It all came about because the prime minister, Garfield Todd, had got very close to the African Nationalists. I'm not really sure in what way, but it appeared the African Nationalists were starting to get out of control and Garfield Todd appeared to the rest of his cabinet to be getting too pally with them. They all revolted and said they couldn't work with him anymore. The reasons were ideological. His own clan decided to get rid of him.
So he took the drastic step of running the government without them. He would direct everything from his office. We were at that time officially being administered from England Britain arranged for a replacement prime minister. Britain decided to replace Todd with Edgar Whitehead, who had no ability. He let things get out of control. The African Nationalists started to build down schools and churches and the situation was becoming more concerning. Whitehead had to call an election to sort the thing out around 1962. I went to the drill hall to hear some people speak. I was a bit shocked by the tone of the meeting, as id never heard anything like it. Ian Smith was speaking for the Rhodesian Front. The African Nationalists were trying to drown Smith out, as they knew he as right-wing. They just turned up and began singing. William Harper was the other in the Rhodesian Front.
Ian Smith made his move to become prime minister. He began singing to drown out the African Nationalists. I can still hear it in my mind. He sang bobbejaan klim die berg, just to drown out the nationalists. It wasn't to be insulting. Anyway an election happened and the Rhodesian Front won the election.
Smith was dominion party in those days, but the name was later changed. The head of the dominion party was Winston Field. They won by a big margin because everybody could see that Edgar Whitehead was a weak man who had no idea what to do. We all thought he didn't understand the African context. I heard him speak at the united nations. He was trying to light his pipe, and the match would go out and he would try to light it again. He spent the whole time fumbling with a box of matches, showing his nerves.
When Smith won the elections, the British could have replaced him but they didn't. They realized that Smith was a very popular person.
In the meantime, Rhodesia was part of the Central African Federation, which consisted of Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesia. Nyasaland started to attack its government led by Doctor Banda. The capital was in Salisbury. They wanted to be self-governing. Nyasaland was led by Hastings Banda, who was there for many years. Britain had put him in charge as prime minister, but then it was in revolt and troops were sent from Rhodesia to Nyasaland to quell the riots. I just missed going. I was slightly too old. I hadn't done my training in the army yet. I did my training in 59, and I remember some guys were away in Nyasaland when I was doing my training.
One day in 1965, I was at work and told to go down to the staff room and listen to the radio. Ian Smith came on the radio and read the Proclamation of Independence. There was much jubilation because we had the guts to stand up and tell Britain where to go. The Federation had been crumbling all this time. Roy Welensky was the prime minister of the federation and as it was breaking up, Britain gave independence to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. Kenneth Kaunda was the head of Northern Rhodesia. Britain had appointed these other heads of state.
Rhodesia had been self-governing since 1923 when the British South Africa Company had ended. This was the charter company allowed by the British to open Rhodesia, which had run the country for years. Rhodes was long gone by 1923. South Africa had restructured after the war and Rhodesia had to vote to see if we wanted to be part of their political structure. We voted to be self-governing.
Then the Federation broke up around. 64, something like that. The first election I participated in ended up with Ian Smith being the prime minister, although I didn't have the vote then.
From then on there were wrangles between Rhodesia and Britain that never ended. Britain had declared us illegal and put sanctions against us so we couldn't sell or buy anything. Smith and the British government were trying to undo the sanctions. We did and we didn't want to become part of Britain again, to buy petrol and sell tobacco or cotton or sugar. Britain had been a market for Rhodesia but all the counties around were participating in the united nations resolution not to have dealings with Rhodesia America needed our chrome, though, because of the Vietnam war, so they bought it despite the sanctions, on the basis of an amendment. At one point, America bought chrome from Russia that had come from Rhodesia.
I remember being up north in Rhodesia walking up north near a railway line and there was this big heap of chrome ore, ready to be loaded onto a train.
A lot of funny things happened in those days Rhodesia had a refinery in Mozambique called Furaka. Ships had to deliver oil to a port in Lorenzo Marques, which was pumped to Faruka. The African Nationalists just blew up the pipeline once a week. There a car going north from the border and the people in it were named Fourie. When they pulled over, these blokes on the side of the road smashed their windows and chucked in a can of petrol, then set it alight, so nobody thought they were very nice people.
In 1959, I was called up for army training, and every couple of years after that for three weeks at a time. In 1973, the nationalists attacked in earnest. Our army was deployed up there in the north of the state. Some very serious battles took place. Originally, they had just marched through the country shooting anyone who got in the way. A whole family of farmers were wiped out in Centenary.
In that year, I'd taken long service leave and we took a five month trip to South Africa. We had to take a different route because terrorists had shot up some motorcyclists . When we went through Fort Victoria, a woman told us of the news that three had been shot up on the way down. Instead of going through Beit Bridge, we went through Bulawayo and Nuanetsi.
You could carry arms later on but not at that time. Some people had shotguns mounted on top of their car. Basically they were tubes of steel pointing to the sky and when you pulled a lever they would go around shooting in every direction. People made a fetish of not being afraid. My uncle used to go out 'bright lighting', which meant going out to farms where women were on their own, because their husbands were out fighting. He used to camp on the side of their farmhouse.
He said, I made up my mind many years ago, that I would never do or not do anything because of these bastards. He was unarmed.
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