Insurgency
On 3 April 1977 Walls announced the government would launch a campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of Zimbabwe's black citizens.
In May 1977 Walls received reports of ZANLA forces massing in the city of Mapai in Gaza Province, Mozambique. Prime Minister Smith gave Walls permission to take out the base. Walls told the media the Rhodesian forces were changing tactics from contain and hold to search and destroy, "adopting hot pursuit when necessary." On 30 May 1977, five hundred troops passed the border and travelled 60 miles to Mapai, engaging the enemy with air cover from the Rhodesian Air Force and paratroopers in C-47 Dakotas. The Rhodesian government said the military killed 32 ZANLA fighters and lost one Rhodesian pilot. The Mozambican government disputed the number of casualties, saying it shot down three Rhodesian planes and a helicopter and took several troops prisoner, all of which Minister of Combined Operations Roger Hawkins denied.
Walls announced a day later that the Rhodesian military would occupy the city until they had eliminated ZANLA's presence. Kurt Waldheim, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, condemned the incident on 1 June and Rhodesian forces withdrew. The American, British and Russian governments also condemned the raid.
Walls said in September 1978 that there is "no single day of the year when we are not operating beyond our borders."
On 4 November 1978 Walls said 2,000 Patriotic Front militants had been persuaded to defect and fight for the Rhodesian Security Forces. In reality only 50 militants defected.
ZIPRA militants shot down The Umniati, a Vickers Viscount airplane, with a SAM-7 missile on 12 February 1979 in an attempt to assassinate Walls. The missile killed all 59 passengers, including Lieutenant Spike Powell. Walls and his wife were aboard a second Viscount which took off 15 minutes later, landing safely in Salisbury. ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo said Walls was responsible for the passengers' deaths because he is the "biggest military target." The Smith administration responded to the attack by bombing ZIPRA bases in Luso, Angola and Zambia.
The Rhodesian government offered amnesty to all militants on 18 March 1979, printing and distributing 1.5 million leaflets entitled "TO ALL ZIPRA FORCES." The leaflets were signed by Prime Minister Ian Smith, the ZANU founder Ndabaningi Sithole, United African National Council leader Abel Muzorewa, Chief Jeremiah Chirau and Walls. Militants who defected were given clothing, food, suffrage, and medical care. In April 1979 Walls ordered the Selous Scouts to train, organize, and support militants who defected to the Rhodesian government as part of Operation Favour.
The Rhodesian government began negotiating a ceasefire with ZANU and ZAPU on 23 November 1979. After one of the negotiating sessions Walls called the militants' request for status equal to the Rhodesian soldiers as "nonsense... If anybody shoots at us we will stop them from shooting any more." Patriotic Front spokesman Edson Zvobgo replied that "we are legal forces, we have equal status" and threatened "severe retribution" for those who would deny the militants equal status.
Read more about this topic: Peter Walls