Ian Smith

For the player of Scottish Rugby , to see Ian Smith (Rugby) Ian Douglas Smith (born the April 8th 1919 and dead the November 20th 2007) was a Politician of Southern Rhodesia, Prime Minister of Rhodesia (future Zimbabwe) of the April 13rd 1964 at June 1st 1979 then chief of the parliamentary opposition of April 1980 to April 1987.

A African childhood

Ian Smith was born the April 8th 1919 in Selukwe (called Shurigannina of 1963 with 1968 and nowadays Shurugwi), a mining small town of the Colonie Britannique of Southern Rhodesia. It was youngest of the three children of the family and the only boy. His/her father, Douglas Smith, was a Scot Immigré in Rhodesia in 1898 to try to become farmer. His/her mother was one first native white of Rhodesia.

Raised in Gwelo (today Gweru), Smith starts in 1938 higher learning trades about it with prestigious the Université Rhodos, with Grahamstown in South Africa.

Pilot of the RAF during the second world war

In 1939, the Second world war begins in Europe and in 1941, it stops its studies to become pilot of flying Hawker Hurricanes in the Royal Air Force. It is affected initially with the the Middle East in a Escadron of pilots rhodésiens. It is with Alexandria that it is seriously wounded at the time of the crash landing on the takeoff of its plane the October 4th 1943. Disfigured, the plastic surgeon gives again its features to him but it will continue to suffer from a light facial paralysis. Ian Smith does not have whereas 24 years.

Its Escadron is then affected in Corsica where, as an escort of American bombers, it controls Spitfire Mark IXs.

In the middle of the year 1944, its Spitfire is cut down at the time of a mission to the top of the Germany. Having jumped in parachute, it is found behind the enemy lines but manages to join the resistance S Italian and Frenchwomen who hide it for 5 months close to Sasello and help it to join the lines allied.

Political ascendance in Rhodesia

In 1946, Smith returns in Africa and finishes its studies in Rhodos where he is in particular elected president of the representative council of the students.

Two years later, it buys a farm with Gwenoro, close to Selukwe. He also marries Janet Watt, already mother of two children, with whom he will have an only son, Alec.

In July 1948, Ian Smith enters in policy within the liberal party of Southern Rhodesia ( Southern Rhodesia Liberals ). He is elected Député of Selukwe at the legislative assembly. Smith is then the youngest deputy of the Parliament.

In 1953, favorable to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyassaland, it joined the plain federal party ( United Federal Party ) of Lord Malvern and is elected at the federal assembly, appointed general district of the Midlands. In 1958, he is vice-president of the parliamentary group of the plain federal party at the federal assembly. In dissension with the policy of the Prime Minister Roy Welensky, whom it considers too moderate vis-a-vis the claims nationalist in particular after the widening of economic rights and social to the black populations of Southern Rhodesia, it leaves the federalists and founds the party reformist rhodésien (Rhodesia Reform Party) which it amalgamates in March 1962 with the party of the dominion to form the Front Rhodésien (RF). This last gains the general elections of Southern Rhodesia in December 1962 of 8000 votes vis-a-vis the plain federal party of the first outgoing minister Edgar Whitehead.

Ian Smith is then elected appointed of Umzingwane and is named Minister of Finances in the new government of Winston Field.

In December 1963, at the time of a conference to the Falls Victoria, the British secretary with the foreign affairs, Rab Butler, declares to him that the Great Britain would be of agreement to jointly grant independence to Southern Rhodesia with Rhodesia of North and Nyassaland.

The Prime Minister of Rhodesia (1964-1979)

The April 13rd 1964, Smith becomes the chief of the party and succeeds Field with the head of the government. Smith is then a determined partisan of the maintenance of the rights and Privilège S of the white Minorité of Southern Rhodesia. He refuses any transfer of political rights in the majority black like encouraged the British government there (principle of transfer of power in the majority black before any independence of the colony).

At the time, the colony is governed by the Constitution of 1961 which envisages a National Assembly of 65 elected deputies on two levels. For the first level (50 deputies), the conditions to be entitled to vote are drastic and rest on a Suffrage censitaire combining various factors of which the level of education and land and buildings or real (electoral principle adoptee since 1923). At the end of the day, 95% of the electorate of this level resulted from the white minority (8% of the population) whereas the country counted to 90% black citizens (5% of them had the right to vote in this electorate). For the second level (15 deputies), the conditions to be entitled to vote were less constraining. Blow, 90% of this Electorate resulted from the black community. Consequently, 50 deputies came from the white community and only 16 of the black community. Ian Smith defended this principle of representation on two levels which avoided the criterion racial and which theoretically, very allowed long run the constitution of a black political majority in the country.

But at the beginning of 1964, whereas the majority of the old British colonies reach or are in way to reach independence, that the rhodésienne federation is dissolved, Rhodésiens blacks also gathered in nationalist movements of which the goal is the political seizure of power still held by the white minority. Among those, the Zimbabwe African National Union (radical) and the Zimbabwe African People' S Union (left ethnic).

On their side, the British loyal supporters of Rhodesia carried out by Roy Welensky choose the status quo: no independence without majority capacity thus not majority capacity nor of independence. The Face rhodésien and Smith want on the contrary to force the things and to prevent any independence imposed by the colonial metropolis as it had just occurred in Rhodesia from north, with the Kenya or Nyassaland.

Thus, the surge of thousands of Europeans coming from Zambia, of the Malawi, the Kenya or the Congo consolidates fears of the white minority. Smith then decides to force the course of the events. He convenes the 622 big bosses of tribes in Indaba (meeting), as a representative of the black population, and obtains their agreement to claim independence in the United Kingdom.

The November 5th 1964, the Référendum on the independence which it mainly organizes near the electorate white him is favorable. With 58.091 votes in favor of independence against 6.096 hostile votes with this prospect, it receives a massive support to negotiate near the colonial metropolis.

In January 1965, with London, Smith meets for the first time the new British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, at the time of the funeral of Winston Churchill. The meeting does not occur well more especially as Smith is not invited initially to the lunch which follows the funeral to Buckingham Palace. Smith finally is invited to the last minute by the Queen then received by the Prime Minister with the 10 Downing Street.

The March 7th 1965, the general elections bring a victory bright to the Face rhodésien which, rolling the loyal supporters, gains the totality of the 50 seats of white deputies to provide.

In July and August, of the bilateral meetings have place between British representatives and south-rhodésiens with London and Salisbury, the capital of Rhodesia. The negotiations stumble each time on the question of the Right to vote. The Smith government asserts a solution south-rhodésienne and the safeguarding of the privileges of the minority whereas the British government requires the installation of a not-racial and levelling mode.

In October, Smith meets Harold Wilson, British the Prime Minister, in Salisbury. The intervention of the United Nations in the negotiations stiffen the positions south-rhodésiennes.

The November 5th 1965, Ian Smith then puts the colony in state of emergency to put an end to agitations of the black nationalist movements.

The unilateral declaration of independence

The November 11th 1965, after the failure of the last negociations with the the United Kingdom, Ian Smith signs unilaterally, in time that colonial head of government, the Indépendance of Rhodesia making of the British colony a sovereign state.

This act of rebellion towards the metropolis is declared null by London. It is followed of a general judgment of the United Nations which enjoint with the British government to put an end to the actions of its rebellious colony. The country is subjected to a international Embargo.

Although sharing the same racial vision of the place of the white man in Africa, Rhodesia is not even recognized by its large neighbor, the republic of South Africa. The profits then appear quite thin except a national pride rhodésienne. Twice, Smith goes to Gibraltar to negotiate with the British government a way out of crisis but it is the failure. Whereas Wilson expresses a certain ambivalence, informant who Rhodesia was not ready for a complete equality as regards electoral rights, it more or less voluntarily humiliates Smith by his behavior at the time of their first meeting. The British however make it possible to him to prolong the white political domination for one rather long fixed period time that a black elite takes the changing. The economic interests of the minority would then be guaranteed. But the negotiations stumble on the fate of the rebellious government which would have to dissolve, to invite some with the direct intervention of the British governor to manage during one transitional period the colony, which would have had any leisure to form a black nationalist government without taking account of the last elections favorable to the face rhodésien. According to the Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Smith did not intend to concede the capacity in the majority black. The relations between the two negotiators are in fact hateful. As for Rhodésiens, they are assigned in residence because their passports are not recognized. Smith himself cannot attend the marriage of his own son in Norway in 1975. In spite of the sympathy or the strategic assistance of country like the Portugal, Israel, Taiwan or South Africa, the sanctions end up strangling the country whereas a guerilla loophole starts to devastate Rhodesia with the beginning of the year 1970.

The Republic of Rhodesia

In 1970, the last bonds with the Métropole are broken when the Republic of Rhodesia is proclaimed the March 3rd 1970. Clifford Dupont took the protocolar functions of the former general governor and became the first president of Southern Rhodesia. Smith remained the Prime Minister and the true strong man of the mode.

The Republic of Southern Rhodesia instituted a mode Parlementaire on the British model of Westminster. The criteria to be entitled to vote were always censitaires and in fact Ségrégation nist. Thus only 8.000 Africans (out of five million) profited from the right to vote in order to elect sixteen black deputies whereas 82.852 White (out of 243.000 Rhodésiens) elected 50 white deputies. A senate of 23 members was instituted where ten White were elected by the deputies, ten Blacks by the colleges of the traditional chiefs and three senators, without reference to races, were named by the President.

The territorial distribution remained similar to that of the colonial time. Thus, 49% of the territory were held by the white (7% of the population) or by the administration whereas the blacks (92% of the population) divided the 51% remainder under indigenous reserves. The grounds of mission were on the other hand removed.

The United Nations continued to organize the international insulation of Rhodesia.

In November 1971, another attempt at conciliation is offered by the British government henceforth directed by the conservative Edward Heath and is accepted by the government rhodésien. But the project of progressive transfer of the capacity over one duration of about fifty years, by the extension of the right to vote to African and their progressive participation in the political matters, proposed by Alec Douglas-Home, the Foreign Minister British, also envisages the prior approval of the black majority. A royal commission furrowed all the country during the year 1972 to obtain the feeling of the black population. In his report/ratio published in May 1972, it in conclua that 98% of the white population were favorable to the anglo-rhodésien agreement (“yes of lassitude”) in the same way the near total of the tribal chiefs recognized by Salisbury. But it also estimated that the temporary project was on the other hand rejected by a vast majority of the black population. The project was then buried whereas the war began from the bush carried out by the nationalists of the ZANU and the ZAPU.

At the beginning of January 1973, Smith closed his transportation routes with Zambia by which forwarded 40% of the Zambian imports and 48% of its exports. It was a question for him of warning Zambia for its logistical support for the movements of Guérilla. It caused in against part the hostility of its large neighbor, the Republic of South Africa whose economic interests in Zambia were considerable. The buffer state of Southern Rhodesia became a burden for its powerful neighbor. The border was finally reopened as of the February 5th 1973 marking a diplomatic failure for Smith released by his allies, thus showing the dependancy of Rhodesia towards South Africa.

Within the framework of its policy of relaxation with the African countries, John Vorster, Prime Minister of South Africa, decides to intervene with Smith to try to lead it to negotiate the end of the domination of the white minority. The December 11th 1973, under the pressure of Vorster, Smith thus announced the release of the political prisoners, ensured according to him of the end of the acts of Terrorisme in and nearest meeting Southern Rhodesia of a constitutional conference with moderate nationalist chiefs. But it is the failure.

With the support of the British and Americans, John Vorster continues nevertheless to put the pressure on Smith and announces the progressive withdrawal of Rhodesia of several South-African, auxiliary quotas of police force of the local police force at the time when, to counter the guerilla, the security forces of the government south-rhodésien multiplied the raids against the bases of drive of the ZANU and the ZAPU to the Mozambique and in Zambia. For Smith, the behavior of Vorster is a Trahison worthy of until it waited of Great Britain and not of an ally but it is obliged to yield.

The August 25th 1975, under the auspices of John Vorster and Kenneth Kaunda, a meeting at the top between Smith and the black leaders of the movements of guerillas took place to the Chutes Victoria, in a South-African coach stationed on a bridge located above the falls at the border between Zambia and Rhodesia. At the end of nine hours of maintenance, this conference between Smith and Abel Muzorewa (ANC), Joshua Nkomo (ZAPU) and Pasteur Sitholé (ZANU) was also balanced by a failure.

Nevertheless, in September 1975, at the time of the congress of the Face rhodésien to Umtali, Smith publicly plans to form in times to come a government with Joshua Nkomo.

The September 18th 1976, it meets with Pretoria, Henry Kissinger, the American Secretary of State and John Vorster. He announces his rallying with the principle of government with black majority.

In October 1976, a conference on Rhodesia is then organized with Geneva between Ian Smih, its government and the representatives of the African nationalists. It finishes on a failure two months later.

The political transition

Having given his agreement to the majority principle, Smith does not make the immediate provisions to make it apply. He is however then the unchallenged leader and respected white minority and any other white rhodésien is not able to confront itself politically with him. Thus, at the time of the elections of the August 31st 1977, the Face rhodésien confirms its prevalence at the Rhodium ones by gaining 50 of the 65 seats of the Parliament, marginalizing the Rhodesia Action Party (15% of the voices), a hostile dissidence of Extreme-right-hand side to any negotiation.

The next month, without consulting its cabinet, it goes to Lusaka in Zambia to meet Kenneth Kaunda and to try to lead it to support it in its step of internal payment. It is a failure.

The November 24th 1977, with Bulawayo, Ian Smith clearly announces his rallying with the principle of the majority fact (“one man, one vote”). This reversal leads to the agreements of Salisbury of the March 3rd 1978, signed between moderated Smith and three African leaders, Abel Muzorewa, the reverend Sitholé and the Chief Jeremiah Chirau, envisaging the formation of a temporary multiracial government charged to set up a new constitution.

The March 21st 1978, the first government multiracial of Southern Rhodesia was then formed with an executive council of transition bringing together the signatories from the agreement of Salisbury.

In spite of the massacre with Umtali, by guerillas of the patriotic Face, of twelve English civilians of a religious mission whose five women, three infants and baby, Smith still tries to rejoin Joshua Nkomo with the agreements of Salisbury and with Lusaka in Zambia the August 14th 1978 meets it.

Following the Attack carried out by members of the movement of guerilla of Nkomo against an airliner of Air Rhodesia, Smith breaks the negotiations with Josuah Nkomo, which drew aside any legal and peaceful solution to seize the power.

In October 1978, to the invitation of 27 preserving senators, Ian Smith went to the the United States to plead its cause, transgressing the sanctions enacted by the safety advice of the United Nations.

The January 30th 1979, the news Constitution was ratified by 84,4% of the white voters. It envisaged the formation of a parliamentary Régime with a president elected with the Vote for all for ten years, a bicameral Parlement composed of a senate of 30 members elected for five years (ten Blacks, ten White, ten tribal chiefs) and of an assembly of one hundred elected deputies where 28 seats would be reserved for the White (3% of the population) for one ten years period. The project guaranteed the white prevalence in the administration (justice and army included) as well as a quarter of the ministerial positions to the white during the first five years of the new mode.

Although this constitution was negotiated with Muzorewa, this one was repudiated by all the other black movements, thePlain ones and the United Kingdom.

The February 28th 1979, the last Parliament of Southern Rhodesia to white majority was dissolves.

In a context of strong electoral mobilization, the multiracial first election S organized in April 1979 ended in the awaited victory of the African national congress of Muzorewa whereas the Face rhodésien gained without surprised the 28 seats reserved for the White (3% of the population represented by 28% of the deputies).

In June 1979, Smith yielded his post of Prime Minister to Abel Muzorewa but remained with the government of new the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

In September 1979, the British government of Margaret Thatcher persuades nevertheless the government of Muzorewa to negotiate in Lancaster House. In December, Rhodesia became again British Colonie.

In spite of his reserves and his recriminations against what he considers being a British treason, Smith approves with reserve the Accords of Lancaster House of December 1979 preparing the passage of being able in the majority black and the independence of the Zimbabwe. Smith refuses nevertheless to take part in the official celebration, preferring to go to dine outside with several members on his delegation. According to these agreements, the white minority obtains a representation guaranteed of 20 deputies during seven years and the absence of land expropriation during 10 years. Lastly, a Amnistie is guaranteed to all, guerillas and members of the government and the military forces.

Smith hoped to form a coalition with the UANC and the ZAPU but the absolute victory of the radicals of the ZANU to the elections of February 1980 put an end to the project of moderate government. Smith tried to make cancel the election with the reason for multiple measurements of intimidations of the voters in the moved back campaigns but the international observers declared the election right and democratic.

Alec Smith of return in Rhodesia arranged an interview between Smith and Robert Mugabe, the future Prime Minister, to try to find an agreement of management. The maintenance of several hours take place the March 2nd 1980 and was friendly according to the witnesses. According to his later testimony, Smith stated to be received by Robert Mugabe whereas this one had promised in its meetings to make it hang with a tree in full center of Salisbury. Mugabe admitted during this maintenance receiving a jewel which had to be preserved. Following this maintenance, Smith then asked Rhodésiens white to accept the result of the elections and to be pragmatic in the future. He asked them to remain in the country and to cooperate with new government ZANU-PF.

Zimbabwe reaches independence the April 18th 1980.

The irreducible opponent

A few months later, Ian Smith belongs to a delegation of Zimbabwe in visit in Europe in the search of foreign investors.

At the Parliament, he becomes the chief of the opposition as leader of the republican Face. He maintains with his party the character of representation of the white minority.

He meets Mugabe on several occasions but in December 1982, he is briefly stopped and his Passeport confiscated to have criticized several constitutional reforms suggested by Robert Mugabe.

In 1984, Smith gives up British nationality definitively to keep only that Zimbabwean.

Between 1980 and 1985, the RF gradually loses 11 of its elected officials, rejoined individually with independent or the ZANU of the Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. But with the elections of 1985, it makes safe 15 seats out of the 20 guaranteed to the white minority.

In 1986, the RF is renamed Preserving Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ) and opens more largely with the blacks.

In 1987, Mugabe puts an end to the white representation. Smith withdraws itself then in his farm of Shurugwi. The preserving Alliance of Zimbabwe was going to end up dissolving at the end of the years 1990 in the Mouvement for the democratic change.

Irreducible opponent with president Robert Mugabe since 1980, Ian Smith is one of the rare signatories of the UDI to be remained in Zimbabwe more than twenty years after the independence of 1980.

With the beginning of the year 2000, it tries to form a new party with Muzorewa and Sithole but finally gives its support for the Movement for a democratic change (MDC) of Morgan Tsvangirai, true first popular opposition party with Mugabe.

Whereas the majority of the white are expropriés their farms following a Land reform, its farm of Shurugwi is temporarily occupied but finalemeent saved. A little later, it yields to Mengistu Haile Mariam, old the négus red of Ethiopia, another farm secondary which it had.

In 2006, for health reasons, it must leave its residence of Philips Avenue in the district of Belgravia with Harare to settle in South Africa in order to follow a medical care. He lived in the Cape in his daughter-in-law before dying out, at the 88 years age, the November 20th 2007.

Autobiography

Ian Smith, called the “lion in the middle faithful” is the author in 2001 of a Autobiographie in which it reconsiders the fallen through years and ambitions of Rhodesia. It fustigates there treasons and the promises not-behaviors of friends and Western or South-African politicians.

Harvest Bitter: The Great Betrayal and the Dreadful Aftermath , Blake Publishing, London, 2001,

Family

His wife Janet Smith died of a Cancer in 1994.
Robert Duvenage, resulting from the first marriage of Jane Smith with Piet Duvenage, a player of South-African Rugby, left Rhodesia in catimini in 1970 and never returned there. Opposed to the white domination, it settled in England and ceased any contact with his father-in-law during several years.
Jean Duvenage, daughter-in-law of Ian Smith and girl junior by Jane, married, in 1967, Clem Tholet, a singer rhodésien of folk author of the titles with success " Gun" vagrant; and " Rhodesians Never Die". Immigrant with the Cape in South Africa after 1980, it is widowed since 2004. It is at it that his/her father-in-law lived, Ian Smith of 2006 until its death in November 2007.
Alec Smith, the son of Ian and Jane Smith, died in February 2006 of a Heart attack with the airport of Heathrow, with the return of a voyage in Norway. It was 57 years old. Former chaplain of reserve of the army of Zimbabwe and implied in various caritative activities, the personal stormy relations and policies between Ian and Alec Smith had ended in the years 1990. Alec Smith had then helped his father (widowed) to manage his farm and to write its memories. Alec Smith had been ostracized a long time as well by the white of Rhodesia as by the blacks of Zimbabwe (which had reproached him for being the son of Ian Smith, in spite of their political oppositions). Alec Smith left behind him his wife of Norwegian origin, two girls and a son.

Comments of contemporaries

“ Ian Smith was a formidable contradictor but it was not a visionary. We offered to him much more than it with what it could claim and that what it will have now. He waited too a long time and he will not have anything at the end .” - Harold Wilson (former Prime Minister for the the United Kingdom) in an interview with BBC in 1979, right before the top of Lancaster House.
“ If Smith had been a black man, I would say that he would have been the best Prime Minister than Zimbabwe forever have .” Morgan Tsvangirai, Leader of MDC, 1999
“ Smith had many qualities like politician. However, it was the product of its medium. Its life was summarized in parts of cricket, schools " whites only" , the RAF, the country club and the company of the others " gentleman farmers". It is never escaped .” - Peter Hain, minister in charge of Africa in the government of Tony Blair, interview with the newspaper To observe, 1999

General bibliography devoted to Ian Smith and Rhodesia

Roland Pichon: the drama Rhodésien , Idoc-France, 1975, 247p
Charles Rousseau: Chronic of the international facts in Re-examined general of public international law , 1978, p 917-922, 1979, p 547-555 and 1980, p 413-417
Charles Cadoux: Zimbabwe, birth of a nation , French Directory of international law, 1980, p9-29
George Lory: Southern Africa , Otherwise n°45, 1990, 265p

Random links: