1.
GV PAN Deserted ZANLA camp at Entumbane after fighting.
0.10

2.
SV & GV Damaged buildings.(4 SHOTS)
0.26

3.
GV TRAVELLING SHOT Civilian houses between ZANLA and ZIPRA camps.
0.35

4.
GV & SVs Damaged civilian houses between camps. (5 SHOTS)
0.53

5.
GV Deserted ZIPRA camp. (2 SHOTS)
1.12

6.
GV Former Rhodesian African Rifles soldiers guarding deserted camp in Entumbane. (3 SHOTS)
1.31




Initials





Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: INTRODUCTION: Local council elections in the Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo, postponed because of factional violence there, are now expected to be held at the end of May. Bulawayo is the main stronghold of minority leader Joshua Nkomo's PF-ZAPU party. A local government minister told newsmen on Tuesday (28 April) that any "reasonable person" would guess that PF-ZAPU would win the election -- a rare acknowledgement of Mr. Nkomo's influence in the city.

SYNOPSIS: In Bulawayo, the camps of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's ZANLA guerrillas and Mr. Nkomo's ZIPRA forces at Entumbane are deserted. Some 360 people were killed in the area during outbreaks of violence of last November and February this year. A five-month curfew on Bulawayo's troubled townships was lifted on April 11.

The elections, which were due to be held last year, are for 15 black councillors to join eight whites who have already been selected. According to a recent opinion poll white residents in a Salisbury constituency have come out against the Rhodesian Front party of former Prime Minister Ian Smith. Three out of four whites interviewed in the capital's Borrowdale suburb called for the dissolution of the party.

The soldiers guarding the camps in Entumbane are from the former Rhodesian African Rifles regiment. They patrol an area where a beer-hall fight in February developed into a full-scale battle between ZIPRA and ZANLA forces. The underlying tensions between these groups have not yet been resolved. Plans to integrate 35,000 guerrillas into the national army have been disrupted since the outbreak of violence. An uneasy calm has existed in Bulawayo since both forces agreed to be re-housed 60 kilometres (40 miles) apart.