In 1982 few conversations did not come around to South Africa, either as a threat or a promise. Not only civilians left every day to this bastion: the soldiers of the disbanded white armies, their occupation gone, talked of Taking the Gap and then forming guerilla groups who would return to fight against the black government. In fact Renamo had been born in white Rhodesia as just such a group. The South Africans employed ‘Rhodies’ not only to train Renamo, but in all kinds of ways subversive to Zimbabwe. They incited ‘incidents’ that reached the British newspapers as the work of isolated adventurers, but in Zimbabwe they were believed to be the long arm of South Africa. (Nothing is more useful as a diagnosis of Britain than going to a country remote from European sets of mind and finding out what has not been reported in Britain, or reported inadequately.) Everyone, black and white, believed that the anti-Mugabe Terrorists, mostly supporters of Joshua Nkomo, whether he welcomed their support or not, were inspired by South Africa.
