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Consider the warnings of Ian Smith:Smith, the white prime minister of Rhodesia who engineered the country's unilateral independence from Britain in 1965 and led resistance to the black majority until Zimbabwe was born of post-civil war negotiations in 1979, has written an unrepentant, heavily detailed account of his leadership. He proceeds from the posture that the black majority, significantly rooted in traditional culture, should be "gradually" brought up to "standards of Western civilization."Perspective from a Supporter of Ian Smith:If you are British or American you will need a strong stomach to read The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith. Indeed you may well want to throw-up at the political chicanery and cowardice of your politicians and diplomats. One examaple is the attitudes of Lords Carrington and Soames. During the 1980 Zimbabwe-Rhodesia election, Ian Smith, (former Rhodesian PM, 1964-79) reminded Soames, the British Governor responsible for overseeing fair play, that the Lancaster House agreement was being breached by massive political intimidation by ZANU(PF) forces. Soames conceded that he had received over 1000 affidavits, many endorsed by British observers who had witnessed Mugabe's comrades distinctive campaigning style-with the point of a gun!
When Smith, who had handed government over to Bishop Abel Muzorewa in mid-1979, reminded Soames to do his duty and disqualify the gangsters from participating in the poll, Soames pathetically replied that Carrington ( foreign secretary in Thatcher's new Tory government) advised that such a course would be unacceptable to the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) and that "the principles and standards on which you and I were brought up to believe in, are no longer part of this world." One could add, probably because certain British 'gentlemen' see no further need to stand up for such values!Who was the best judge about Mugabe's character and intentions to provide for a stable political and economic future for all Zimbaweans: Ian Smith or Michael Auret?
When you add the craveness of virtually every senior British politician from MacMillan onwards, plus the duplicity of the South African government under Vorster, and the incompetent Carter Administration in the US, you have a sorry history of the decline of western values, something that has endured for the latter 40 years of the 20th century.
Ian Smith has written superb memoirs and his 1997 warnings in this book ( and also to this reviewer, via the phone in early Jan.1998 ) over Mugabe's politicisation of farm land is now even more apparent as the Zimbabwe gangster engages in his 'ethnic cleansing' against white farmers as a sordid distraction to his his 20 year rule of disaster and destruction.
Of course those western liberals who were so distressed about the political and social life of Rhodesia, under Smith, remain strangely mute over the real atrocities of Mugabe, preferring, like those who preceded the Good Samaritan, to pass by on the other side to another 'politically correct' crusade.
Whatever faults Smith had pales into insignificance besides his detractors and the hoodlums and nitwits running Zimbabwe today.
'Why were we so wrong on Mugabe?' asks Zimbabwe activist
Trevor Grundy, Ecumenical News International
17 December 2009
 Auret with John Paul II in March 1979. Centre is Bishop Tobias Chiginya of Gwelo who visited the Vatican with Auret on the eve of Zimbabwe's independence. Picture: Courtesy: Mike Auret. |
London (ENI). A Roman Catholic human rights activist who denounced the atrocities of white minority rule in the country then called Rhodesia, has charted what he describes as the "descent to tyranny" of Zimbabwe's post-independence ruler Robert Mugabe.
For more than 20 years until 1999, Mike Auret worked for Zimbabwe's Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, set up by the country's Catholic bishops.
 From Liberator to Dictator: An Insider's Account of Robert Mugabe's Descent into Tyranny; By Michael Auret |
In his new book, "From Liberator to Dictator: An Insider's Account of Robert Mugabe's Descent into Tyranny", Auret records how he met Mugabe several times and was captivated by the man's intelligence and apparent sincerity.
"My admiration for him grew with each contact and in the months ahead I found myself putting him on a pedestal - a position from which I found it most difficult to displace him in the years that followed, despite everything that happened," said Auret.
But Auret was shattered when he discovered what happened in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions of Zimbabwe between 1983 and 1987. More than 20 000 men, women and children accused of being "dissidents" were killed to wipe out the power base of Mugabe's main rival in the liberation struggle, Joshua Nkomo. Almost all of those killed were Ndebeles, members of Nkomo's ethnic group.
They were killed by a North Korean trained branch of the military called the Fifth Brigade. Its members were Shona, who belonged to Mugabe's ethnic group.
Zimbabwe's 11.4 million population is divided roughly into two main "tribal" groups, the Shonas (80 percent) and the Ndebeles (nearly 18 percent).
"Part of the reason for writing this book was for me to try to gain some understanding of how so many of us so gravely misconstrued the situation in Zimbabwe once independence had been achieved," writes Auret. "How was it possible that so serious an error of judgement could have been made by so many people, in the world, not only in Zimbabwe?"
The son of white settlers, Auret had a career in Africa that spanned the heyday of white rule in the 1950s to Zimbabwe's political and economic chaos at the beginning of the 21st century. He joined the army in 1956 but resigned after Ian Smith declared Southern Rhodesia's illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in November 1965.
Auret joined the CCJP in the 1970s and was active in investigating atrocities committed by the Rhodesian army, an offshoot of the force in which he was once an officer. He left the country in 1979 to avoid being conscripted, and went to Britain with his wife Diana only to return home after independence in 1980, when Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe.
In his book, Auret recalls how he was among those who were moved by Mugabe's statements of the need for "reconciliation" after seven years of war from 1972 to 1979 which had led to 30 000 deaths.
"Everything he said impressed me tremendously. As he spoke I experienced a growing respect for him, for his intellect and his humanity … I was impressed by his sincerity and by what he seemed to be an obvious respect for the Church," Auret writes.
However, "In the second decade, disillusionment began and the drive for development became a drive for democracy and the protection of human rights … I remembered the reasonable man and wondered if he had changed or if indeed he had always been so evil, but simply more adept at hiding it."
Auret resigned as the justice group's director in 1999, when the Catholic Church refused to publish a report drawn up by the commission and the Legal Resources Foundation, a human rights group, into the atrocities committed by the Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland.
He was then elected as a member of parliament from Harare for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, but left Zimbabwe after he resigned his seat in 2003.
Auret presently lives in Ireland but maintains close contact with Zimbabwean exiles.
© 1994 - 2010 Ecumenical News International.
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Zimbabwe Farm Invasions Continue Amid Fears of Military Deployment
Alex Bell, All Africa
5 January 2010
Farm attacks are continuing this New Year, amid very real fears that the military is being deployed on properties across the country in an effort to complete Robert Mugabe's so called land 'reform' programme.
This weekend, a militia led onslaught on commercial farms in Rusape saw a local farming family come under siege, with two people being assaulted by a mob of land invaders. Rudolf du Toit and his South African wife were both physically attacked on Sunday after almost two days of threats and intimidation by a mob on their farm in Rusape. The couple are now recovering from their ordeal and are still on their land after the intervention of South African Ambassador Mlungisi Makalima. Makalima apparently managed to stabilise the situation after pleas from Mrs du Toit for his assistance.
This most recent incident in Rusape has followed a number of similar attacks in the area. Last week, farmer Gavin Woest was evicted from his property by a gang working for former lands Minister Didymus Mutasa. According to the President of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), Deon Theron, Mutasa tried to force Woest to sign an illegal contract to hand over 20% of his tobacco crop from last year, and a further 20% of the coming year's crop. But Woest refused to sign and found himself driven off his land. It is known that Mutasa already owns more than ten farms in the area, proving once again that the land attacks have little to do with empowerment or reform, and all to do with greed.
The Woest's eviction came mere days after a South African farming family was forced to flee their property on Christmas Eve. Ray Finaughty and his family from Manda Farm, were given three hours to pack up their belongings and flee the property, following days of intimidation and harassment by a gang of suspected youth militia. His farming partner, Richard Harland, who remained on the property with his wife, has faced days of intimidation and threats since then, with thugs barricading the couple in their home. Finaughty meanwhile was awarded a High Court order on Tuesday to safely return to the farm, but there is no guarantee yet that the order will be enough.
Finaughty was one of more than 70 commercial farmers who took the government to the human rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), over the land grab campaign. In 2008 SADC ruled that the land grab was unlawful, and ordered the Mugabe government to ensure the protection of farmers and their rights to their land. But the ruling has been openly flouted, and land invasions, taking place under the guise of so called land 'reform', have intensified this year.
The ongoing land attacks have also left tens of thousands of people unemployed, as farm workers and their families have also been forced to leave the properties along with their employers. The General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union reported last year that more than 60 000 people have been left destitute as a direct result of the land grab initiative in 2009, since the attacks began in earnest last February. The figure adds to the already crippling unemployment rate of more than 94% in the country. But despite this, there has been no effort by either the unity government or by SADC to stop the attacks that are having such far flung implications for the country.
The CFU's Theron on Tuesday voiced widespread fears about military deployment across the country, adding he cannot yet confirm if this is true. But he explained that the possibilities are very real, with Attorney General Johannes Tomana last week echoing previous sentiments vocalised by Robert Mugabe that the military would be used to drive out white farmers. Some media reports have already said that army deployment has been ordered by the Joint Operations Command (JOC), through Tomana. Theron explained that if the government does allow this to happen, "they are openly admitting that they have no control and there is no rule of law in the country."
Theron continued that ZANU PF Mashonaland West land chair person Temba Mliswa has threatened local land beneficiaries in the area with eviction if they lease out their land to white farmers. Mliswa has also ordered war veterans and party militia to resist a proposed land audit in the province until targeted 'shopping' sanctions imposed by the West on ZANU PF officials are lifted. Mliswa was addressing an agriculture meeting, which was attended by war veterans and ZANU PF militia in Karoi on Monday. He told the meeting that "the government must repossess all farms owned by blacks who are leasing them out to former white commercial farmers because it is against the law."
Mliswa is the Vice President of a business lobby group Affirmative Action, which has previously threatened to take over white owned companies to empower blacks. The same group issued threats to international food giant Nestlé last year, when the company ended its commercial relationship with the Gushungo dairy farm owned by Grace Mugabe.
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Mugabe's Recollection about What he Really meant by 'Reconciliation'
CNN (Amanpour) Interviews Mugabe, September 2009:
(Excerpt)
 “The myths and legends which were part of Africans traditional beliefs, were twisted by communism, to turn the traditional African Ancestral believer into a terrorist striving for communist goals. Daneel describes how the myths of the Zimbabwean hunter that killed a giant rhino was transformed into a new hunter that hunted Europeans, not with spears, but an AK 47” “In the process the traditional beliefs were transformed into a method of ethnocultural terror, by the guerrila movements in Southern Africa. The terror was aimed at colonialists, and against white landowners, and particularly white farmers. In the process the Marxist perspective that property owners of land are the enemy, as they are responsible for all the evils of the workers oppression, were impregnated into the traditional belief structure of Africa.” “Normal black people were intimidated by the national liberation movements to support the terrorist organisations, to ‘liberate’ Black Africa. In the process black Africans were also liberated of other things, such as their limbs, lives, ears and lips.” |
AMANPOUR: So do you consider white Zimbabweans to be Zimbabweans?
MUGABE: Those who are naturalized and have citizenship, yes.
AMANPOUR: Those who've been living there for years and years and years?
MUGABE: But historically...
AMANPOUR: Right.
MUGABE: ... historically, they have a debt.
AMANPOUR: The people who -- contributing to farming -- historically they have a debt to pay?
MUGABE: Yes, yes, their land. They -- they occupied the land illegally. They seized the land from our people.
AMANPOUR: Look...
MUGABE: And therefore, the process of reform, land reform, involved their handing -- having to hand over the land. We agreed upon this with the British, by the way.
AMANPOUR: Some 80 percent of that land was acquired after you took office, some of the farmland, and with the very certificates that mean government approval. Why are these people being hounded out of the country? Why are they being...
MUGABE: They are not -- they are not being hounded.
AMANPOUR: ... hounded off their land, then?
MUGABE: No, no, no, they're not being hounded out of the country at all.
AMANPOUR: We've just done reports about it.
MUGABE: Those who are in industry and manufacturing and mining are not being...
AMANPOUR: The farmers I'm talking about. Why is that...
MUGABE: ... are not being affected.
AMANPOUR: ... wonderful farmland and why are they being...
MUGABE: What are you talking about? We are getting land from them, and that's all. They're not being hounded out of the country, not at all.
AMANPOUR: They're being hounded off their land.
MUGABE: (inaudible) their land.
AMANPOUR: It's not theirs?
MUGABE: Our -- our land.
AMANPOUR: Even though they bought it, even though they bought it with the certificates of approval from the government?
MUGABE: But haven't you heard of the Lancaster House discussions and the agreement with the British government? Because they are British settlers; originally they have been British settlers. And we agreed at Lancaster House that there would be land reform.
AMANPOUR: But they're citizens. But they're citizens, aren't they? And isn't this farming disaster contributing to your...
MUGABE: Citizens by colonization, seizing land from the original people, indigenous people of the country.
AMANPOUR: But how did that all go so wrong?
MUGABE: You approve of that?
AMANPOUR: How did that all go so wrong? Because when you came in, you -- it was -- it was about reconciliation.
MUGABE: They knew about it. They knew we had this program of land acquisition and land reform. They knew about it.
AMANPOUR: But what about the blacks, then?
MUGABE: And the British knew about it.
CNN Report: White Farmers Under Attack, In Zimbabwe |
» » [BBC's Reporting of White Farm Murders in SA & Zimbabwe]
» » [Africa for the Africans, exterminating White People from Africa]
» » [“We torched your farm - and we'll come back to eat your children...” ]
» » [Mugabe & the White African (Best Doc. British Ind. Film Awards, Dec 2009)]
» » [The secret race war in South Africa that threatens to overshadow the World Cup]
» » [Farm Attack Off. Inv. Report: Farmers tortured and murdered due to “racial hatred”]
» » [Will ‘Africa for Africans’ Grossly Aggravate return of Slavery.Inc & Tribal Mob Justice?]
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