- Ian Smith, the last prime minister of white Rhodesia,
who claims to enjoy more black support than President Robert Mugabe, was
stripped of his Zimbabwean citizenship yesterday.
-
- The authorities informed Mr Smith, 83 next month, that
his Zimbabwean passport would not be renewed. He said:"They told me
that my citizenship had been cancelled. I oppose this government and you're
not allowed to do that in a one-party dictatorship. They would like to
silence me, but they haven't got much hope of that."
-
- A new citizenship law, forced through parliament last
year, compels Zimbabweans to renounce any claim to foreign nationality
or risk losing their passports and becoming stateless persons. John Nkomo,
the home minister, said Mr Smith, the son of a Scottish butcher, had failed
to disavow his claim to British citizenship.
-
- Critics believe that Mr Mugabe introduced this law to
continue a vendetta against the dwindling, ageing white community, which
numbers no more than 50,000. Several thousand of them have been struck
off the electoral roll and rendered stateless persons. The high-profile
casualties, as well as Mr Smith, have included Sir Garfield Todd, 93, the
only other former Rhodesian leader still living.
-
- Mr Smith, who was born in Shurugwi in the then colony
of Southern Rhodesia in 1919, accused the government of robbing him of
his birthright. "I have my citizenship as of right. But you aren't
allowed to oppose Mugabe here.
-
- "They do much worse than this. They jail people
and lock them up for speaking against the government. They kill people
here."
-
- He insisted that he would not be prevented from leaving
for a planned trip to Britain and America this weekend. Most whites have
kept their Zimbabwean citizenship by renouncing any claim to foreign nationality.
Many went to great trouble and expense to do so and some ask why Mr Smith
failed to do the same.
-
- "It's his own bloody fault," said one white
who gave up his British passport last year. "Everyone else managed
to queue up and renounce. What stopped him?"
-
- Mr Smith, prime minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1964
until 1979, earned his place in history by making a Unilateral Declaration
of Independence from Britain in 1965.
-
- Intended to guarantee white rule for "1,000 years",
this illegal act of rebellion sparked a brutal guerrilla war, which cost
at least 30,000 lives, and led to the final downfall of Rhodesia. Ironically,
no one did more than Mr Smith to bring Mr Mugabe to power.
-
- By the time Mr Smith threw in the towel, his bitter foe
had seized the leadership of the black nationalist movement and was able
to become the first ruler of Zimbabwe in 1980.
-
- Yet the man he vilified as a "Communist terrorist"
allowed Mr Smith to keep his farm and his seat in Zimbabwe's parliament
in 1987. Later, Mr Smith was allowed to enjoy a quiet retirement.
-
- He now lives in the Harare suburb of Avondale, where
his gate is always unlocked and blacks give him a warm reception in the
street. He said: They say to me, 'Please keep going Mr Smith. We lived
better when you were around.' Policemen salute me, people shake my hand.
I've got more black friends than Mugabe."
-
- Like most Rhodesians of his generation, Mr Smith was
inspired by the example of the pioneers who forged the colony in the 1890s,
under the leadership of Cecil Rhodes.
-
- Yet his overriding determination to keep all power in
the hands of the white minority - never more than 4 per cent of the population
- was doomed to failure.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main
|
