103 years ago today in 1919, Ian Douglas Smith was born in Selukwe, a small mining town in Southern Rhodesia.
Ian showed much promise from a young age, becoming the captain of his schools tennis, rugby, and cricket teams. His grades were high enough that he was able to attend Rhodes University College in South Africa, a common practice among young Rhodesians as Rhodesia had no university at the time. When World War II broke out in 1939, as a British colony Rhodesia entered the conflict immediately. At this point Smith was halfway through his university courses when the rush of patriotism hit him. Fascinated by the idea of aerial combat he joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 and was deployed to the No. 237 Squadron RAF in the Middle East. Smith crashed his plane when the throttle malfunctioned during a morning takeoff, he suffered serious facial disfigurement and broke his jaw, leg, and shoulder. Surgeons in Cairo reassembled his face using skin grafts and plastic surgeries, and he was cleared to fly in March 1944.
In a raid over Northern Italy on June 22, 1944, German flak stuck his plane and he was forced to bail out behind German lines. He was hidden by an Italian family and then transferred to Pro-Allied Partisans. He met up with the American advance in November 1944, after trekking over the Maritime Alps. Smith returned to Southern Rhodesia after the war ended and took classes in ploughing, herding, and milking, in preparation for buying a farm of his own. In 1948, he purchased 3600 acres of land near his hometown of Selukwe and began a life of cattle herding, tobacco and maize cultivation.
However this did not last long as Smith was asked to run for parliament by the opposition liberal party which represented farming and mining interests in Rhodesia. Smith, after some hesitation took up their offer and won his seat.
Just like that Smith became the youngest MP in Southern Rhodesian history at the ripe age of 29. As the UK government began to implement majority rule governments in Nyasaland, Smith decided the federation was a hopeless cause and created a new party in 1961, the Rhodesian Front. The Rhodesian Front was made up of men like Smith, advocating gradual reform and a government based on merit, to the more segregationist viewpoint not much different from South Africa’s National Party. These groups were held together by the fear of a fast track universal sufferage reform would lead to a Congo esque national crises. The Election Day was a smashing success for the Rhodesian Front, winning 35 A role seats to the United Federal Party’s 15. Smith served as the deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Treasury. On April 2, 1964, a vote of no confidence caused Prime Minister Fields to resign and Smith accepted the cabinet’s nomination to take his place.
Smith’s frustration with the UK government came to a head when on November 11, 1965 when he signed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Rhodesia joined the United States as the only two states to unilaterally declare independence from Britain. The reaction from the UK and the UN was quick and incredibly negative; both condemned the UDI as illegal and racist. No country would recognize the legitimacy of the Rhodesian government and the UK decided economic sanctions would bring Rhodesia back into the fold “within a matter of weeks”. However, these sanctions had little effect on Rhodesia as South Africa and Portugal maintained trade with Rhodesia, providing the crucial resource of oil and military equipment. After talks with the UK government failed to reach an accord, Smith and the Rhodesian Front began the transformation of Rhodesia into a republic, and on March 2, 1970, Smith declared the Republic of Rhodesia. The new constitution introduced a president as the head of state, a multiracial senate, and an electoral mechanism in which the number of black MP’s would increase proportionate to the amount of income taxes paid by black citizens.
In 1972, the Rhodesian Bush War began to truly take off. It had begun at a low level before the UDI in 1965. Farm attacks and the brutal murder of civilians by the Black Nationalist Communist movement ZANLA. The Rhodesian military responded with fireforce tactics that proved highly effective with few casualties for the Rhodesian forces. However, the tide began to turn against the Rhodesians as the Estado Novo regime fell in Portugal and Rhodesia’s Eastern territories were now beset by terrorist forces working out of the newly independent Mozambique. As the conflict escalated Smith saw a compromise as the only solution to halt the attacks and in 1979 an internal settlement won 85% of the white vote and Bishop Abel Muzorewa became the first black Prime minister of Rhodesia. Robert Mugabe, the leader of ZANLA declared the settlement a farce and the Rhodesian conflict continued until the Lancaster-House agreement with Britain occurred in which new election were held under British control as Rhodesia temporarily went under colonial power. British election monitors reported mass intimidation by ZANLA forces at the polls. Therefore not surprisingly Robert Mugabe’s party the ZANU-PF won a majority 57 of 80 black seats with the RF winning all 20 of the white seats.
After the election, around 1,000 Rhodesian whites began to leave the country every week until only 100,000 remained. Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe and the country which decreased in economic growth and prosperity due to Mugabe’s Marxist policies. Formerly known as the Breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe cannot even feed its own population and is a net importer of food and according to the New Zimbabwean press, Robert Mugabe’s government has directly or indirectly caused the deaths of over 3 million Zimbabweans in 37 years.
Ian Smith died November 20, 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa. He wrote a book on the fall of Rhodesia called “The Great Betrayal”.
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