to end it because that was the political climate at the time. And then Mugabe came and .... well I think that everyone is aware of the things he did to his people (and to remaining white population) in following 37 years. Truly sad thing.

Selous Scouts were a proud, professional and highly effective regiment, very capable and surely set the standard for counter-insurgency type of operations. But as it is always case - when political leadership and will is not present, military tends to veer off and cause more problems then it solves them.

Excellent book on a very professional elite military outfit whose accomplishments and break-troughs in fields of counter-insurgency still echo in our own times.

Recommended to all fans of military history and elite units.… (mais)