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Smith, Rhodesia’s last Premier, dead

Ian Smith

Nairobi: Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian Prime Minister, who unilaterally declared independence from British rule, has died aged 88. Mr. Smith ruled the country for 15 years from 1964 to 1979, in an ultimately futile effort to maintain white minority rule.

During that turbulent time, he fought a guerilla war against fighters from the majority black population. He remained a member of Parliament in what became Zimbabwe until 1987, and moved to Cape Town in South Africa in the last few years. He died there at a family home on Tuesday.

Seen by many as the symbol of colonial era racism in Africa, Mr. Smith remained unrepentant to the end, convinced that Zimbabwe would have been better off under his rule than that of his successor, Robert Mugabe.

The son of a Scottish butcher, Mr. Smith was born in Southern Rhodesia, then a British colony, in 1919, and educated in South Africa. Mr. Smith became Prime Minister in April 1964, promising to prolong white rule. He made his historic Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, immediately separating from Britain and the Commonwealth.

Britain dismissed Mr. Smith and his Cabinet, but he ignored the move.So confident was Mr. Smith that white rule would go unchallenged that he famously declared that he did not believe in black majority rule over Rhodesia, “not in a thousand years”.

Armed resistance by the black opposition brought about the downfall of the white minority government.

Eventually, Mr. Smith succumbed to the inevitable and agreed to a form of majority rule.

He took part in the Lancaster House talks that paved the way for formal independence in 1980, when the country’s name changed to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party took over. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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