The Royal African Society

The Terror Fighters: A Profile of Guerilla Warfare in Southern Africa by A. J. VenterReview by: J. P. MurrayAfrican Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 274 (Jan., 1970), p. 82Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/720193 .

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82 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

wondered whether a nation born through blood and fire might not be better fitted for nationhood than many of the existing African states which appear to have lost their sense of direction and purpose. The political achievements of Africa's arm-chair generals might, to date, cause some hesitancy over such a point of view. On the other hand a people whose aspirations have risen so high and yet been so consistently suppressed that they resort to arms, may well evolve a far stronger political tradition than that found in the hastily decolonized nations whose ideo- logical development never got much beyond freedom.

Both these books are in the best tradition of Penguin Specials, written from a clear, committed, point of view. They will be read by all concerned with the future of Africa and will help shed new light on areas and problems of which many are dangerously ignorant. In particular they will be read in Portugal, and may help to bring to that country a greater, and hopefully more tolerant, understanding of the peoples for whom she remains responsible.

In the third book Ronald Chilcote has published a list of over a thousand articles, pamphlets and broadsheets relating to nationalism in Lusophone Africa during the early 1960s. Angola apparently produced the most prolific nationalist writers, but all five territories are included. Reference to some UN material has been appended, but nothing is given on the Portuguese side.

School of Oriental and African Studies, DAVID BIRMINGHAM

University of London

The Terror Fighters : a profile of guerilla warfare in Southern Africa, by A. J. Venter. Purnell, 1969. 152pp. R.3.75.

This book is well printed and well illustrated, but more a report from a man on the spot than a considered assessment of the situation in Portuguese West Africa. It contains a map in the fly leaf which unfortunately does not show many of the places mentioned in the text, the main roads, all the railways, nor does it indicate the physical features of the country, forest, mountain or savanna, which so alter the nature of the fighting on the different fronts.

The Portuguese provided the author with facilities, so their various opponents are ' terrorists '. To the Portuguese soldier the war is a ' bagful of tricks '-it is not really a war, it is a ' lethal game '. The other chaps are ' a bunch of clowns ' who set up trip wires and booby traps all over the place. From a Christian point of view they have to be offered the hand of friendship-there is no point in killing everyone who has ever opposed you. Another soldier interviewed thought it was a war for survival and that without Africa, Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium would be at the mercy of America, apparently a fate worse than death and some of the deaths described are very unpleasant.

The author does not moralize, perhaps because his message is clear enough in Cape Town. However since it is said that the war is likely to last for 30 years, it might be worth while to ask whether it will be worth the cost. If the frontier can be held till the end of the century will the tide of African nationalism have started to ebb ? The Portuguese have, presumably, reconciled themselves to the loss of Brazil and might survive without Angola. Should they look upon themselves as the champions of Christendom or are they really more like that lean and foolish knight, travelling in vain up a straggling road across a weary land, tilting at wind- mills and hurting himself most in the process ? This book is not concerned with the wider issues, but paints a vivid picture of the fighting in Angola from the point of view of the Portuguese conscript.

London J. P. MURRAY

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