A TRIBUTE TO IAN DOUGLAS SMITH

8 APRIL 1919 – 20 NOVEMBER 2007


This man deserves a statue in London far more than Nelson Mandela.
 

From the www.africancrisis.co.za web site on 21st November 2007


The courageous ex-Prime Minister of Rhodesia (from 1964 - 1979) died last night of natural causes at St. James, near Cape Town, in South Africa.



Sportsman
Born on 8 April 1919 in rural Rhodesia, Ian Smith was the third child and only son of John and Agnes Smith, both later awarded MBE’s for Public Service.   A gifted sportsman, Ian Smith was educated at Chaplin High School, Gwelo (Rhodesia) and at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Fighter Pilot
With the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force and served in 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron. He flew Hawker Hurricanes serving in Egypt, Lebanon, Persia, Iraq, and then in the North African Desert War. He served at El-Alamein and Tobruk and was severely injured in a crash landing. He suffered a broken jaw, broken leg, broken shoulder and severe facial wounds. Initially it was thought that his back was broken, but it turned out to be, as he put it, “only buckled.” After five months recuperating under expert medical attention in Cairo, he returned to active service, flying Spitfire Mark1X’s.

Behind Enemy Lines
It was during the Italian campaign in 1944 that he was shot down. He jettisoned the canopy, released his harness and turned the Spitfire over onto its back so that he could drop free, pull his ripcord and parachute to safety. For the next five months he evaded enemy patrols and joined up with the local Resistance movement to continue to fight behind enemy lines. Later he crossed the Alps, much of it on bare feet, to link up with Allied Forces in France. In 1945 he flew over Germany before returning to Rhodes University to complete his degree in Commerce.

Farmer and Statesman
In 1948 Ian Smith acquired a farm, married Janet Watt and entered Parliament. He moved from the Liberal Party to the United Federal Party of Sir Roy Welensky, before founding the Rhodesian Front with Winston Field to thwart British plans to betray Rhodesia. He succeeded Field as Prime Minister of Rhodesia in April 1964. Ian Smith was at that point 45 years old. He led Rhodesia through the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 and the courageous campaign to resist Soviet expansionism. Ian Smith described his policies as: “Responsible Government”, “qualified franchise”, “preserving Western Civilization”, “fighting for Christian Civilization”, “resisting communism”, and developing Rhodesia into a country where blacks and whites would work together with a 50% parity in Parliament.

Resisting Communist Aggression
In 1976, as the war was hotting up dramatically, the League of Rhodesia wrote the following: “From Thermopylae (480 BC) to Malta (AD 1565)… it has often fallen to a small community of people to give a moral example to its larger and more powerful neighbours…in each case valuable breathing space was gained for other parties to rally to the cause and to complete the task so boldly initiated by faith.

“We in Rhodesia have a very strong sense of national purpose. We feel we’ve been singled out by Providence to be the stumbling block in the path of communist aggression. There is yet time for the Western powers to put Rhodesia’s stand in its historical perspective; but they are leaving it dangerously late…” (Rhodesia: Myths and Facts)

Rhodesia’s Sacrifices Helped Win the Cold War
By standing firm against communist aggression for 15 years, Rhodesia indeed won valuable breathing space for the Free World. In much the same way as the 300 Spartans held up the enormous invading force of Persians at Thermopylae, and as the courageous Knights resisted the Islamic invasion of the small, but strategic, island of Malta, I believe that, in time, history will recognise that the sacrifices and courage of Rhodesians in resisting communist terrorism contributed to the ultimate collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.

Had Rhodesia not resisted, the consequences for South Africa and the West could have been absolutely disastrous. Had South Africa fallen to communism during the Cold War, the strategic Cape Sea Route and vital minerals essential for Western industry and defence, would have fallen into the hands of the Soviet Union – with catastrophic consequences.

Resisting Terrorism
The reign of terror and state sponsored terrorism of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe have only vindicated Ian Smith’s position. In time it will become even clearer that in no small measure Ronald Reagan’s successful stand against communist expansionism in the 1980’s was made possible by Rhodesia’s stand against communist terrorism in the 60’s and 70’s.

Vindicated by History
The history of Rhodesia confirms the disastrous consequences of the unprecedented foreign interference and the rejection of Rhodesia’s internal settlement. Even more seriously, there is a real danger of Mugabe’s example of racist and lawless land invasions, and national suicide, in Zimbabwe being followed in South Africa.

First Impressions
The first time I saw Prime Minister Ian Smith was as a young boy of fourteen standing outside the Bulawayo Club in Rhodesia. I had heard from my father that the Prime Minister was coming. Expecting some impressive entourage, I was standing by the entrance in 8th Avenue with my cat, Tim. I can still remember my surprise as I saw a rather humble Peugeot 404 park in front of the Bulawayo Club and out stepped Mr. Ian Smith. The Prime Minister was completely alone. There was no driver, or adjutant, no bodyguards, or policemen, visible anywhere. The Prime Minister had driven himself alone to the club. He stroked my cat who was sitting on the wall, smiled at me and walked into the club!

The Communist Contrast
Almost ten years later I was in Harare on Samora Machel Avenue, when Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe drove past. The contrast with Mr Smith’s arrival couldn’t have been more acute. First came 8 motorbike outriders, then some police cars, two armoured luxury Mercedes Benz’s with tinted windows (so you wouldn’t know which one Mugabe was in) followed by another police car and a truckload of soldiers with heavy weaponry. Sirens blaring. All vehicles on both sides of the roads had to come to a complete stop at the side. And this, I was informed, by residents, was how Mugabe travelled every day!

He Feared God Alone
When I mentioned this to Mr. Smith, he laughed and commented that he feared God, he was a lifelong Presbyterian, he believed in the Sovereignty of God, and as he had survived the Second World War did not see what he had to be afraid of. In fact, even during the war years, as Prime Minister, he would frequently travel alone, without a convoy, down to his farm near Gwelo. He would also often give all the staff at Government House the weekend off, so that there would not be so much as a cook in the kitchen or a policeman at the gate. He and his wife would be alone at Government House and that was the way they wanted it. He couldn’t bear people fussing around him.

A Man of Integrity
Mr. Ian Smith was a remarkable Statesman, he is one of the very few heads of state that I have ever met who I can say was a man of integrity. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. He was an example of an honourable man of his word.

Over the last twenty years, I frequently had the privilege of having lunch or tea with Mr Smith. As his daughter lived in Cape Town and he visited frequently, especially for rugby and cricket matches, I had the privilege of interacting and benefiting from the insight of this courageous leader. We read the Scriptures and prayed together on a number of occasions and I also interviewed him on Radio Tygerberg.

Summoned by Ian Smith
It was just over twenty years ago that Mr Smith sent a message that he would like to meet with me. He had heard that some ex-Rhodesians were involved in missionary work in communist Mozambique and he wanted me to brief him on it. At that stage he was visiting his daughter and I met him at their home in Hout Bay. I noted that he had the largest teacup I had seen. He laughed and explained “These civilian cups are too small.”

Expert Advice
After I’d shown some of my photographs and explained what we were doing in Mozambique, Mr Smith proceeded to give me detailed advice on how to evade enemy patrols, infiltrate and exit Mozambique safely, and some tips on escape and evasion.

I must admit that at the time I was quite bewildered that the man who was Head of State while I was at school, could be giving me such practical, down to earth advice on strategy for Bible smuggling into Mozambique. Then I remembered, that of course, he had served in the Forces in the Second World War, and he himself had to evade enemy patrols for five months behind the Lines in Northern Italy. Also, as Commander in Chief of the Rhodesian Forces, he would have received numerous briefings on Mozambique, including the military situation there, by the SAS, Selous Scouts and other Rhodesian Forces. I left that remarkable meeting once again impressed that such an important leader could have taken the time to help a young missionary survive in his Bible smuggling ministry into Marxist Mozambique.

The Great Betrayal
I’m so very grateful that Ian Smith wrote his Memoirs which were first published in Great Britain in 1997, by Blake: The Great Betrayal – The Memoirs of Africa’s Most Controversial Leader.

Never Beaten - Betrayed
This has since gone through many printings and a new edition: The Bitter Harvest. It is a fascinating read and gives the story behind the drama and the war for Rhodesia. As Ian Smith declared: “We were never beaten by our enemies, we were betrayed by our friends.”

A Message from Ian Smith
On 11 November 2005, at the 40th anniversary of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Rhodesia, Ian Smith sent the following message to the Frontline Fellowship rally held at the Pinelands Town Hall: “To all the wonderful Rhodesians, wherever you are in the world. We are making a special effort to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our independence when we decided to cut our ties with the British government, who had betrayed us in an effort to placate those devious people who were using us for their convenience.

“It is an honest and positive fact, supported by world-renowned politicians, that Rhodesians have distinguished themselves in whatever endeavours they have undertaken. This was clearly indicated by the British leaders, such as Harold Wilson and Alec Hume, who acknowledged the great contribution that Rhodesians made in WWII.

“I would ask you to join me in ensuring that we do our utmost to preserve, perpetuate and enhance the Rhodesian spirit. May it continue forever.”

In The Frontline of the Battle
At the height of the Cold War, Rhodesia was in the very frontline of the battle against Soviet expansionism in Africa. Under Ian Smith’s courageous and principled leadership, the Rhodesian Forces, and people, held the Line and won valuable breathing space for the Free World. Recent history would be unrecognizable had Rhodesia not done so.

An Inspiring Example of Resilience and Integrity
Today, as we face new threats, not only from communism, but from Islamic Jihad, may the resilience, tenacity, courage and integrity of Ian Smith and the Rhodesia he exemplified, continue to inspire us to fight for Faith and freedom.

One of The Greatest Africans of All Time (for millions of whites are Africans as well).
In 2005, Christian Action magazine ran a “Greatest Africans of All Time” readers survey. Ian Smith was voted one of the ten greatest Africans of all time in the following words: “The courageous and principled Rhodesian Prime Minister who led his country in a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, and against all odds in a vicious civil war where the communist terrorists received vast amounts of support from the Soviet Union, Red China, the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the OAU and the World Council of Churches. Ian Smith was a fighter pilot in the Second World War and was twice shot down and once fought behind enemy lines in Northern Italy, evading enemy patrols for five months.”

Courageous and Honourable
Praise God for a courageous, principled, God fearing and honourable man of integrity, Ian Douglas Smith.

Dr Peter Hammond is the director of Frontline Fellowship and is a personal friend of Ian Smith. Dr Hammond has written extensively on the history of Rhodesia and the current crisis in Zimbabwe.

For more information contact:

Dr Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74
Newlands
7725
Cape Town
South Africa

Tel: (021) 689-4480
Fax: (021) 685-5884

E-mail: admin@frontline.org.za

Website: http://www.frontline.org.za
Posted By: Jan
African Crisis Webmaster – www.africancrisis.co.za
Author of: Government by Deception
 

 

From The Sunday Times

November 25, 2007

Lost paradise of the big white chief

Ian Smith, who died last week, maintained white rule but became an unlikely hero for the black Zimbabweans suffering under the Mugabe dictatorship

R W Johnson

(My Comments)

Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister, who made his unilateral declaration of independence from Britain in 1965 and fought a bitter rearguard action to prevent black majority rule, never lost the ability to inspire strong emotion. When he died last week, aged 88, he was still hated by many for his unrepentant belief that white rule was better for all races in Rhodesia.  (These haters must be very ashamed at being proven wrong, but they hide their shame by insisting they are right despite all the evidence to the contrary)

It is quite common to hear him blamed for having created Robert Mugabe and having thus helped to father the human catastrophe of present-day Zimbabwe. Yet the odd truth is that in retirement after 1980, when Mugabe took over, Smith not only did not fade away but grew both in stature and popularity.

As Mugabe’s regime became steeped in blood and violence, Africans of all persuasions flocked to Smith’s house to consult him. The (all black) student body of Zimbabwe University gave him a standing ovation for his ringing condemnation of “the gangsters”, as he always called Mugabe’s corrupt ruling mafia.

Visiting him at his house in Harare (next to the Cuban embassy, the hammer and sickle flying) I marvelled at the fact that, after the death of his wife Janet, he lived alone with just a cook and minimal security. When he walked the streets of Harare, Africans would almost queue up to grasp his hand and wish him well. How could this be?

What you’ve got to think about, one shrewd old Rhodie said to me, is Geronimo driving around in a Model T Ford. He might have seemed a harmless old guy, but whites still regarded him with awe: he was the enemy incarnate. They knew just how tough the Apaches had been, how Geronimo had fought hardest of all. He would forever be a great tribal chief, a great warrior. Africans saw Smith the same way: a great white tribal chief, a bonny fighter, a man true to himself, someone to be in awe of.

There was no doubting he was a fighter. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he gave up his studies to volunteer for the RAF. A bad crash in his Hurricane in North Africa in 1943 meant his face had to be rebuilt, giving him a frozen, fixed stare. No matter, he was soon back in a Spitfire, was shot down over the Alps, lived five months with Italian partisans and then escaped to France to rejoin the RAF and keep fighting.

Back in Rhodesia he helped found the Rhodesian Front to seek Rhodesian independence, came to power as deputy prime minister in 1962, and when the premier, Winston Field, quailed at the prospect of confronting Britain, Smith – ever ready for a fight – took over as prime minister himself in 1964 and declared independence the following year.

He then clashed with successive British governments while also leading a bitter war against African guerrillas, until finally forced to come to terms in 1979. Many had predicted he would flee to South Africa if Mugabe came to power, but he never considered it. He loved Rhodesia passionately, and as Mugabe’s rule became intolerable, he stood his ground, even after Mugabe had deprived him of citizenship in 2002.

His last days were spent in a clinic in the Cape, trying to raise funds to help poor white pensioners in Zimbabwe. He died within a stone’s throw of where Cecil Rhodes, Rhodesia’s founder, had died a century before.

Smith’s image improved inversely as Mugabe’s plummeted. Paul Themba Nyathi, a leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who had fought Smith’s regime tooth and nail, told me that in retrospect Smith’s Rhodesia had been “a paradise”.

In material terms that was certainly true: everything then was better for Africans than it is now – education, healthcare, standard of living, life expectancy and employment. But as people saw Mugabe cloistered behind high walls and Kalashnik-ov-toting guards, venturing out only in armoured cars and vast militarised motorcades, they also remembered how Smith had lived a simple, unguarded life.

When he needed to travel abroad he drove himself unescorted to the airport, parked his car and carried his own bag. Just before the last presidential election in 2002, Smith said to me: “If Mugabe and I walk together into a black township, only one of us will come out alive. I’m ready to put that to the test right now. He’s not.”

I never understood the Smith phenomenon properly until I attended the launch of his book, The Great Betrayal, in Durban in 1997.   I’d been unsure about going, not wanting to be taken for someone applauding an old white supremacist, but I needn’t have worried. It was a family occasion for old Rhodies and I wasn’t part of the family.

Transparently, they all loved him, hung on his words as he talked about what a fine country Rhodesia had been, how it had been fully worth the fight. As people queued for him to sign their copies you could see big men shaking with tears. “They’re stateless, you see,” an old Rhodie said. “They belong to a country which no longer exists. They’re lost. We all are.”

I was left wondering, why do no South Africans feel like that? For the strange fact is that even people who were hidebound Afrikaner nationalists evince no nostalgia for their old leaders or for the Apartheid period, which is now seen as having led the country into a disastrous cul-de-sac.

A month ago I had to meet a high-ranking Afrikaner policeman, a man of the old regime if ever there was one. He insisted we meet in his new home, an ex-serviceman’s “shell-hole”. There on the walls were pictures of the motorcycle escort for the 1947 royal visit, of a youthful Ian Smith, of Hurricanes, Spitfires, Lancasters and of Jan Smuts.

Amazed, I asked what of Malan, Strijdom, Verwoerd? His opinions were unprintable. But why Smuts?    Afrikaner nationalists always saw him as a sellout to the English. “He was a fighter, he was a general. In the backroom we’ve got the other Boer generals, De La Rey, Louis Botha and Kruger. All fighters, like Ian Smith. Not sellouts like De Klerk.”

Thus is collective memory reformulated.   For black and white alike, Smith is now seen as someone who fought in the last ditch for “white civilisation” and, given how things have turned out, it’s difficult not to respect his fight.

The two enduring reproaches to Smith were that he was a crude racist and that his resistance to African advancement caused an unnecessary war. When he denied he was a racist, what that meant was that he had good relations with many black people and wanted somehow to construct black consent to continuing white leadership as representing the best deal available for all Rhodesians, black and white. He was completely unrepentant about this, but it’s difficult to see how he could be exonerated on either charge.

Yet even so, things were not always quite what they seemed. It would be unfair to describe him as crude. His time with the partisans meant he spoke fluent Italian, loved opera and could quote great reams of Shakespeare. And, actually, the African nationalists had taken up arms against white rule in 1962, two years before Smith came to power, so he didn’t really start that war.

Moreover, when Mugabe gained power in 1980, Smith abandoned all his previous feelings about the man and rolled up every day at Government House to offer his help.   He had, after all, run the country and economy surprisingly well in the face of tough international sanctions. He was incorruptible and the country he handed over was in good shape. The only thing that mattered now, he said, was to make a success of the new Zimbabwe.

Mugabe was delighted to accept his help and the two men worked happily together for some time until one day Mugabe announced plans for sweeping nationalisation. Smith told him bluntly he thought this a mistake. Their cooperation ended on the spot. Mugabe, furious at being contradicted, never spoke to him again. From time to time Mugabe made threatening noises, suggesting Smith ought to be locked up and “punished” for his opposition, but Smith’s attitude was contemptuous: “I’d like to see him try.” He never did.

When Smith’s delegation met Harold Wilson’s in their long and fruitless talks, observers were struck by the fact that the white Rhodesians were all older men who had fought for Britain in the war, tough guys who thought their opposite numbers naive. Wilson was taken aback and railed at him as a “tin-pot dictator”.

Smith turned his back on him in a long silence before replying: “Look here, Harold, if you and I are to get on you can’t talk to me like that.”   It was Wilson who had to retreat.

The key to understanding Smith was that, like other white Rhodesians, he clung to an almost Victorian view of the world both in moral values and in the easy assumptions of British primacy that characterised the empire.

Such emotions made it automatic that he would rally to the defence of the mother country in 1939, his war-time service undoubtedly the central experience of his life. He remained passionately committed to the fellowship he found among his RAF friends. He faced death many times, his wounds cost him great pain in his face, knees and back ever afterwards and left him a supremely self-confident man, unafraid of pretty well anything.

Interviewing Smith in the sitting room of his Harare home a few years ago, I was reminded of how the French left-wing intellectual Régis Debray described being sent by François Mitterrand on a mission to Hanoi.   The communist leaders welcomed him with open arms and poured out their devotion to France – but, to his embarrassment, it was the France of Jean Jaurès and Victor Hugo, bearing almost no relationship to the urbane Paris of the 1980s that he had just left.

It was the same with Smith. He had, he told me, been bitterly disappointed by the Britain he had encountered in the permissive 1960s, but he’d just been to London for an RAF reunion and he’d been to the last night of the Proms. “And, my goodness, to see some of those young people sing Land of Hope and Glory – why, I think they have the spirit I thought was gone. Such fine young people, it will all come again, they’ll carry it on,” his bony old hands making emphatic gestures of enthusiasm as he spoke.

It was, I realised, just like the Vietnamese. He was in love with a Britain long past, had been so all his life, a Britain of the King-Emperor, Kitchener and Kipling, a Britain that remained far more alive in the minds of those in the colonies than it did back home.

The tragedy was not just that this brought him into a bruising conflict with modern Britain, but that he had given his heart to a country that no longer existed, that he could only dream about as still going on by paying undue attention to the wholly atypical last night of the Proms. A natural leader, he had sought to preserve some of what he thought was best in that anachronism in an unlikely but beautiful little country in central Africa, and ended up like all those who followed him, lost souls who remain forever devoted to another country that now no longer exists.

________________________________

History demands that Mandela's statue in London be taken down and replaced with one of this great African leader.