Machingura, The Judas Iscariot episode in the Zimbabwean Religio-Political debate...cal discourse and Patriotic History.^29 The label was associated with peo-
ple who were regarded as bend on forestalling the independence of
Zimbabwe by supplying the Rhodesian forces and regime with the vital
information that would be used against the nationalists and the eventual
independence of Zimbabweans from colonialism. Such people would
then be given money in the Judas style (as well as food, clothing and
other materials) for personal use. The term ‘sell out’ was then used to
describe their actions and the consequences that befell them were then
regarded as highly justifiable. Rhodesian forces also used the term
against civilians and those who supplied the nationalists with informa-
tion about their movements but the ‘sell-out’ vocabulary usage was
dominant in the nationalists’ circles. The term ‘sell out’ had a lot of
impact on the civilian mindset and this included what the civilians were
expected of when they met the nationalists as well as the Rhodesian
forces. The escalation of war in 1970s resulted in the infamous Selous
Scouts^30 (a highly trained specialist unit which was given the most secre-
tive tasks and was known for using dirty tactics for interrogation), the
Police Anti-terrorist Unit (PATU) and the Grey Scouts (a mounted unit
which moved both on horseback and in armored cars) which were
known for prosecuting the war vigorously. The plight of the ordinary
(^29) B-M Tendi, Making History in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media,
Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010, 144.
(^30) In 1973 a regiment was commissioned called the Selous Scouts (accounted for 68% of
confirmed terrorist kills) and were referred to as a pseudo gang and were deployed in
the bush faking as liberation war fighters so as to capture guerrilla fighters as well as
civilians who supported them with food, clothing and housing. The Selous Scouts
were a mixed race force and had many black Rhodesians in its ranks including the first
African commissioned officers in the Rhodesian Army. The Selous Scouts acted as a
combat reconnaissance force, its mission was to infiltrate Rhodesia’s black population
and guerrilla networks, pinpoint rebel groups and relay vital information back to the
conventional forces earmarked to carry out the actual attacks. Scouts were trained to
operate in small under-cover teams capable of working independently in the bush for
weeks on end. Most of the African members (would kill their kith and kin for support-
ing guerrillas) of the Selous Scouts regiment were recruited from captured terrorists
who switched sides when given an offer of money they couldn’t refuse (Black personnel
had their immediate families provided for with housing and medical care), hence the evok-
ing of the Judas character to describe their actions as ‘sell-outs’, D Croukamp, The
Bush War in Rhodesia: The Extraordinary Combat Memoir of a Rhodesian Reconnaissance
Specialist, USA: Paladin Press, 2007, 167-186; See J H Thompson, Voices of the South
African National Servicemen: An Unpopular War, Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006, 63-69;
P L Moorcraft, ‘a tour de force’; Fireforce: One Man’s War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry,
Canada: Trafford Publ., 2006, 23-25.