Open Writing

Some years ago I wrote a fictional story “The Lucky Dress” based on a brief visit to Mombasa and a cocktail party on board a naval frigate moored in Kilindini harbour. The frigate formed part of the succession of warships patrolling the Mozambique Channel during Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, when Rhodesia declared independence from the United Kingdom, although it maintained allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. This gesture of colonial defiance resulted in nearly twelve years of “independence” during which Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith attempted to arrest the over-hasty results of the winds of change blowing through Africa, ultimately intending that suitably qualified blacks would enjoy equal status in running their country, although he anticipated that this might take up to 30 years before it was achieved.

Unsurprisingly, the British government, the Commonwealth and the United Nations condemned the move as illegal, and in an attempt to bring down the Smith government through restricting and eventually stopping oil supplies to Rhodesia, Britain instituted the ‘Beira Patrol’. Designed to prevent tankers from discharging oil at the storage facility at Beira, the nearest port serving landlocked Rhodesia, the oil sanctions and the blockade became a political hot potato which Britain found impossible to bring to a end until Portugal granted Mozambique its independence in 1975, although the fighting and disruption did not end until a year or two later. While UDI only lasted from 1965 to approximately 1978, the repercussions from Smith’s actions and the British government’s response continue to reverberate in Zimbabwe nearly 35 years later.

Strangely, when instituting the blockade, the British government appears to have overlooked the prevailing attitudes of the Nationalist South African government and the neighbouring states, and in consequence oil was brought in by road and rail to Rhodesia on a regular basis. With the efforts of the Beira Patrol being undermined in this way it was eventually acknowledged that the patrol was a futile gesture which ultimately cost the British taxpayer approximately one hundred million pounds and achieved nothing.

During the ten-year period of the Beira blockade, seventy-six Royal Navy ships, supported by a small task-force of ageing Shackelton aircraft patrolled the channel and intercepted a total of forty-seven tankers bound for Beira. Despite the blockade, it was widely acknowledged that although the cost to the Ian Smith government to tranship oil from South Africa and the port of Lourenco Marques [Maputo] was extremely high and was paid in hard currency, Smith’s government and the Rhodesians were almost totally unaffected. Rhodesian industry continued working throughout and oil and petrol were available without restriction.

Patrolling for up to three weeks at a time, the crew of the RN ships suffered from intense boredom and devised pastimes and sporting activities to pass the time and keep their minds occupied. The trophy for these sporting activities was a battered old metal bucket which at the end of each sporting contest was hung triumphantly from the winning ship’s yardarm. Now housed in the Portsmouth Naval Museum it remains as a reminder to crews and naval personnel of those Indian Ocean patrols in the years 1966 to 1971.

Decorated with ships names and crests, the bent and battered Beira Bucket is an unusual reminder of those years in the Mozambique Channel, and has been the subject of a number of fond reunions in the past years. It also features in several collections of photographs, and represents in its very banality the ultimate futility of all political aspirations in Africa.