A long sad road from Rhodesia

[rgrpuck]

Zimbabwe's opposition warns of bloodshed By Cris Chinaka


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition accused President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday of unleashing a campaign of violence since the March 29 elections and called on African states to intervene to prevent widespread bloodshed.


The Movement for Democratic Change, which claims to have won the presidential and parliamentary polls, said Mugabe was trying to provoke a backlash as a pretext for declaring a state of emergency that could help him prolong his 28 years in power.

"I say to my brothers and sisters across the continent -- don't wait for dead bodies in the streets of Harare. There is a constitutional and legal crisis in Zimbabwe," MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti told a news conference.

He said the ruling ZANU-PF had launched a violent campaign against opposition supporters following a stalemate over the election results and was trying to rig the polls so Mugabe could contest a runoff against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Election officials have yet to release the results of the presidential poll.

Tsvangirai says he won the vote outright and has demanded that Mugabe, whose critics accuse him of reducing a once prosperous nation to misery, step aside immediately to allow for the reconstruction of the economically devastated country.

Zimbabwe has inflation of more than 100,000 percent -- the highest in the world -- an unemployment rate above 80 percent and chronic shortages of food and fuel. Millions have fled abroad, most of them to South Africa.

ZANU-PF is pressing for a delay in issuing the presidential results pending a recount and is also alleging abuses by electoral officials in an attempt to overturn its first defeat in a parliamentary poll.

"Militias are being rearmed, ZANU-PF supporters are being rearmed. ... The long and short of it is that there has been a complete militarization of Zimbabwean society since the 29th of March 2008," Biti added.

FARM EVICTIONS

A farmers' union said independence war veterans, used as political shock troops by Mugabe, had evicted mostly white farmers from their land since the weekend.

"There is still a lot of trouble and lawlessness out there. Farmers are being forced out. In the last three days, we are looking at about 60 who have been evicted," said Trevor Gifford, president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU).

Zimbabwe state television said Tuesday night war veterans had occupied 11 farms in the northeastern part of the country.

Gifford said the veterans forced the farmers to leave their homes with only the clothes they were wearing and that those evicted included at least one black farmer.

Police said they were not aware of the farm invasions.

The veterans have already spearheaded the eviction of most white farmers under a controversial Mugabe land redistribution program designed to redress injustices dating back to the British colonial era.

Tsvangirai wrote in a newspaper article that Zimbabwe was on a "razor's edge" because of the 84-year-old Mugabe's efforts to cling to power.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on Mugabe on Tuesday to accept that he lost the presidential election and step down to ease tensions.

In a speech in San Francisco, the South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate said peacekeepers may be needed to help restore order in Zimbabwe and the country's shattered economy could benefit from a "mini-Marshall Plan" like the initiative which helped rebuild Europe after World War Two.

SPILLOVER

The opposition says Mugabe is delaying the presidential election result to give him more time to prepare for a runoff, and has asked the High Court to force the release of the outcome.

"ZANU-PF is trying to cook the election result in order to engineer and achieve a run-off," Biti said.

The High Court ruled on Tuesday it would treat the opposition's application as urgent and began hearing arguments in the case. It later adjourned until Wednesday.

Legal proceedings are already in their fourth day and could drag further, delaying the end of the stalemate.

Traders in neighboring South Africa said the impasse was likely to weigh on the rand currency, briefly boosted last week when there was speculation Mugabe would stand down after his ZANU-PF party lost the parliamentary poll.

"Counting against the rand is the way in which the Zimbabwe elections are rapidly deteriorating into a farce," market analysts ETM said in a trading note.

South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma on Tuesday criticized the election delay and said it was wrong to keep Zimbabweans and the international community in suspense. He made the remarks one day after meeting Tsvangirai in Johannesburg.

Tsvangirai has appealed for help from outside powers to end Mugabe's uninterrupted rule since independence in 1980.

[rgrpuck]

Rhodesia
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This article is about the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia, today's Zimbabwe. For other uses, see Rhodesia (disambiguation).
Rhodesia
Republic of Rhodesia
←
1965 – 1979 →

Motto
Sit Nomine Digna (Latin)
"May she be worthy of the name"

Anthem
"Rise O Voices of Rhodesia" (from 1974)

Capital Salisbury
Language(s) English
Government Republic
President¹
- 1970–1975 Clifford Dupont
- 1976–1978 John Wrathall
Officer Administering the Government¹
- 1965–1970 Clifford Dupont
Prime minister
- 1965–1979 Ian Smith
Historical era Cold War
- Independence (UDI) November 11, 1965
- Republic declared March 2, 1970
- Zimbabwe-Rhodesia June 1, 1979
- Zimbabwe April 17, 1980
Area
- 1978 390,580 km² (150,804 sq mi)
Population
- 1978 est. 6,930,000
Density 17.7 /km² (46 /sq mi)
Currency Pound (until 1970)
Dollar (from 1970)
¹ The government recognised Queen Elizabeth II as the official Head of State from 1965 to 1970. The highest official of Rhodesia held the title "Officer Administering the Government" as he acted in lieu of a Governor-General, a post never appointed by the Queen. After the government declared Rhodesia a republic in March 1970 the president replaced the Governor-General as the highest official.

Zimbabwe
This article is part of the series:
History of Zimbabwe
Pre-colonial history
Colonial history
Rhodesia
Zimbabwe -

Rhodesia was the name adopted when the formerly British colony of Southern Rhodesia declared itself a republic in 1970. The name was also used with the establishment of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in 1979. After a brief return to colonial status as Southern Rhodesia from 1979 to 1980, the country became the independent nation of Zimbabwe in April 1980. The country was landlocked and located in southern Africa. Predominantly white Settler Governments governed the country until 1979, initially as a self governing colony then, after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence as a self-proclaimed sovereign Dominion and latterly a Republic. The colony was named after Cecil John Rhodes, whose British South Africa Company acquired the land in the nineteenth century. The colony gained international recognition of its independence in 1980 as the Republic of Zimbabwe. Before 1964 the name "Rhodesia" referred to the territory of modern Zambia and Zimbabwe.

[rgrpuck]

http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/home_page.htm

Awsome site about a KICK ass unit thats history is fadeing into nothing.

[Invictus]

http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/home_page.htm

Awsome site about a KICK ass unit thats history is fadeing into nothing.

One of our foreign members here sent me a reading list on various special ops forces from Africa. The one that most interested me were the Selous Scouts and 32 Battalion. I've had a hard time finding some of the books, but the ones I have found are excellent.

Thanks for the post SGM.

[rgrpuck]

http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/home_page.htm

Awsome site about a KICK ass unit thats history is fadeing into nothing.

One of our foreign members here sent me a reading list on various special ops forces from Africa. The one that most interested me were the Selous Scouts and 32 Battalion. I've had a hard time finding some of the books, but the ones I have found are excellent.

Thanks for the post SGM.

No problem. I think the history of Rhodesia is pretty facinateing, it is also somewhat familiar to our own. A decleration of indendence from England too start with. Too the victors go the spoils so I am of the opinion that the history of Rhodesia has been distorted over the years. Rhodesians have been villified as a former racist state. I disagree. They were born and raised Africas that had been there for over a hundered years and aided the British commonwealth in WWI and WWII. One has to only look at the state of the entire African contenent too see that they were trying to maintain a nation when the rest of Europe was running from Africa like rats leaveing a sinking ship. Every where Europians ran from lit up like a roman candle ..... the rebels, Aided by both Communist China, Cuba and the former Soviet Union, were held off for 20 years by an under equipt army useing everything at their disposal.

Absolutly facinateing.

[PocketKings]

I read Selous Scouts regularly. I ordered a copy from 'memories of Rhodesia' along with a DVD. Unbelievable what that unit accomplished. To draw comparisons to the early patriots during the Revolution is spot on. Unfortunately, the world environment didn't allow Rhodesia to thrive.

[Horned Toad]

You're spot on rgrpuck, Rhodesia's history closely parallels our own, is VERY interesting and I love to read about the fighting from that time frame. I often find myself wishing I had grown up back then so I could have been a fighting man in that war.
I attended David Scott-Donlan’s Tactical Tracking Operations School a few years ago.
This guy is awesome to be around and talks of nothing but his time in Rhodesia. Click for his Biography

I really want to get into one of his tracking classes!!!

[PocketKings]

You guys have to see the DVD. These dudes are rolling around wearing nothing more than UDT shorts, boots and boonie caps. They all have kicking '80s beards, H-harnesses and sub guns tabbing 40-50 klicks to wipe out a slew of bad guys. Then they would melt away into the populace.

We should have opened our doors up to them all. We could've given them one of the states that nobody cares about...like North Dakota. Let them live out their badness.

[LRS Guy]

South Africa did open up their doors! Got some bad mofos.

[The Holmchicken]

My Dad had a partner who was in the Rhodesian Light Infantry when he was with LAPD. Bad mofos. Read some more. These guys did not fuck around.

Rhodesian Light Infantry

[Nomad]

Without breaking the excellent direction this thread has taken, one thing that kills me is that I don't see Obama out there condemning Mugabe.

Supportive of a dictatorship?

Lack of understanding on what is happening there?

Closet racist?

[Darksaga]

I owuld recommend reading up on the COIN that has happened there.

[another damn texan]

I've had the pleasure to work with quite a few South Africans the last few years and I have always been impressed with their professionalism and drinking abilities.

I was given a really nice Springbok rugby shirt by one of the guys. I like my new contract for the most part but I miss having some of those guys around.
Thanks for the post, SGM.

[K.Ingraham]

Maybe the Ranger member who served there will weigh in in the private forums about this?
The vast majority of the Rhodesian population didn't think it was so great, but I'd bet a fortune most would rather have it back than continue to live under this sort of "liberation".
Jimmy Carter & Andy Young brought about Zimbabwe, too bad they aren't man enough to help fix their mistake.