SCN: An exile from Rhodesia's guerilla wars speaks out

[sharma]

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The source of this article is an 
organization called
general at lists.holisticmanagement.org .  
The date is Saturday, September 15,
2001.  Its author is Allan Savory, 
in exile from Rhodesia.



I am posting this to our general conference via 
Jody as I am not routinely on our listserve due 
to email overload.  I am venting my deep 
feelings of sorrow and frustration by writing 
to you who I know care and think deeply.  I 
also write because Holistic Management is more 
important than ever if peace is to prevail as 
we all  wish.

As the events of the 11 September unfolded I 
found myself so overwhelmed that for an hour or 
two I simply pulled out of the important  planning
meeting in which we were engaged. I needed to sit 
quietly with my thoughts. In my youth, growing up 
in Rhodesia after World War II,  I somehow 
recognized that guerrilla warfare would be the 
future form of warfare  and I began studying and 
later fighting for over twenty years in such a 
war.  I mention this past briefly because as this 
week unfolded, having  gone through much of my 
life in senseless guerrilla warfare, I began to 
see the  past floating before my eyes.

What I saw was not the endless showing of the 
towers being hit and then crumbling, followed by 
the anguish of family and friends of the dead 
but something sinister and frightening.  I felt 
an  emptiness not because of the tragic loss of 
life of so many Americans and  others, including 
we think five of my countrymen, but because of 
the television interviews of leaders and public 
figures.  I could not help but notice that all 
talked of America's strength and resolve, war 
and revenge.  

Not one leader replied in the manner I would have 
found myself responding in my anger and grief.  
The President has called it a new form of war and
named it the First War of the 21st Century. He 
has pledged to win it at a time and place of our 
choosing.  Although this pledge is understandable 
in terms of prevailing emotions, it is about as 
meaningful in real terms as the many pledges to 
win the war against drugs.  America and the 
western nations, whose way  of life is under 
attack, will need far deeper understanding for
peace and what  we all value in our way of life 
to be safeguarded.  This is not a new form of 
warfare  it is one of the oldest forms of 
warfare that, due to  technological advances, 
is capable of wrecking unbelievable damage.

 Nothing I write should be construed as not 
having feelings for the  dead and suffering 
I only risk writing at such a sensitive time 
because my feelings run deep, and after living 
so much of my life with violence I want
desperately to see an end to such suffering. 
America will be called upon for international 
leadership in this hour of need. Is America 
up to that responsibility and what does that 
leadership entail?

Let me make a few  basic points.  People 
waging guerrilla warfare try to undermine 
their enemy by actions designed to cause a 
spread of terror, over-reaction, economic 
damage,  etc. Commonly they hit soft (not 
military) targets that will inflame emotions 
simply because they do not have the military 
strength to do otherwise.  If  skillful they 
strike in such a manner that their more 
powerful opponent will fan  the flames and 
spread terror, lack of confidence in the 
economy, etc., and do the job for them.
A mistake made by most governments is to call 
their opponents "terrorists'.  The constant 
use of the word  "terrorist' while televising
dramatically the damage and suffering makes 
their action several million times more damaging. 
If you want to spread terror use the word
terrorist
repeatedly, associated with terrifying pictures, 
and lo and behold you do spread terror.  I 
watched Ian Smith do this repeatedly in 
Rhodesia's long struggle for independence.  

Long ago in that struggle I said publicly that 
if I were a guerrilla I would pray that my 
opponents would call me a terrorist to further
my aims.  

The Smith government made that mistake and 
repeatedly attacked me as an army officer 
and Member of Parliament for using the name 
guerrillas instead of trying to understand the 
form of warfare they faced.   

Smith, his generals and media gurus, through 
ignorance about guerrilla warfare  
guaranteed their own political defeat.

I am not indulging in hindsight as many times 
on the public platform I said that Mugabe's 
greatest allies were Ian Smith and his generals 
who, while waging a "war against terrorists', 
were winning political victory for Mugabe and 
ensuring the end of democracy for years to come.

Secondly I see in America floating before my eyes 
once again something I lived through.  Our
strength 
is our greatest weakness. What do I mean by this?

In Rhodesia we had an  extremely capable and 
efficient army for bush warfare.  We knew it 
and were intensely proud of our army.  We never 
lost a single encounter or battle no  matter 
what the odds, but that, as I pointed out many 
times during the conflict, guaranteed we would 
lose the "war'.  I say this simply because these 
situations are not  "wars' requiring military 
solution, but situations requiring  civilian 
policies that deal with the root cause of 
people's frustrations and suffering.

Because we white Rhodesians were so strong our 
government,  under a political leader rather than
a 
statesman, was unwilling to even  contemplate 
seeking the necessary solution that would preserve 
the democracy we valued.  That, after all, would 
appear "weak' to the bulk of the electorate who 
wanted tough-talking generals and politicians.  
When, as leader of the opposition in Parliament, 
I said (to Smith)  "You are going to have to talk 
to the guerrilla leaders". I was branded a coward 
and traitor in public.  When I said on one
occasion, 
"If you want to win this 'war' you need to
understand 
your opponents and to understand why someone like
me 
would say  'If I  had been born a black Rhodesian, 
instead of a white Rhodesian, I would be your 
greatest terrorist'". I lost the support of even 
my own party and ended up in  exile.

I use the similarities with Rhodesia because only 
the scale  differs. America's leaders would be 
wise not to treat this as a  "war' but  rather
as a serious wake up call to look at an extremely 
broad and comprehensive strategy involving our 
foreign and domestic policies as well as our
education  and business systems.

Right now there is a need to motivate people to 
unite.  And there is a need, that the President 
and his advisors are  tackling well, to 
collaborate with other nations and go after the 
perpetrators determined to bring them to justice. 
However, this should be done without  setting our
people up for war and retaliation. There is a
need, 
while unity and determination still hold, to 
initiate the moves to bring about a civilian
strategy to win the peace we all seek.  If we rely 
solely on our military strength in retaliating, 
far from ending the war  "in a place and time of
our  choosing,"  we will bring about counter 
retaliation at some time. This has been the most 
massive guerrilla attack ever staged, but it will 
pale into insignificance with future nuclear or 
biological attacks unless our leaders act with 
understanding and wisdom as well as determination.

There have always been evil people and will 
continue to be such people. We need of course 
to share intelligence between nations and root 
them out. But at the same time we need also to 
address the causes to which they attach 
themselves and to dry up their source of 
recruits.

I am sorry that many in this nation are focused 
only on America and seeing this as an attack on 
this nation and on democracy.  It is not a war 
in which "they' are trying to conquer America or 
defeat democracy. Public memory can be short.  
It was but months ago that thousands of 
peace-loving people (including prominent
Americans) 
brought the World Trade Organization Conference in 
Seattle to a halt.  Now, this strike at the World 
Trade Center as the principal target by ruthless 
people exploiting  grievances for their own ends 
should have conveyed a message to all developed 
nations - America, Britain, France, Germany, 
Japan and others.

If America is to provide the leadership the 
world is crying out for, we would be wise to 
try to understand how and why the Bin Laden's 
of the world can have such a pool of angry 
young people to call on who are prepared to 
give their lives so readily.  We need to 
understand and heed the cries of people 
displaced by massive dam  construction in 
India or Africa, or the bulk of the 
Mexican population who  deplore the loss 
of their way of life and all they value
most dearly as we  pursue policies like 
NAFTA.  

We need to understand that we cannot call 
on people in poor countries to be good 
capitalists and then go to war against 
them for supplying our people with drugs 
they seek at any cost. We need to understand 
that when we ban chemicals because they
are known to be damaging to humans that we 
should not allow multi-national corporations 
to increase their manufacture and sale to 
third world countries so we can profit. We 
need to understand that we cannot take
thousands of years of careful nurturing of 
genetic material by simple people and patent 
the genes for the profits of our corporations 
and shareholders.  We need to understand that 
in many ways it is not democracy that is under 
attack but rather certain aspects of our lives 
that others see as causing their poverty and 
suffering.

I know many Americans,  including good 
friends of mine, will immediately say,  
"but our policies are not harming them.   
I am afraid if others even perceive our policies 
as harmful  to their culture and way of life
that becomes the political reality in such 
situations.  It is essential that we look at 
our policies in our own  enlightened 
self-interest as they affect our environment 
and other people as we do with Holistic 
Management policy formation.

I am not a  politician.  I only went into 
politics in my country as a junior army 
officer with a deep knowledge of guerrilla 
warfare to try to end a senseless war of 
self-destruction. But over the twenty years 
that I have been a "political has-been' I 
have never ceased to try to think of ways 
nations might end such  violence.  And I 
have never ceased to work on the causes 
underlying most  worldwide violence. I don't 
know who originally said it, but I have long  
believed that  UNTIL ALL PEOPLE FEEL SECURE 
AND WELL-GOVERNED, NONE ARE
.  No nation can 
be an island unto itself in the modern  world. 
In America we may feel secure and well 
governed but are we?   Clearly by this 
definition we are not.  When the towers were 
first hit and  blame started to fly, more 
than one person raised the question:  Are we 
sure this time that it is not Americans?
Looking at our government I do not see 
representation of many Americans. We don't 
even have a Parliamentary opposition in the 
sense I understand--we have a government 
formed from  alternatively one or other of 
two wings - left and right - of the same 
corporate  party, managed by a mature and
often insensitive bureaucracy.  As a 
consequence, millions of Americans are 
politically emasculated and apathetic, 
feeling a deep sense of hopelessness.  

The present catastrophe will unite all 
Americans as never before and that is good. 
But the unity will not  last. If our leaders
cannot see what is happening in our own 
country, what hope  have we of understanding 
the frustrations of millions who are daily 
affected by  the policies of the US, and our 
fellow western powers that support corporations
with economies and powers greater than whole 
nations.  The focus will be on America as the 
single super power, but Britain, France, 
Germany and other countries are as much part of 
what many millions of people see as the ugly
side  of capitalism.  Focus is on us because 
we are seen as having a small percentage of 
the world's population consuming a very high 
percentage of the  world's resources resulting 
in vast impoverishment for others.

It cannot be repeated too often- poor land leads 
to poverty, disease, social breakdown, abuse of 
women, increasing violence and genocide and
ultimately war. One  has only to look 
holistically at the many resource management 
policies of  America, or the World Bank and 
other governments and organizations heavily 
influenced or dominated by American money and
university graduates, to see that  we are 
guaranteeing an increasingly violent future 
for our children and our allies.

As I write, the President is sitting with his 
National  Security Council to decide how to 
respond.  They are intelligent people who 
will advise on all aspects of security within 
the comprehension of their  professions
military, economic, political analyst or 
whatever.   Probably the President could not 
put together a more competent team if we were 
at war.  However if one understands the nature 
of how wholes function I  would wager a bet
that the same NSC with its heavy regular 
military bias will be  ill-suited to forming 
a strategy to win the peace.  Building our 
response  on a war analogy is dangerous in the 
extreme. While the President will politically
have to respond with force in some form right 
now, it would be wise to look beyond starting 
right now.  I believe to win the peace the NSC 
should be expanded to include men and women who 
understand the effects on millions of ordinary 
peace-loving people of such things as our 
agricultural policies and NAFTA as well as the 
actions of not only American but also 
multi-national corporations. Conventional 
economists have almost no comprehension of the 
effects of for instance agricultural policies on 
rural American families let alone families in 
India, Pakistan, Mexico and  Africa.

When faced with situations of such enormous 
magnitude, where it  is always easy to be a 
critic but never as easy if actually having to 
handle the full responsibility, I have a habit 
of asking myself  "If faced with this
responsibility what would I do?'

In this instance I would do the  following.  No 
one has the answers, least of all me, but these 
actions  would lead us toward finding solutions, I
believe:

·       I would recognize the need for 
statesmanship rather than gut-level politics.

·       I would do all in my power, working with 
our allies, to  bring the perpetrators of the 
current violent actions to face international 
justice.

·       I would not call it a war but rather 
focus on this as a  struggle for worldwide peace 
involving our leadership of all  nations.

·       I would treat it with the utmost 
urgency, as this  horrifying act has been a 
bigger blow than was the strike at Pearl Harbor.

·       I would recognize that failure of the 
developed nations to address worldwide 
biodiversity loss, desertification and global
climate change and social injustices will result 
in ever more horrifying events involving nuclear 
and biological weapons.

·       I would put the situation on a  "war 
footing' in terms of seriousness and allocation 
of funds and people  no price is too high to pay
and, as in war, I would go beyond using only 
establishment bureaucrats and experts.

·       I would task an expanded NSC with 
developing a comprehensive civilian and military 
strategy and monitoring system to address over 
time the root cause of most worldwide violence.

·       I would, as my duty to the nation, 
insist that this  expanded NSC have free reign 
to investigate all aspects of our political, 
economic, educational, trade and business systems 
there would be no sacred cows.

·       To the expanded NSC I would appoint 
people who have a track record of understanding 
the underlying problems, social and economic
ramifications of destructive agricultural and 
land management policies, trade  policies, and 
more that lead to poverty, frustration, 
displacement, disease and violence (there are 
many such people in America and Europe
consistently ignored  at present). And I would 
include people with a sound knowledge of guerrilla 
warfare as well as conventional warfare.

·       I would urge all politicians to accept 
the recommendations of such a strategic group 
in a non-partisan manner so that  implementation 
could proceed rapidly in the interests of all 
nations.

In short, I believe the surest way to 
guarantee Americans a future of severely
restricted 
liberties and fear of violence is to treat this 
as a war that can be won with economic and
military 
might.  The war analogy focuses on what the enemy 
is doing when we need to focus on what we are
doing to  ourselves. The possibility of even more 
horrific acts is increased when rogue  religious 
groups such as the Taliban (most Muslims, as well 
as the Koran, preach  peace and harmony), and 
individuals like Bin Laden, can recruit people 
willing  to commit suicide and align themselves
with genuine grievances for their own  ends. 
To let such evil people put up a smoke screen that 
clouds our vision and draws our attention away
from
addressing the real grievances of millions of 
peace-loving people would be the greatest tragedy 
and play into the hands of future Bin Ladens.

This is a battle for peace that can be won by 
statesmanship that ensures that while containing 
present violence to the best of  our ability we at
the same time start to address the things needed 
to ensure that all people feel secure and well 
governed.

[END]

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Thought for the Day:

"Now that the government has declared 
War on Terrorism, it appears that we
are headed for really big trouble.  
Why?  Because when the government
declared War on Poverty we got more 
poverty, when they declared War on
Illiteracy we got more illiteracy,  
when they declared War on Crime
we got more crime, and when they 
declared War on Drugs we got more drugs. 
Brace yourself for more terrorism."

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