Two Suitcases: Book Three: Descent into Darkness

By Mike Bellis

It is 1980 and Rhodesias flag, proudly flown for fifteen years, no longer exists. In the wake of a cruel Bush War, Rhodesia has succumbed to Mugabes Black Nationalism. Whites are enjoying a fulfilling existence without any idea that Zimbabwe will soon descend into an abyss of corruption, incompetence, and mismanagement.

The Morgans and Krugers are like all the other white Rhodesians carving out a new life in Zimbabwe. James and Suzette Morgan and their two children have moved onto Andriess farm, Slagters Nek, and are renovating it after its dereliction during the Bush War. Andries and Colleen have moved to Durban, South Africa, and are living off their payments from James. Gareth and Barbara have retired and are looking forward to relying on his comfortable, government pension for income. Eric and his new wife, Maisie, have put down roots in South Africa. But everything is about to change when Mugabe notices his popularity diminishing and sets off a chain of events with dire consequences that affects all of them.

Two Suitcases: Descent in Darkness shares the compelling saga of two families as they attempt to move forward after the events of the Bush War lead to the founding of Zimbabwe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546293484

Mike Bellis

Mike Bellis was born in the UK in the early 1950s and emigrated to Rhodesia with his parents when he was six months old. He was schooled in Umtali (now Mutare), studied agriculture, served in the Bush War, and farmed in Zimbabwe until 2003. He and his wife, Carol, have a son and daughter. This is the third book in a trilogy.

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© 2018 Mike Bellis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/25/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9349-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9350-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9348-4 (e)

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

The Third Chimurenga

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

Through the decades of the 1970s and 80s, Political Correctness (another cool, American phenomenon that was cribbed from Mao Zedong’s programme to brainwash the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution) swept through the western world. As in George Orwell’s scary, futuristic novel, 1984, people are being instructed what is acceptable to think, what to eat, what to say, what to drink, how to behave and so on. Zealous PC individuals, for the most part privileged liberals, have taken on the roles of Orwell’s ‘Thought Police’, ridiculing and looking down at those who do not go along with these views. Above all, offend no-one, no matter how depraved they might be, and don’t categorise anyone no matter how different they may be from each other. School headmasters and headmistresses became ‘head teachers’ to avoid the label of ‘gender profiling’ and a blackboard is now a chalkboard. But a whiteboard is still a whiteboard – shouldn’t it be termed a felt-tipped pen board?

Everyone has ‘rights’ (as long as they are endorsed by Political Correctness) and Political Correctness became obsessed with ‘racism’. Sadly, some might claim, this obsession has only made ‘racism’ worse, believing it should be left to die a natural death. Now, being the first to level accusations of ‘racism’ against a detractor or critic is sure to get any dictator or crook off the hook. If an individual doesn’t subscribe to Political Correctness, he or she (or the ‘person’) stands the risk of becoming one of Orwell’s ‘Non Persons’. Do the unelected, Political Correct dictators in the UN and EU control a continent and the world? Or are they merely overpaid puppets dancing to the tunes of unknown puppet masters? One of Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ brainwashing statements was ‘War is Peace’. Considering America has been at war with multiple countries for the last two hundred years, maybe some Americans are confusing war with peace. How far removed is Political Correctness from Fascism, albeit wrapped in velvet?

Are we merely zombies absorbing and believing any propaganda the main stream media churns out via the TV, press or radio? Who controls the views of these media outlets that many believe condemns ‘right’ but applauds ‘wrong’?

Are we merely zombies following some dark, global conspiracy, being programmed not to distinguish right from wrong?

Rhodesia’s nemesis, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, won the elections that transformed Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. After a vicious bush war with few ‘prisoners’ taken by either side, a Marxist sat on the country’s throne in the capital, Salisbury, bizarrely to the gushing acclaim of Britain, the United States and Western Europe. The Communist Bloc had won again, adding Zimbabwe to its list of African conquests through the seventies, the most prominent being Angola and Mozambique, two huge countries dripping with abundant natural resources ranging from minerals to timber to wildlife to oil. Marxist, unelected dictatorships were immediately recognised by the west and the United Nations. They were showered with aid and congratulated for achieving nothing other than corruption and swollen external bank accounts.

Within three years after independence, up to half of Zimbabwe’s whites had packed their bags, most heading to South Africa but also Australia, New Zealand and the UK. They, dubbed ‘scatterlings’, scattered everywhere, one even settling in the Falkland Isles. And the drain of whites continued over the years as more and more employment positions were taken over by blacks, beginning with the civil service and commerce, where white bank tellers were the first to disappear. But then, some may argue, this happens after any revolution. Bizarrely, a leading aspiration for Zimbabwe’s blacks was to migrate to apartheid South Africa or Britain, their former colonial master, where life was better and jobs more plentiful.

As Ian Smith had predicted, standards dropped. Those parents, white and black who could afford it, placed their children onto waiting lists to attend private schools. They joined expensive medical insurance companies in case they needed to be admitted to private hospitals either within Zimbabwe or elsewhere. Private security companies blossomed while the Police, previously one of the best in the world, became increasingly ineffective and corrupt, rarely solving crime but good at manning roadblocks where the chances of personal enrichment are that much greater. Roads became potholed, street and traffic lights became a colonial thing of the past and over 80 per cent of municipal and government expenses went to wages and salaries, leaving little to replace light bulbs or purchase road paint. Some reports indicated up to half of municipal and civil service payslips went to ghost workers. And the world continued applauding Zimbabwe for its achievements.

White South Africa succumbed to ‘one man, one vote’ in 1994 and Nelson Mandela, the latest darling of armchair liberals and revolutionaries throughout the world, became president. The ‘New’ South Africa, the power-house of the continent, experienced a wonderful, adoring honeymoon for a decade or so but then also contracted the continent’s diseases of corruption, crime, nepotism and devaluation of its currency. White entitlement was replaced by ‘Black Empowerment’, ‘Affirmative Action’ and so on, which became disguises for clear racism. Since Mandela ascended to South Africa’s throne in 1994, over 500,000 (yes, half a million) South Africans of all races have been murdered while private security guards increased from 100,000 to 500,000 (half a million, again) over the same period. Security guards are unproductive, so how does this affect an economy?

Today, 500,000 (half a million, again) whites live in squatter shanty towns outside the main urban centres of South Africa and genocide of white farmers is widespread, compared by some to ethnic cleansing. None of this unfair tragedy warrants a mention in the world’s mainstream media, being very different to their interest in South Africa pre-1994 when, if so much as a hiccup was heard in Soweto, hordes of reporters surged through Jan Smuts airport. Not a peep is heard from liberal politicians in Britain, Europe or America, in direct contrast to a few decades ago when they were busy organising riots and demonstrations condemning apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. Those still around are now in genteel rural retirement, the misery they’ve contributed to easily forgotten about and never to be recorded in history.

After the ANC had established its power base in South Africa and the ‘Boers’ had been sufficiently cowed (so no-longer being a threat to the new, improved South Africa), President Mugabe was confident that the time was right to run white farmers off their properties and resettle them with blacks. Many of these farmers left with nothing apart from their personal belongings and many prime properties went to ‘Big Men’ and party hacks, which included bishops, pastors, bank executives and judges. Farmers, some whose families had been on the same properties for three or four generations (and still classed ‘settlers’!) suddenly found themselves homeless after being driven away by ‘War Veterans’. More recent farmers, who had purchased farms since independence after receiving ‘Letters of No Interest’ from the Zimbabwe government, were also driven off by these gangs of ‘War Veteran’ thugs. Their farm workers, 500,000 thousand (half a million, again) of them plus dependents, were also run out of their homes and turned to look for non-existent jobs in the urban centres, so contributing to further shanty town slums and associated chaos. Most of these ‘Veteran’ farm invaders were barely out of their teens in 2000 when the farm invasions began in earnest. Bearing in mind Rhodesia’s Bush War had ended twenty years earlier, these ‘War Veterans’ must have been freedom fighting, AK-toting, babes-in-arms during that war in the seventies.

I met some of these farmers in Chimoio, Mozambique, through 2003 to 2006 after the Mozambique government had offered them land to start again in Manica Province. One couple had rescued over a hundred horses from the misery of farms invaded by ‘War Vets’ with a vision for the unfortunate animals leading a more pleasant life taking tourists on horseback safaris along Mozambique’s stunning beaches. Needless to say, I didn’t meet any official from the UNHCR offering succour to these displaced refugees.

Since independence, Zimbabwe’s economy has been heading south as a car does rolling down a hill, gathering speed until eventually falling over the cliff when commercial agriculture, the anchor of the nation, was ripped apart. Apart from mining, the rest of productive business, so reliant on agriculture, followed suit and the final nail was knocked into the country’s coffin. Inflation and devaluation, such as the world had never experienced before, reduced Zimbabwe’s currency to being totally worthless when the largest banknote, 1,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 (before a few zeros were knocked off) Zimbabwean Dollars would buy a few Pounds Sterling. What is the terminology for 1 followed by 27 zeroes? A billion trillion? A Brazillian quadzillion? A Godzillion billion? Who knows? It was cheaper to use Zim dollars as toilet paper than the softer stuff rarely found on supermarket shelves during those days. Zimbabwe easily broke a world record when inflation topped 500,000,000,000 per cent (yes, five hundred billion per cent!). Politicians, money changers, investment fund ‘managers’ and insurance corporations climbed on the bandwagon and made easy killings. The elderly, who had diligently paid into savings accounts, pension funds and other investments for decades, including times when Rhodesia’s currency was nearly one-to-one with Pound Sterling, were the hardest hit. Their dividends and pension payments were paid out in worthless Zimbabwe Dollars of the day, driving dignified people into undignified poverty while the limousines parked outside parliament and financial institutions got longer and longer and their properties, swankier and swankier. Those who had benefitted from the chaos built enormous, ostentatious houses that could be mistaken for hotels. Money changing, despite being ‘illegal’, became accepted big-business taking place inside private residences if the rooms were spacious enough to store enough Zimbabwean bank notes still hot off the press to change for a shoe box full of US dollars.

After a time, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank realised this could not go on and the currency of that hated bastion of capitalism, USA, was adopted. So, the sovereign, independent state of Zimbabwe with a seat at the UN could not even boast its own currency.

This book is a novel, written by someone who found the events that occurred in Zimbabwe over the last twenty years difficult to understand. Many of the leaders of Zimbabwe appeared to be good and sensible people and their wives, gracious ladies. Despite memories and experiences of the cruel Bush War when the ‘Queensberry Rules’ were regularly ignored by both sides in the conflict, all were proud Zimbabweans, united as one. Watching Zimbabwe excel at cricket, polo-crosse, soccer or any other sport brought about hoarse cheering and grinning nods over mugs of beer from enthusiastic supporters when Zimbo scored. Until 2000.

And then things went upside down. Mugabe’s suppressed hatred for whites was released and anyone who threatened his grip on power either ‘disappeared’ or ended up behind bars. He took on the role of a caricature of a typical African despot.

And then things changed in November 2017. A ‘velvet’ coup, the likes of which Africa (or even the world) had never before experienced during its post-colonial history of multiple, bloody coups, took place. Impeccably planned and carried out, not one Zimbabwean was killed or even injured. Not one instance of looting occurred while millions of jubilant Zimbabweans of all races, religions, cultures and creeds celebrated the end of Mugabe’s years of tyranny. The streets of Harare were choked by a million euphoric, dancing citizens waving Zimbabwe flags. Joyous blacks, their faces bisected by huge grins, posed with what remained of Mugabe’s hated white ‘settlers’ and posted these photographs on the social media. Delighted emotion ran high. Emmerson Mnangwagwa, a ZANU stalwart, took over the role of president. Corrupt, millionaire Mugabe sycophants were rounded up, the civil service was issued stern instructions to up their games and the Police Commissioner, the head of a police force that had caused so much misery, was ‘retired’. This left the opposition in disarray because there was not too much left to criticise President Mnangwagwa about. A new breath of life was infused into a country close to death.

Some do not believe democracy is for Africa (or Africa is for democracy) after witnessing the continent’s sad ‘democratic’ history where rigging of elections qualifies ‘democracy’. Democracy in Africa often demands aspiring presidents to take on the role of Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, which in poverty ridden Africa is attractive to hungry, jobless multitudes and now, Julius Malema has taken on the role of South Africa’s Robin Hood. But the number of ‘rich’ people to rob (as long as they are not ruling politicians) is finite.

Mnangwagwa (E D as he is known) has been given the perfect opportunity to go down in history as being Africa’s great statesman, knocking Mandela of the pedestal. Whereas Mandela took over a perfectly functioning country (albeit apartheid), which has headed south ever since, Mnangwagwa has taken over one in ruins that can only head north. If ‘E D’ doesn’t succumb to the African malignancy of corruption, nepotism and cronyism, he can only succeed. I’m confident he will.

I am now a proud Zimbabwean (again).

I hope I’m not wrong (again).

To bring you up to speed with Book 2 – ‘The Leap into Uncertainty’.

The Rhodesian Front government declares independence from Britain and, immediately, Britain and the United Nations bow down to demands from the Organisation of African Unity and impose sanctions on the ‘Rebel Regime’. These sanctions have little effect on the lives of Rhodesians apart from the odd shortages of Scotch whiskey, Marmite or petrol. Portuguese Mozambique and South Africa are friendly neighbours and favoured holiday destinations. The Krugers and Morgans are happy and settled, their children attend school and the country still prospers despite sanctions. James enlists in the SAS after university while Eric does an agricultural diploma course and joins the Ministry of Internal affairs as an Agricultural Officer. Suzette Kruger joins the BSAP and her sister, Yvette, becomes a nurse. African nationalism and guerrilla activity is easily controlled and not considered anything like a threat.

In 1972, the nationalist party, ZANU, sets its fighters loose in Rhodesia’s north-east and the Bush War reaches a new level of viciousness. James is involved in countless contacts and raids on external guerrilla (dubbed CT – communist terrorist by Rhodesia) camps while Eric is part of the District Commissioner’s team that initiates the country’s Protected Village programme. Woman Police Officer Suzette witnesses the horrors of the aftermath of the Woolworth’s department store bombing. Wynaand, her cousin in the RLI, is permanently paralysed as a result of a contact and Andries is forced to abandon his farm, Slagters Nek, and move into Salisbury. Two civilian Viscount air liners are brought down by ZIPRA rockets, killing over a hundred people, including women and infants. James leaves the SAS, marries Suzette and they move onto a Mount Darwin farm where they experience the anxious loneliness of farm homestead attacks. The Lancaster House agreement is signed by all conflicting sides in London to put an end to the Bush War and Lord Soames is appointed to govern the country leading up to elections. A son is born and James’s last action as a territorial with the SAS is participating in ‘Operation Quartz’, the task to annihilate Robert Mugabe and his party’s hierarchy when it became obvious he would win the Lancaster House sponsored elections. The order for ‘Quartz’ never came and the rest is history.

‘Descent into Darkness’ follows the lives of the Krugers and Morgans in Zimbabwe. James Morgan, now married to Suzette Kruger, moves onto Andries’s farm, Slagters Nek, and rebuilds it after it being abandoned and falling into dereliction during the Bush War. Their two children attend private schools and live the full lives that only those growing up in rural Africa can experience. Slagters Nek gets improved over time and areas put to cropping are increased every year in line with successive bank loan repayments. A cattle herd and game park are established and a substantial dam is built to cope with the demand for irrigation. James and Suzette’s children, Robert and Jane, leave school and leave Africa, both for the UK.

Andries and Colleen move to Durban, South Africa, living off James’s lease payments for Slagters Nek, which are substantial, being calculated as a percentage of the farm’s gross income. Andries cautions James about investing everything into improving Slagters Nek, insisting he must put some away elsewhere because this is Africa, but this warning falls on deaf ears. James, in common with other farmers of his generation is on a roll, living the good life. Despite the economy showing obvious signs of being in trouble, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a wonderful country to live in and the Bush War of the 1970s is but a sad memory.

Gareth and Barbara retire, with Gareth looking forward to spending the rest of his life living off a comfortable, government pension that he has contributed to for the past three decades. But that life of dignity is short-lived as his pension’s value decreases daily in line with galloping inflation and devaluation. He is forced to sell off assets and find any employment that is suited to a seventy year-old retiree. By 2000 he is on the ropes, financially, and they move to Slagters Nek, into Abel’s old house.

Eric marries Maisie in South Africa where they put down roots, buy a house and get a dog, doing all the things that come naturally to a young couple. Majority rule comes to South Africa and one of the first casualties is law and order. Eric and Maisie are severely assaulted at their gate on their return home one night and the next day they make enquiries about moving to Australia.

And then President Mugabe blows his lid when the results of a referendum go against what he wanted and for this he blames the whites in general and the white farming community in particular, believing they encouraged their workers to vote against his wishes. Gareth is assaulted by ‘War Vets’, which is followed by the Morgan family’s brutal eviction from Slagters Nek. They are at a loss and James decides to try his luck in Mozambique, but fails there. His options narrow and he is one of a group of farmers that heads to Nigeria. But commercial farming in Nigeria is not that simple when it has descended back to subsistence level with no marketing infrastructure remaining and commodity trading is done on the roadside measuring in cups and buckets, not kilogrammes and tonnes. To purchase a single cow means hours of negotiating, not simply raising an eyebrow at an auction to buy a pen of fifty. Gareth and Barbara are unable to survive in Zimbabwe and return to the UK.

Hitler Stalin marries Mahuri and their fortunes steam ahead while being part of President Mugabe’s government. Slagters Nek is acquired by Stalin, who utilises it as a weekend retreat for hunting and entertaining. After the farm’s wildlife has been decimated and the cattle, equipment and other assets have been sold off, Slagters Nek’s income relies on sales of firewood and thatching grass. For the second time within two generations, it returns to a state of dereliction.

James and Suzette return to Zimbabwe and wonder what to do next.

‘A Politician worries about the next election. A Statesman worries about the next generation.’ – Ian Douglas Smith.

‘Mugabe wasn’t human at all … he was an awfully slippery person – reptilian.’ – A bit rich coming from slippery Lord Peter Carrington, British Foreign Secretary and convenor of the Lancaster House Agreement describing Mugabe’s gifted debating skills.

‘Stay with us, please remain in this country.’ – Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s appeal to Rhodesian whites at independence.

‘There is no dishonour in a lost cause. The shame is with those who betrayed you.’ – Legendary British Spitfire test pilot, Alex Henshaw, to his friend, Ian Smith.

The Main Characters

Note – Some of these only appear in Book One, Colonialism Crumbles and Book Two, The Leap into Uncertainty.

Robert – James and Suzette’s son

Jane – James and Suzette’s daughter

Some other characters

The Principle Politicians in the Game

World War Two had great relevance with regards to what happened in colonial Africa. Imagine if Germany had won … … And Britain only finished paying back America’s ‘Lend/Lease’ aid/debt 60 years after the end of the conflict. So was shattered Britain pressured by her ‘special ally’ that hated colonialism (because the British Commonwealth/Empire was a potent trading block that competed with America?) to abandon her colonies and her people who lived in them?

South Africa

Paul Kruger – leader of the Boers during the Boer War with Britain

Jan Smuts – Prime Minister during World War Two

Hendrick Verwoed – Prime Minister and architect of apartheid

John Vorster – Prime Minister and President during Rhodesia’s UDI years

P W Botha – Prime Minister and President when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe

Nelson Mandela – ANC leader and South Africa’s first black president

Britain

Lloyd George – Prime Minister during World War One

Winston Churchill – Prime Minister during World War Two

Clement Attlee – replaced Churchill at the end of World War Two

Harold Wilson – Prime Minister when Rhodesia declared independence in 1965

Edward Heath – Prime Minister after Wilson and the Wilson became PM again

James Callaghan – Prime Minister after Wilson’s second spell in the late ‘70s

David Owen – Callaghan’s Foreign Secretary

Margaret Thatcher – Prime Minister when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980

Peter Carrington – Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary who oversaw the demise of Rhodesia

Tony Blair – Prime Minister during Zimbabwe’s 2000AD turmoil

USA

Franklin Roosevelt – President during World War Two

Richard Nixon – President during Rhodesia’s UDI years

Jimmy Carter – President when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe

Andrew Young – Carter’s ambassador to the UN and David Owen’s sidekick. He maintained that the thousands of Cuban troops and sophisticated military hardware Castro dispatched to Angola was a stabilizing in Africa and Mugabe was a mild, peaceful man

USSR

Josef Stalin – Communist Party General Secretary during World War Two

Leonid Breshnev – Communist Party General Secretary during Rhodesia’s UDI years. Supported ZAPU (the armed wing being ZIPRA)

China

Mao Tse Tung (now spelt Mao Zedong) – Communist Party General Secretary during Rhodesia’s UDI years. Supported ZANU (or ZANU-PF - the armed wing being ZANLA)

Germany

Adolf Hitler – Fuehrer during World War Two

Australia

Malcom Fraser – Prime Minister during Rhodesia’s transformation to Zimbabwe. He was Mugabe’s staunchest Western supporter at the time, teaming up with Nigeria to oppose Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’s UN recognition despite majority rule in the country

Rhodesia

Cecil John Rhodes – Founder of Rhodesia, which was born in 1898

Charles Rudd – negotiated a treaty with Lobengula on Rhodes’s behalf, leading to colonization of Rhodesia

Godfrey Huggins – Prime Minister during the 1950s

Winston Field – Founding leader of the Rhodesian Front party and Prime Minister

Ian Smith – succeeded Field. Prime Minister through UDI years to birth of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia

Abel Muzorewa – Prime Minister of short-lived Zimbabwe-Rhodesia

Joshua Nkomo – leader of ZAPU

Herbert Chitepo – early leader of ZANU together with Ndabaningi Sithole

Ndabaningi Sithole – early leader of ZANU with Chitepo

Robert Mugabe – deposed Sithole and took over from Chitepo as leader of ZANU. All very confusing politics

Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe – first Prime Minister and then Executive President

Canaan Banana – first President. Later exposed as having an affair with his bodyguard despite Mugabe’s hatred of homosexuals

Ian Smith – leader of Conservative Alliance representing Zimbabwe’s whites during the Lancaster House years

Joshua Nkomo – first Home Affairs minister and then took up the position of Deputy President after ZANU neutralized/paid off ZAPU

Morgan Tsvangirayi – Trades Union leader and leader of MDC, Mugabe’s only real opposition since 1980

Mozambique

Samora Machel – FRELIMO leader and first president upon independence from Portugal

Zambia

Kenneth Kaunda – President for Life

Map of Rhodesia

Map-edited.jpg

CHAPTER 1

The date to officially celebrate the demise of ‘colonial Rhodesia’ and the emergence of the ‘democratic, sovereign state of Zimbabwe’ was set for next week, 18 April 1980. A flood of correspondents and journalists from all corners of the world trooped back to the country to report on the event. Prince Charles would lower the Union Jack, it being replaced by the new country’s equivalent. This consisted of five horizontal stripes – red for the blood that had been spilt for freedom, white for peace, yellow to represent the country’s mineral wealth, green for agriculture and black in honour of the majority people. At the piece of the flag near the flagpole, the Zimbabwe Bird was superimposed on a red Marxist star. The origin of the Zimbabwe Bird to this day remains a mystery - could it have been the emblem of foreign occupiers, maybe Mesopotamian colonialists or even aliens, from a bygone age? Zimbabwean birds were recovered from the Zimbabwe Ruins, located at the centre of the thousands of gold pits dug centuries ago. Whereas indigenous Mashona may have dug and worked those pits, who were their masters that wanted gold so desperately? Gold can’t be eaten but its uses in advanced engineering are countless.

Rhodesia’s proud flag, which had flown for one and a half decades in the face of the rest of the world, now never existed. It was as revered as a sheet of used toilet paper by the new world order – throw it down the sewer. It had set Africa howling with anguish as the Swastika had set Europe howling with anguish forty years before. The Swastika remained a hated part of history but the Rhodesian flag would be purged from history.

Gareth watched the event on TV and marvelled at the perfectly orchestrated, expedient hypocrisy of politicians and warping of history. Rhodesia declared independence from Britain as America had done 200 years earlier. But Rhodesia, now, never existed, was never an independent republic. According to British and UN propaganda, Rhodesia had always been a colony and had never been independent despite declaring independence as America had done. So did that mean the USA was still a colony? So what was Rhodesia between 1965 and 1980? Many wondered how a mother country could impose sanctions on its own colony, anyway.

Humph! Bloody UK at it again – turning on those who support it, Gareth growled to the television and cast his mind back to when he was the age of his sons.

Towards the end of the Second World War, that icon of Britishness, Winston Churchill, had, together with Roosevelt and Eisenhower, abandoned Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin’s tyranny. Another, less known example of Britain abandoning friends was when the Balkans were occupied by the Axis powers leading to a Loyalist government in exile being established in London led by King Peter, the monarch. King Peter’s Minister of Defence, General Draza Mihailovic, had remained in Serbia to fight a guerrilla campaign against the Axis occupiers. In an act of what many Balkan people regarded as treachery, Churchill’s government turned its back on him in favour of the Communist Partisans led by Tito. The BBC’s propaganda machine had portrayed the Monarchist Loyalists as being vandals and brigands while the Communist Partisans were brave heroes, putting their lives on the line to expel the Germans from Yugoslavia. The opposite was true, the Partisans being more interested in civil war to bring the Loyalist Chetniks down. The Partisans only had to snap their fingers and supplies from Britain and the Allies were instantly airdropped to them. Mihailovic’s Loyalist Chetniks, starved of supplies ranging from clothing to explosives and weapons, eventually withered away. Communism had won again and the Partisan leader, Tito, had Mihailovic executed at the war’s end. Many of Yugoslavia’s Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians and the rest of the hodge-podge of tiny Balkan states were violently anti-communist but remained under Tito’s heel for over four decades. Tito was responsible for the murdering of 250,000 people but was not hauled in front of a Nuremberg-style court to answer for this as a lowly SS concentration camp guard was liable to be. Tito was lauded for being one of the ‘heroes’ of World War Two; after all, the media and history books (written by the victors) said so.

Gareth suddenly felt sad, stupid and helpless. Above all, he felt betrayed. He, like many of his generation, had been naïve and ‘led up the garden path’ by post World War Two propaganda. He had idolised Churchill and anything British at the end of the war, his mind filled with tales about the patriotic British Bulldog who defeated Hitler, and Britain ‘standing alone’. But was Britain really standing alone when it had the immediate and unconditional support of the immense British Commonwealth behind it? What was not mentioned was that Churchill’s obsession to defeat Hitler at any cost also drove Britain into bankruptcy and becoming America’s whore, which meant the end of the Empire that Churchill professed to love so much.

‘Good Heavens,’ Gareth thought. ‘Imagine if I spoke these thoughts at the BESL (British Empire Service League, a club for ex –servicemen) or the MOTHS (Members of the Tin Hats – also a club for ex-servicemen). I’d be driven out for being a traitor!’

He switched off the TV, let the dogs out for a wee and when they were safely back inside, joined Barbara in the bedroom. She had refused to watch the independence celebrations.

Amongst the horde of correspondents who converged to witness the birth of Zimbabwe, a journalist from Newstime magazine and his photographer companion spent an extended weekend touring the Mount Darwin/Centenary districts, interviewing white farmers and their black workers during the run-up to the great 18 April independence event. The journalist, Peter McPherson, and his photographer, Johnny Davies, had met Richard and James during Saturday tennis at Centenary East Club and returned with them to spend the night.

On their arrival, they marched to the compound with cameras and tape recorders to interview farm workers after Richard had arranged for an interpreter to accompany them. They returned an hour later and relaxed over beers while Suzette, who was recovering from malaria, prepared dinner. James didn’t bother asking them what the farm workers’ opinions were about Mugabe and the forthcoming Zimbabwe. The correspondents wouldn’t have told him and the farm workers would have probably lied to them. The black, 1940s era telephone rattled into life and James answered it.

It’s for you, he said, handing the Bakelite earpiece to Peter who frowned with baffled acknowledgement and held it to his ear.

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, he drawled in American before replacing the earpiece in the cradle. Can I use your phone to make some calls? They will be international, Peter asked James.

Help yourself. Is there a problem?

Nothing to concern you. How do you use this? Peter asked, gesturing to the ancient device manufactured not too long after Ma Bell’s demise.

Crank the handle, the operator should respond if he’s awake, and then give him the number you want, James advised. He then aimed an ear towards the conversation after Peter had been connected.

Yeah. Today? On the beach you say. Who was killed? Okay, executed with guns. Who led it? Yeah, okay, and so the questions and answers continued. Satisfied, Peter replaced the earpiece and rang Mount Darwin telephone exchange again, reciting another number for them to locate, somewhere in America. James heard him mention ‘Master Sergeant Doe’, ‘Liberia’ and ‘Monrovia beach’. When he had finished, Suzette laid the table and deposited plates of steak, chips and salad on it.

I’m off to bed now, she said, I’m not feeling too good. Everyone wished her ‘good night’ and turned their attentions to forking slabs of beef into their mouths.

What’s all this about Liberia? James asked, chewing on a piece of rump. That’s somewhere in West Africa, isn’t it?

"Yeah, that’s right. There’s been a coup there, replied Peter, and continued to give James a background history of Liberia. Under American President Monroe, freed slaves were given the option to return to Africa from the States, but only a few did so because they were happier living Stateside. Those that did return considered themselves vastly superior to the native Liberian tribesmen who were still living in the jungle, wearing skins, eating apes, practicing voodoo and juju and so on. These new settlers from America had brought some European civilisation back with them that they had picked up whilst being slaves – clothes, the wheel,