The
British South Africa Police (
BSAP) was the police force of the
British South Africa CompanyThe British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
(BSAC) of Cecil Rhodes which became the national police force of
Southern RhodesiaSouthern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...
and its successor after 1965,
RhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
(now
ZimbabweZimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
). Until 1899, the force also policed parts of BSAC territories north of the Zambezi River that are now part of modern
ZambiaZambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
.
History
The organisation was formed by the BSAC in 1889 as a paramilitary, mounted infantry force in order to provide protection for the
Pioneer ColumnThe Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 and used in his efforts to annex the territory of Mashonaland, later part of Southern Rhodesia ....
of settlers which moved into
MashonalandMashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. It is the home of the Shona people.Currently, Mashonaland is divided into three provinces, with a total population of about 3 million:* Mashonaland West* Mashonaland Central* Mashonaland East...
in 1890. The unit played a central role in both the
First Matabele WarThe First Matabele War was fought in 1893-1894 between the British South Africa Company military forces and the Ndebele people. Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, avoided outright war with the British settlers because he and his advisors were mindful of the destructive power of the European weapons...
(1893) and the
Second Matabele WarThe Second Matabele War, also known as the Matabeleland Rebellion and in Zimbabwe as the First Chimurenga, was fought in 1896–97 between the British troops and the Ndebele people....
(1896/97). Until 1897 the force was called the British South Africa Company's Police. The BSAP operated originally in conjunction with the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary (SRC), the town police force for
SalisburyHarare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
(now Harare) and
BulawayoBulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after the capital Harare, with an estimated population in 2010 of 2,000,000. It is located in Matabeleland, 439 km southwest of Harare, and is now treated as a separate provincial area from Matabeleland...
, but amalgamated with the SRC in 1909. As a paramilitary unit, the BSAP fought in the
Second Boer WarThe Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
and in
TanganyikaTanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...
during
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, while some members were seconded to the Rhodesia Native Regiment. From 1923, Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing colony of the
British EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, but the BSAP retained its title and its position as the senior regiment of the Southern Rhodesian armed forces. One of the first casualties of the BSAP in World War II was Keppel Bagot
LevettLevett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of...
, born in 1919, who died in active service with the BSAP in March 1941.
A
Criminal Investigation DepartmentThe Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
was founded in 1923; a Women's Section in 1941, and a Dog Unit in 1945. From 1957, the Police Reserve also had an airborne wing.
Between the World Wars, the Permanent Staff Corps of the Rhodesian Army consisted on only 47 men. The BSAP were trained as both policemen and soldiers until 1954.
Prior to the use of motor vehicles, extended rural patrols were carried out on horseback, and right up until the Force was renamed all white male officers were taught
equitationEquitation is the art or practice of horse riding or horsemanship.More specifically, equitation may refer to a rider's position while mounted, and encompass a rider's ability to ride correctly and with effective aids. In horse show competition, the rider, rather than the horse is evaluated...
as part of their basic traíning. Selected officers were retained in Morris Depot after "passing out" and tasked with training remount horses for future use by recruits and on ceremonial duties. Mounted Escorts were provided for occasions such as the state opening of Parliament. Generally speaking, the force was the 'Senior Service' and performed ceremonials such as those allocated to the
Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceThe Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
today. As such discipline, presentation, and parade drill were of a very high standard.
The BSAP's name remained unchanged by the
Unilateral Declaration of IndependenceThe Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Rhodesia from the United Kingdom was signed on November 11, 1965, by the administration of Ian Smith, whose Rhodesian Front party opposed black majority rule in the then British colony. Although it declared independence from the United Kingdom it...
, although following the declaration of a
republicA republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
by
Ian SmithIan Douglas Smith GCLM ID was a politician active in the government of Southern Rhodesia, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe from 1948 to 1987, most notably serving as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 13 April 1964 to 1 June 1979...
's government in 1970, the crown was removed from the BSAP's badge.
During the period of the Second Chimurenga (
a.k.a. Rhodesian Bush WarThe Rhodesian Bush War – also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Zimbabwe War of Liberation – was a civil war which took place between July 1964 and December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia...
) in the late 1960s and 1970s, the BSAP formed an important part of the white minority government's fight against black Communist guerrillas. The force formed a riot unit; a tracker combat team (later renamed the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit or PATU); a police field force Support Unit (who were distinquished by wearing black boots), an Urban Emergency Unit, a Police Reserve Air Wing or PRAW, and a Marine Division, and from 1973 offered places to white conscripts as part of Rhodesia's
national serviceNational service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
scheme. At independence, the force had a strength of approximately 11,000 regulars (about 60% black) and almost 35,000 reservists, of whom the overwhelming majority were white. A former BSAP officer,
Daniel CarneyDaniel Carney was a white Zimbabwean novelist. Three of his novels have been made into films.-Biography:Daniel Carney was born in Beirut in 1944. In 1963 he settled in Rhodesia and joined the British South Africa Police, where he served for three and a half years...
wrote a book titled
Whispering Death about the BSAP in anti-terrorist operations which was later made into the film
AlbinoAlbino is a 1976 German thriller directed by Jürgen Goslar and starring Christopher Lee, James Faulkner and Sybil Danning filmed on location during the Rhodesian bush war...
.
The Support Unit (known as the "Black Boots" due to their footwear) was a Police field force staffed by about 30-40 white and 300 black regular and national servicemen. Their additional training consisted of a four-weeks long
Counter-InsurgencyA counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
(COIN) training, small-arms and driving courses amongst others. Their primary task was to patrol the long distances in the Tribal Trust Lands, to maintain and reinstate order in the
kraalKraal is an Afrikaans and Dutch word for an enclosure for cattle or other livestock, located within an African settlement or village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall, or other fencing, roughly circular in form.In the Dutch language a kraal is a term derived from the Portuguese word , cognate...
s (native villages´).
In the late seventies a Civilian African Tracking Unit (C.A.T.U.) was added, to relieve the professional trackers in the pursuing of the enemy infiltrators into
RhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
. Their tracking methods were based on the traditional skills and techniques of the
RhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
n
ShangaanThe Tsonga people inhabit the southern coastal plain of Mozambique, parts of Zimbabwe and Swaziland, and the Limpopo Province of South Africa...
tribe. Their formations were called 'sticks', and consisted of a couple of white
RhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
n 'Patrol Officers', or 'Section Officers', and six to eight black
RhodesiaRhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
n trackers. Police Reservists and regular police officers organised in a similar way were called the Police Anti Terrorist Unit or PATU.
Police of all ranks to chief inspector, were obliged to perform PATU secondment on a regular rotation basis, and deployed to operational areas. Riot standby units were also maintained to deal with urban civil disorder on the same basis. Counter insurgency and advanced weapons training were mandatory by 1970s in anticipation of PATU and district duties.
A district (rural) police station with a strength of anything from a dozen to forty personnel was often required to 'fly the flag' over an area comprising several hundred sq. kilometres.
Until the late 1970s, black Rhodesians were prevented from holding ranks higher than Sub-Inspector in the BSAP, and only white Rhodesians could gain commissioned rank. This changed after moderate black leader Bishop
Abel MuzorewaBishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia from the Internal Settlement to the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979...
won in the 1979 elections. After Robert Mugabe took power, the force followed an official policy of "Africanisation", in which senior white officers were retired and their positions filled by black officers.
The rank structure was unique, black policemen (known colloquially as 'Mapolisa') were Constables, Sergeants, Senior Sergeants, Sergeants Major, and Sub Inspectors.
The Caucasian police (known colloquially as 'Majoni') ranks began at Patrol Officer (Single gold bar on each shoulder), proceeding to Senior patrol officer (Two gold bars), Section Officer (Three gold bars), and thereafter to Inspector, Chief Inspector and commissioned ranks etc as per UK police rank structures. There was also a training depot rank designation of Staff Lance Section Officer (also denoted by Three gold bars).
White officers were assigned separate mess facilities to the black police, and were obliged to employ indigenous civilian 'batmen', whom the white officers -not the government- paid. The batmen were skilled at the presentation and maintenance of several police uniform 'dress orders' worn throughout any given day, all of which were expected to be immaculate at all times.
The responsibilities of these Caucasian police officers, once trained, were broadly the same as those of UK police officers. Black officers engaged in operational police work worked alongside their white colleagues on investigations and patrols, necessarily acting as interpreters with the indigenous population, as well as patrolling alone and conducting their own crime investigations or as otherwise directed. Black "ground coverage" officers acted as undercover plain clothes intelligence gatherers in both rural and urban areas.
The British South Africa Police was renamed the
Zimbabwe Republic PoliceThe Zimbabwe Republic Police is the national police force of Zimbabwe, known until July 1980 as the British South Africa Police. -Structure:...
in July 1980 following the installation of
Robert MugabeRobert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
as
Prime MinisterA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
of
ZimbabweZimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
.
External links