World Orders and Decorations A junior commander in 2 Troop, Selous Scouts and a Bronze Cross of Rhodesia “for courage and initiative”


Reid-Daly describes some of the early Selous Scouts operations. Many were successes, some failures, but lessons were learned. Above all, Reid-Daly was able to validate another of his game-changing innovations, a force-multiplying concept of using patrols from 2 Troop to locate groups of insurgents and then call in and direct by radio a Fireforce of troop-carrying and gunship helicopters which would envelop and destroy all the terrorists. Since the Scouts’ guiding was covert, they could preserve their cover with locals and continue operating in the same area. It proved to be a great success and became the Scouts’ standard operating procedure, but by May 1974 Reid-Daly felt that “2 Troop had been experiencing difficulties for many and varied reasons. The insurgents could not understand why they had been suffering such a rise in casualties. They knew that somehow it involved a security breakdown, so they immediately introduced measures to tighten up their security. Before, they had openly strutted about during daytime within the Tribal Trust Lands. They now moved carefully – and only at night. It suddenly became common for [2 Troop] to have to endure the agonised screams of tribesmen who were being murdered or mutilated by the terrorists, either because they were suspected of being informers, or as a means to cow the locals by terror… I told 2 Troup to detach a small section and send them eastwards out of the troop area. I needed to know if we could establish the precise eastern limit of ZANLA insurgent infiltration. Lance-Corporal Lameck Chiyaka soon made contact with the chairman of the local ZANU party in the Pungwe Tribal Trust Land, who was quite delighted to welcome him and his men. To Lameck’s satisfaction, he immediately undertook to introduce them to a ZANLA reconnaissance group, which was busy preparing the ground for a large-scale incursion towards the end of 1974.”


The precise details of the encounter are set out in the citation for Chiyaka’s Bronze Cross. Reid-Daly recounts the subsequent events: “During this fracas, Andrew, one of our first tame insurgents, was killed, and two soldiers wounded. Lameck took his patrol to a nearby kopje and reported by radio what had occurred. I instructed Lameck to leave Andrew’s body where it was in the village and to order the villages to bury it. I then arranged for a security force patrol to helicopter to the village the next morning to investigate the shooting heard during the night. This was duly done and the patrol recovered all the bodies without compromising the Selous Scouts. Lameck told the villagers afterwards that Hope Zichirira’s group were not genuine ZANLA freedom fighters, but renegades who had deserted the cause and turned their hands to armed robbery. This story, which was credible and thus believed, enabled us to again deploy Lameck in that area without creating any problems… by the end of May, after only five months of operating, 100 ZANLA insurgents had been killed or captured as a direct result of Selous Scouts pseudo teams locating, fixing and indicating targets to Fireforces.”


“Little was expected to come of it…”


In December 1974 Reid-Daly tasked Chiyaka to take two men and investigate possible activity by the Matabele ZIPRA terrorists of Joshua Nkomo within the Omay Tribal Trust Land on the shore of Lake Kariba. His expectations were that there was not much to discover, but Chiyaka triumphed, thoroughly infiltrating a terrorist cell. To Reid-Daly’s astonishment, “By the end of the operation we had captured three hard-core ZIPRA insurgents and a further 37 that had been locally trained, and located a large cache of stores, weapons, ammunition and canned food. The three captured hard-core insurgents were turned to our cause and almost immediately put to work in another small operation, during which we killed two more hard-core insurgents and located another base stuffed with weapons, mines and ammunition. Using these tame insurgents as fronts, our operators soon wheedled out from the locals that another three groups of nine ZIPRA insurgents each, 27 in all, had crossed the lake by boat. They were in the process of setting up another network in the Omay, in preparation for a major ZIPRA incursion from Zambia. Once we started to kill them by bringing a Fireforce, the groups splintered. Of major interest was the capture of a military radio of Russian manufacture, which had been used to maintain communications with ZIPRA headquarters in Zambia.” The Bush War grew in scope and intensity, Reid-Daly continued to innovate and in August 1975 the Selous Scouts began military parachute training, a skill which up until then had been strictly reserved for the all-white Special Air Service. “The high potential of the African as a Special Force soldier had been overlooked. There is no doubt that in the Selous Scouts [80% of which was African] we proved conclusively by results that well-trained and good African soldiers often had tremendous advantages in the African context over their white comrades in the Special Force role. For reasons already outlined it is impossible for a European to successfully imitate an African. It was obvious that we would soon have to cross into neighbouring hostile countries to perform Special Forces tasks. I knew that the time had come to ensure our African soldiers received the right training so that when this time came, the Selous Scouts would match or surpass the boldness and effectiveness of the best anywhere.” Lameck Chiyaka was awarded Selous Scouts para wings, No 26 (the numbering indicated the seniority in the regiment of those serving in September 1978). This was out of a total of about 450 men who passed the military parachute course and met Reid-Daly’s stringent qualification requirements.


“You have had enough warnings…” - The Legion of Merit for “a tremendous coup, superbly executed”


Over the next five years, Chiyaka took part in several daring and audacious deep-penetration strikes on ZANLA bases far inside Mozambique. He also played an important role in persuading soldiers of the Rhodesian African Rifles to volunteer for the Selous Scouts. At least a dozen of the hundred men who enlisted in the RAR immediately after Chiyaka joined the Selous Scouts. The high point of his service, after he had been promoted to Colour Sergeant, was a spectacularly audacious raid into Botswana on Easter weekend 1979, in which he commanded the snatch group. Full details are set out in his MLM citation. Reid-Daly provides a little more colour: “The Land Rovers [expertly disguised as Shortland armoured patrol vehicles donated to Botswana by Britain] pulled up outside the closed gates of the ZIPRA Headquarters, and one of the drivers arrogantly leaned on his hooter. After some minutes a bleary-eyed, unarmed ZIPRA sentry came out and blinked at them curiously. Colour Sergeant Lameck Chiyaka, Member of the Legion of Merit and holder of the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia, who was disguised as a lieutenant in the Botswana Defence Force, glared down at him from the turret of the leading Shortland armoured car. ‘Open the gate!’ he ordered. ’Who are you?’ the sentry asked nervously. ‘Can’t you see we are the Botswana Defence Force?’ The sentry came to attention, giving a poor salute with his clenched fist, opened the gate and helpfully ushered the little convoy into the enclosed area. Lameck Chiyaka rapped smartly on the front door. The lights went on and a man rubbing sleep from his eyes opened the door. ‘Who is in charge here?’ snarled Lameck Chiyaka. Chiyaka studied Makapesi Tshuma with some interest. He knew about him. He knew that under his pillow he would find an AKM machine-gun with a folding butt. ‘We have just had an incident with your freedom fighters,’ said Colour Sergeant Lameck Chiyaka.’They have shot one of our Botswana Defence Force soldiers, and we suspect you have got weapons inside this house. Possession of weapons is against the law of Botswana. You people have been told often enough that, under no circumstances, are you allowed to carry weapons inside our country.’ He took Makapesi Tshuma with him and personally searched his quarters. In moments he produced the AKM with a flourish of triumph. ‘You have had enough warnings,’ hissed Lameck Chiyaka. ‘Now you are under arrest. You are all under arrest. You are all coming back with me to the Botswana Defence Force Barracks!’ More pseudo Botswana Defence Force soldiers entered the house and soon all 17 occupants, including two trained female insurgents, were handcuffed and led meekly to the trucks. The house was then thoroughly searched and a huge quantity of loose documents gathered up, including a filing cabinet containing bulky bundles of lists noting the names and details of every tribal sympathiser who had helped in the networks throughout Matabeleland since the early days of ZIPRA’s inception. After a fruitful hour and a half combing through everything in the house, the Scouts got into their vehicles and drove out of Francistown. It was a tremendous coup superbly executed. Colour Sergeant Lameck Chiyaka and those of his men involved in the actual deception were outstanding. Their coolness and thoroughly convincing threats and accusations had totally cowed the ZIPRA staff at the house. We captured the entire ZIPRA command for the Southern Front, except a few minor officials, plus an archive that was used to deal the ZIPRA war effort in Matabeleland a shattering blow.”


The End


The Selous Scouts were officially credited by Rhodesian Combined Operations Headquarters for facilitating the deaths of 68% of all insurgents killed inside Rhodesia during the Bush War. When the war ended in 1980, the Selous Scouts were disbanded by the simple expedient of ordering them to return to their original parent units. It is doubtful that Lameck Chiyaka ever returned to the RAR. Like Ron Reid-Daly and many other former Scouts, he moved to South Africa. When Lameck Chiyaka was last heard of, he was volunteering as a district secretary in the Pretoria area for the Movement for Democratic Change, the opposition party in Zimbabwe.


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