SMITH’S RHODESIA AND MUGABE’S ZIMBABWE BY NIGEL JACKSON

     In 1964, when I was working as an inexperienced D-grade reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, I made the acquaintance of a newcomer named John McFlinn, who had just been appointed a courts reporter. He was a lonely and sad-looking middle-aged man for whom I soon felt sympathy, after hearing his personal story. Originally a New Zealand journalist, he had recently spent ten years, he told me, on the staff of a Southern Rhodesian newspaper, but had resigned and returned to his native land because his wife, suffering from terminal cancer, had wished to die among her relatives. After her death, he had come to Sydney to try to start a new life. It was thanks to John that I first became interested in Southern Rhodesia, which was already, a year and a half before the Unilateral Declaration of Independence that created Rhodesia, a ‘hot’ topic in our newspapers.

     I remember well having a drink somewhere with him and asking him about the emerging Rhodesia Front party and its espousal of full independence from Britain. Speaking of its then leader (I can’t recall whether this was Winston Field or Ian Smith), John told me that he had met him personally as well as watching him in his public activities. ‘He is as trustworthy a man as I have ever met,’ he said. From that time on, partly because of my Anglophile perspective, I became a supporter of the Rhodesian independence project, and began to read widely on the subject.

     UDI happened on 11th November 1965. At that time I was teaching at Golden Square High School, a government secondary school near Bendigo in Victoria. To each of my classes that day I pointed out an interesting fact that, while the morning papers were filled with denunciations of UDI by local and foreign politicians and celebrities, one could not actually read the full text of it for oneself in any of these papers. It was already apparent to me that there was immense hostility to Rhodesia behind the scenes and that it was going to be hard for the public to penetrate to the truth of the situation.

     Opponents of Rhodesian independence presented the matter as a simple and obvious case of racial injustice – a small white minority, living selfishly off the fat of the land, holding subject the large African majority. For these people, both the ‘true believers’ (who were prejudiced and idealistic fools) and the ruthless political manipulators, the controversy was defined as a noble crusade against racism. I, however, viewed it as a wicked and hypocritical assault on a small group of fellow-Britons whose genuinely enlightened and fair-minded rule of their nation was in the real interest of almost all Rhodesians, of whatever ethnicity. I felt nothing but contempt for Harold Wilson and his Labor government in Britain when the affair was handed over to the jurisdiction of the United Nations Organisation, whose duplicity in African affairs had already been fully reported by Prince Michael Sturdza, strong anti-communist and former foreign minister for Rumania, in his 1963 pamphlet World Government and International Assassination, published by American Opinion.

     In Melbourne, immediately after UDI, I met the man first appointed by the Rhodesian Government to represent it, unofficially, in Australia. To my amazement, early in our brief talk, he faced away from me towards the window and spouted out some terrible racial tirade about ‘keeping the blacks down’ and ‘using an iron hand.’ I did not know whether he was serious or fooling in order to test me out. However, I instantly distrusted him, as I knew enough about Rhodesia to know his views would have been anathema to Smith and his colleagues. However, this man was very soon sacked and replaced by the elderly T. P. Cresswell-George, a thorough gentleman of reasonable and moderate views.

     From then on, as a member of the Rhodesia-Australia Friendship Association run by ex-South African Grace Alexander, a most charming lady of the old school, I kept in touch with Rhodesia’s Australian representatives, while endeavouring to publicise the fledgling nation’s case in articles and letters to the press. The Age was particularly generous in publishing my letters, but in its anti-Rhodesia editorials took virtually no notice of my arguments at all. Cresswell-George was eventually followed by Keith Chalmers (a born diplomat of ineffable charm) as Rhodesian Information Officer and later by Roy van der Spuy, a tough-minded man who took the helm as the Rhodesian cause was gradually failing. I remember talking to him one time and saying that, in my opinion, the moment the very dubious Spinola coup occurred in Portugal in 1974, thus toppling the post-Salazar traditionalist leader Marcello Caetano, the countries of Southern Africa, led by South Africa, should have placed themselves on a war footing, garrisoned Angola and Mozambique and declared their determination to resist any bogus ‘African revolution’, such as could only succeed with foreign aid and manpower. Van der Spuy looked at me sadly, for by then it was too late. I have always wondered whether my proposal was realistic or not, and what he thought of it.

     One of the striking aspects of my thirteen year struggle to aid Rhodesia, was trying to counter the idealistic folly of many fellow-Christians in supporting the campaign to ‘bring Smith down’. Now I observe the same sort of stupidity among Christians supporting ‘constitutional recognition’ for our Aboriginals and Torres Straits Islanders, once again led by various church leaders. The danger to the welfare of Australians generally of this thoroughly unjustifiable campaign is simply ignored, amidst various outbursts of emotional special pleading. It does not seem to occur to these bleeding hearts that separatist moves of any kind, such as that recently promoted by the Uluru Statement from the Heart, could easily lead to the partition of Australia, this in turn leading to a build-up of Chinese communist influence in the newly constituted Aboriginal nation, such as has now occurred in Zimbabwe.

     Why bring all this back to mind? It is because the 39 year-long tyranny of Robert Mugabe has come to an end. It has all turned out exactly as we defenders of Rhodesia predicted. We knew in the mid-seventies that Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo and other self-appointed African leaders and ‘freedom fighters’ were really communist-supported thugs whose cruel and ruthless treatment of fellow-Africans who opposed them gave clear warning of what sort of misrule would occur if they ever got control of the nation.

     Under Mugabe not only many whites but large numbers of blacks were treated abominably; yet there was no worldwide campaign, backed by the UNO, to free them from the new tyranny. That is surely one of the signs that the anti-Smith campaign was never genuine, but was motivated by interests and policies undeclared at the time, and perhaps still unacknowledged, because they could never have gained the widespread public support needed to carry out the execution of Rhodesia.

     We now know that the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa at that time contained traitors in high places white-anting their efforts to protect their European-led political orders. Some of these persons had no doubt been suborned by powerful financial interests outside the region; others were perhaps simply left-wing or Marxist fanatics.

     Mugabe has gone. It may be long, however, before any political order rises up in Zimbabwe as equitable and honourable as that under Ian Smith. In the meantime it is to be hoped that some brave and gifted historian will undertake the massive task of journalistic research that is necessary to uncover what the full truth is about the tragedy of Rhodesia (and South Africa and the Portuguese overseas provinces of Mozambique and Angola).

Nigel Jackson is a Melbourne writer