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Editor says, What if extremists in the Rhodesian government carry out their threats before the event of black majority rule for zimbabwe This story was published in the October 2008 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1979, white man's black Prime Minister Bishop Abel Muzorewa fled Zimbabwe-Rhodesia just twenty-four hours after the British delegatation quit the Lusaka Conference.Down to the Last Cartridge
At Government House in Salisbury, a new regime took power led by the intransigent Defence Minister, Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl (pictured).
Promoted to the cabinet in 1968, Van der Byl became a spokesman for the Rhodesian government and crafted a public image as a diehard supporter of continued White minority rule. In 1974 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence at a time when Rhodesia's one ally, South Africa, was supplying military aid. His extreme views and brusque manner made him a surprising choice for a diplomat (a Times profile in November 1976 described him as "a man calculated to give offence").
Accompanied by commander of the Selous Scouts Colonel Reid-Daly and the professional head of the Rhodesian Army General Peter Walls, van der Byl made a typically belligerent statement to world press ~
"it is better to fight to the last man and the last cartridge and die with some honour. Because, what is being presented to us here is a degree of humiliation ... ".
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© The Road to Zimbabwe 1890 - 1980 by Anthony Verrier & The Past is Another Country, Martin MeredithStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Margaret Thatcher, Lord Peter Carrington, P. K. van der Byl, Peter Walls, Robert Mugabe. Editor says, in this scenario, we explore the possibility that extremists in the Rhodesian government carry out their threats before the event of black majority rule for Zimbabwe. the quotation is sourced from The Past is Another Country, Martin Meredith, p291
~ What are the odds of an international force installing Muzorewa before Van der Byl and Mugabe wreck the place beating each other into exaustion?
~ The outcome's by no means a guaranteed dead-cert win for the blacks. Man-for-man, the Rhodesians were quite a bit better. And what would the world do, I wonder, if all of a sudden Rhodesia was a _white_ majority country...the same way Australia became one?
~ What international force supplied through what port? If the South Africans support them Rhodesia can carry on quite well. Many of the whites will emigrate as living standards decline but most of the military and police were black by 1979 anyway.
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