A Natural Wonder
The Zambezi River
The Victoria Falls
Formation of the Victoria Falls
People of the Victoria Falls
Enter the Ndebele
Discovery of the Victoria Falls
In Livingstone's Footsteps
Development of the Railway
To the Banks of the Zambezi
Development of the Falls
To The Congo
Development of Tourism
Development of Victoria Falls Town
Recent History
Further Information
Collectables

    
Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

To The Victoria Falls

Development of the Victoria Falls



Seventies Struggles

Following the declaration of independence life in white-ruled Rhodesia initially carried on much as before, despite being unrecognised on the international stage and the imposition of trading sanctions. But with the ruling white population representing less than ten percent of the national total, however, the call for majority black rule was steadily gaining momentum. In an effort to establish international recognition Rhodesia broke its last ties to Britain and declared itself a republic on 2nd March 1970, yet still found itself in international limbo.

Political relationships between independent Zambia and white-controlled Rhodesia deteriorated and the Bridge was frequently closed to goods and passenger services. In 1969 the passenger service over the Bridge was indefinitely suspended, with Rhodesian trains terminating at the Falls.

Two main exiled independence groups rose to prominence in the struggle against Ian Smith's government. The Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) led by Robert Mugabe, operated largely from Mozambique and supported by the Mashona tribes in the eastern and central areas of the country. The Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo, was active in the north and west, using bases in Zambia and Botswana, and supported mainly by the Ndebele in the western half of the country.

The early 1970s saw an escalation in the struggle, with ZIPRA independence fighters based in Zambia launching strategic incursions and attacks against communication and infrastructure targets on the southern side of the river. On the night of the 16th January 1970 the Police Camp and Sprayview Hotel were attacked and shots were also fired at the Victoria Falls Airport buildings. During the subsequent operation to capture the insurgents the railway line south of Victoria Falls was blown up. Land mine incidents and train derailments followed over the subsequent months as the conflict intensified. The following year, on 3rd August 1971, a train was derailed on the line to the Falls.

Eventually, on 9th January 1973, Smith announced the closure of border posts with Zambia, including Victoria Falls, until he received satisfactory assurances from the Zambian Government that it would no longer permit terrorists to operate and launch attacks against Rhodesia from within its territory. In response Zambia closed their side of the border with Rhodesia on 1st February 1973. The river border remained tense, with the Falls Bridge again closely watched from observation bunkers.

In May 1973 a tragic incident occurred resulting in the death of two Canadian tourists. Whilst exploring the gorges below the Power Station with friends Marjan Iduna Drijber and Christine Louise Sinclair were shot and killed by rifle fire from the north ban. Tourism collapsed on both sides of the river, with national tourism arrivals to Rhodesia decreasing to 250,000 in 1975.

Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith at the Victoria Falls

Despite the official closure of the border, freight was still transported over the Falls Bridge. A Rhodesian engine would reverse a string of coal or grain trucks out on to the middle of the Bridge, and a Zambian engine would back-up onto the Bridge and pull them into Zambia, and vice-versa, several times a day. The closure of the border had significant impacts on tourism, cutting off the south bank from the services provided in Livingstone and further stimulating the growth of the small town on the south bank.

“Little further development took place until the mid 1960’s when major political changes caused significant growth in the village. Until this time, the residents of Victoria Falls were primarily railway or government employees with a few individuals involved in tourism. Financial, commercial and social services for the village were provided by Livingstone. Moreover, a large proportion of the visitors to the Falls arrived via the international airport at Livingstone and the majority of the tourist facilities were provided there. With the closure of the border between Rhodesia and Zambia, Victoria Falls was forced to become self-sufficient and also to provide a far wider ranger of tourist facilities if the tourist market was not to be lost to Zambia.” (Heath, 1977)

In 1973 the town was estimated to cover 310 hectares (PlanAfric, 2001). Heath records the population of Victoria Falls Town in the mid-seventies at around 3,000, and highlighted the increasing tourism pressures during the 1970s.

“The rapid growth of Victoria Falls during the last decade has caused considerable planning problems. It is of paramount importance that the immediate vicinity of the Falls should be altered as little as possible if its natural qualities are to be preserved. Conservation needs, however, may conflict with the need to provide facilities for tourists and in recent years there has been a proliferation of tourist services along the river bank upstream from the Falls.” (Heath, 1977)

Elephant Hills Country Club

The Elephant Hills Country Club was opened in 1974, located a short distance upstream of the Falls on the site known as Dale’s Kopje. The development included a golf course designed by South African golfer Gary Player and opened in 1975.

The course became known among golfers as ‘more like a wildlife reserve than a golf course,’ famed for its wildlife hazards - including interruptions by elephant, hippopotami and ball-stealing baboons - and giving rise to some rather curious local rule variations. Charlie the crocodile was well known for leaving his water-hazard home on the eighth hole to roam the fairways. The club rules clarified that ‘a ball striking or deflected by a wild animal may be replayed from as near as possible to the spot from which the original ball was played.’

Bridge Over Troubled Water

On 25th August 1975 the Bridge was the site of unsuccessful peace talks, known as the 1975 Constitutional Conference. The talks, lasting nine and a half hours, took place aboard a South African Railways coach from the ‘White Train,’ used in the 1947 Royal Tour, positioned across the middle of the Bridge.

Supervised by South African Prime Minister Vorster, the tense negotiations included Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, and representatives of the African National Council, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. The Rhodesian delegation sat on their side of the coach whilst nationalist representatives sat on the Zambian side. One account records the staff were apparently rather too liberal with the bar service and two members became intoxicated and disruptive, helping talks to continue throughout the day. The talks failed to reconcile the representatives divergent viewpoints and the independence war gained intensity.

The Rhodesian flag flies on the courtyard of the Victoria Falls Hotel, August 1975.

Lines of Attack

On 6th October 1976 independence fighters targeted the railway bridge over the Matetsi River, 30 miles (48 km) south of the Victoria Falls, with a mine detonating as a freight train passed over the bridge. The damage to the bridge temporarily cut the railway to the Victoria Falls and beyond, but after only five days repairs had been affected and the line reopened. A few months later, in early December, it was reported that the bridge had been targeted for a second time (New York Times, December 1979).

On 12th December 1976 a passenger train travelling south of Victoria Falls detonated a landmine. The locomotive and four passenger coaches were lifted from the track but did not overturn and no serious injuries were sustained. The passenger service to the Falls was subsequently suspended until after the war.

Armoured Rail Cars, Victoria Falls.

Motel Attacked

In November 1976 insurgents directly targeted tourism at the town with an armed attack on the Peters Motel in which one person died.

“African guerillas armed with grenades and automatic weapons attacked a motel at Victoria Falls late last night, killing one person and wounding two others, a spokesman for the Peters Motel said today... Between 20 and 30 guests were staying at the motel at the time of the raid, the spokesman said. Victoria Falls, just across the border from Zambia, is a favourite holiday resort for Rhodesians, many of whom flocked there this weekend for a golf tournament. Rhodesian security forces have organised a search for the commandos.” (The Canberra Times, November 1976)

Elephant Hills Burns

The original Elephant Hills was destroyed by a fire caused by a SAM 7 heat-seeking missile launched from Zambia on 2nd November 1977. Apparently fired at a Rhodesia United Air Carriers light tourist aircraft which was circulating above the Falls, it missed its target and by chance landed on the thatched roof of the Hotel. The explosion was reportedly heard as far away as the Falls Airport.

“It was the day after the conclusion of the Elephant Hills Golf Classic, and the luxury hotel, full to capacity the day before, was ‘recuperating’ from the excitement of the famous golfing tournament, and all the local and international celebrities that it always attracted.”
“The guests had all left the evening before, on the daily Air Rhodesia flight back to Salisbury, and the hotel was empty, apart from hotel staff busy cleaning and preparing for the next expected influx of guests.
“The terrorist rocket, fired at the hotel from Zambia, hit the top floor Gary Player Suite, vacated just the evening before by Commander, Combined Operations, Lt General Peter Walls, a guest of the golfing classic.
“The missile, attracted by the heat of the air-conditioning unit, caused extensive damage, and an uncontrollable fire soon raged throughout the building with staff running in and out of the stricken hotel trying to retrieve prized furnishings and equipment. There was no fire brigade in the Victoria Falls village, and the nearest fire engine was at the Airport, some 13 kms away. Used only for the occasional slow run along the runway, the fire engine now raced at top speed along the main road from the airport to the hotel. The first problem encountered was to find that the electricity to the hotel had been switched off in the village, presumably as a precaution, and the fire engine was unable to pump water; it was quickly decided to pump water from the swimming pool and it was then that the fire engine, overheating from its rush to the scene, seized with a loud bang! Everyone on the scene then had to help manually pump water from the pool.
“The hotel was destroyed, and remained a shell for the next five or six years, with only a squash court and a bar still operating.” (Moore, 2012)

Elephant Hills Burns

Luckily there were no casualties, but the Hotel was completely gutted by the fire. The passengers from the light aircraft apparently took it all in their stride. One, a Mr Lief Bjorseth, was reported as saying “It’s not every day you get shot at - I got something extra for my money”! (Teede & Teede, 1991)

Hotel Hit

By 1977 hotels and campsites were closing in the face of security concerns, including the Rainbow Hotel, mothballed until more favourable tourism conditions returned. Upstream of the Falls the Zambezi Camp was closed and access to the town controlled as a cordon of security surrounded the tourism resort.

On 19th December 1977 several people were wounded when the town and Hotel came under mortar attack from the northern bank.

“Eight civilians were wounded when the Victoria Falls resort was shelled from neighbouring Zambia, the military command reported yesterday, according to Associated Press... In the 25-minute shelling a popular tourist hotel, the Victoria Falls, was damaged. A military communiqué later said one person was seriously hurt. The rest suffered minor injuries. The command did not say whether the injured were Rhodesians or foreign tourists. Rhodesian troops based at’ the falls fired back across the Zambezi River dividing the two countries. ‘The attacking positions were silenced,’ the communiqué said. Several mortar shells exploded in the town of 4,500 people as foreign and local tourists were dining or gambling at the casino, residents said.” (The Canberra Times, December 1977)

Emergency Procedures

With the ongoing independence struggle and closure of the border Victoria Falls was the scene of much military activity, and the cause of much concern for the managers of Falls Hotel.

“There was no particular reason to suspect that there might be an attack on the hotel as the Victoria Falls area was a hive of Security Force activity from the outset, although precautions were taken after the destruction of the Elephant Hills. Care had always to be taken not to alarm guests, nor to scare off would-be visitors, and after a failed mortar attack on the Victoria Falls area, with one off target shell narrowly missing the laundry outbuilding, causing slight damage, it was decided to warn guests by sticking notices onto their bathroom mirrors. The hotel quickly found that the stickers were being removed by guests as souvenirs, and new stocks had to be constantly reprinted!” (Moore, 2012)

Emergency Notice

In the early 1970s tourist arrivals to the country hovered at around 340,000 per annum. By 1979 there were only 79,000 - the lowest total since 1963. Over sixty percent of the Hotel’s guests came from South Africa, as international arrivals evaporated.

“Tourism was badly affected by the war and the country’s hotels survived only because of support from Government in the form of subsidies and subsidised travel by local and international visitors. To help the battered tourism sector, the national airline and hotel groups introduced the Super Six scheme, in which guests went on air and road packages for up to six nights at significantly discounted prices. The scheme met with reasonable success and the number of visitors to hotels, including the Victoria Falls Hotel, was remarkable given the overall situation in the country.” (Creewel, 2004)

Minefield Menace

In order to try and prevent insurgents entering the country along its vast borders with neighbouring Zambia and Mozambique, Rhodesian Security Forces resorted to the establishment of a protective ‘cordon sanitaire,’ consisting of a 25m wide strip of land, bordered with barbed wire fences on either side and containing three rows of anti-personnel land mines, running along extensive sections of its borders. At the Victoria Falls the whole town was enclosed within a surrounding ‘cordon sanitaire,’ which then ran downstream 220 kilometres along the gorges to Mlibizi, and containing one of the highest densities of mines in the world, with over 788,000 mines identified during clearance operations (I.C.B.L, 2009).

The minefields would continue to pose a serious threat to people and wildlife for decades after the war. It would take until 2015 before the vast majority of these minefields would be cleared, with the removal of over 50,000 land mines (Victoria Falls Bits and Blogs, June 2015).

In the latter stages of the decade Joshua Nkomo's Z.I.P.R.A. forces, with Russian backing, were actively planning and preparing fighters in Zambia with the intent of launching a major invasion across the Zambezi. Soviet Union President Nikolai Podgorny had even visited Livingstone and the Falls in March 1977, looking across to Rhodesia and “the border between freedom and slavery that divides today's Africa” (New York Times, March 1977).

To prevent independence forces crossing the Falls Bridge the road surface was removed in late 1978 and the Bridge set with explosives, ready to blow a critical section should it be necessary (Burrett and Murray, 2013).

Bridge with road surface removed.

By 1979 the estimated number of insurgents operating inside Rhodesia totalled at least 12,500 and it was evident that insurgents were entering the country at a faster rate than the Rhodesian security forces could hope to contain or counteract.

Zambia Isolated

In April 1979 Rhodesian forces bombed the Kazungula ferry, Zambia's only link with Botswana, and a vital transport connection for freight imports. The subsequent cutting Zambia's rail route to the east coast, with the destruction of bridges on the Tazara Railway in October 1979, left land-locked Zambia entirely dependent on the Victoria Falls Bridge as the last transport route into the country.

In early November Rhodesia announced that it was blocking crucial maize supplies into Zambia as a result of continuing incursions by independence fighters. Zambia, already suffering a national maize shortfall, now faced the spectre of widespread food shortages before the end of the year. Prior to the announcement three train loads of South African maize were being imported across the Victoria Falls Bridge into Zambia every day (The Canberra Times, November 1979).

Road to Peace

After the failure of a national power-sharing agreement, negotiated with moderate independence groups in 1978 but unrecognised by the two main exiled liberation groups, the British government invited all parties to peace talks in London. After fourteen weeks of talks, and with Rhodesia and Zambia on the brink of full scale war, the Lancaster House Agreement was finally signed on 21st December 1979.

International economic sanctions were lifted in late 1979 and the country reverted to temporary British rule until elections could be held. Lord Soames was appointed by the British government as Governor-Designate, arriving in Salisbury on 12th December. On 21st December 1979 a cease-fire was finally announced.

The Falls Bridge reopened to rail traffic and in the last week of December 1979 a team of workmen restored the road surface.

Dividing the Park

Under the Parks and Wildlife Act (1975), and following a 1972 Land Tenure (Description of Boundaries) Notice (Rhodesia Government Notice No.1051 of 1972), the Victoria Falls National Park was subdivided into two sections (covering a total of 56,300 hectares), separated by an extended development zone surrounding the growing town.

In 1979 the larger upstream section was renamed the Zambezi National Park, leaving the smaller Victoria Falls National Park surrounding the Falls and its immediate surrounds. The core visitor area Victoria Falls National Park, surrounding the Falls Rainforest, was fenced during this period and entry fees introduced. The visitor park has approximately 3.5 km of concrete pathways with 16 official viewpoints.

Next page: Adrenalin Captial

References

Burrett, R. and Murray, G. (2013) ‘Iron Spine and Ribs’ A brief history of the foundations of the railways of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Bulawayo.

Creewel, J. (2004) A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel - 100 years 1904-2004. [Edited and updated by Stan Higgins. Originally published in 1994 as ‘A history of the Victoria Falls Hotel - 90 Glorious Years 1904-1994.’]

Flight International Magazine (Feb 1979) World news. 24 February, 1979, p.514.

Heath R A (1977) Victoria Falls. The Growth of a Rhodesian Village Proceedings of the Geographical Association of Rhodesia 10:15-29

I.C.B.L, (2009) Landmine Monitor Report 2009, Special Ten-Year Review. International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

Moore, J. (2012) Hotels at War.

New York Times (March 1977) Podgorny Peers Into Rhodesia and Predicts ‘Freedom’ for the Blacks. 28th March.

Teede, J & Teede, F (1991) The Zambezi: River of the Gods

The Canberra Times (November 1976) Attack on Motel. Monday 1st November.

The Canberra Times (December 1977) 8 people wounded in shelling. Tuesday 20th December.

Victoria Falls Bits and Blogs (June 2015) Zim struggling to clear landmines 35 years after independence. 19 June 2015..

Further Reading

Roberts, P. (2021) Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls. Zambezi Book Company.

Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls


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Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

'To The Victoria Falls' aims to bring you the wonder of the Victoria Falls through a look at its natural and human history.

This website has been developed using information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually, although many key references are identified on our References page. Many of the images contained in this website have been sourced from old photographic postcards and publications and no infringement of copyright is intended. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website.

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