Like a lot of African colonies, and like the American colonies in 1776, the former colony of Rhodesia declared its independence without the permission of what, in 1965, was pretty much the former British Empire.
Unlike all the other countries that did this, they were opposed by British Government and the United Nations, including the US Government—because they were white.
After years of international pressure, terrorism, and war with the neighboring black-ruled countries, the Rhodesians were induced to surrender to black rule in 1980. This was supposed to be "democratic" but Robert Mugabe, the terrorist leader who took over, stayed in power for 37 years, killed tens of thousands of people, more blacks than whites, and didn't let go of power until he was 93.
At the time that he claimed to be defending "civilised standards", Rhodesians had already witnessed the flight of Belgian refugees from the Congo; Idi Amin had trashed Uganda, and Mobutu Sese Seko was about to introduce an even more brutal and dysfunctional regime in neighbouring Zaire; immediately to the north of Rhodesia, Kaunda's Zambia was in a mess, riddled with corruption and economically mismanaged, and Malawi was being similarly misruled by the eccentric despot Hastings Banda. So why, Smith argued, would Mugabe be any different? Why, indeed.
Ian Smith has sadly been proved right, by Graham Boynton, The Telegraph, November 22, 2007
VDARE.com has lots of material on the follow up, starting with Sam Francis and Paul Craig Roberts in 2002:
Things got worse:
During the Arab Spring, Pat Buchanan mentioned Rhodesia as a horrible example of mindless democracy-promotion:
The overthrow of Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia brought to power Robert Mugabe and his Mashona, who proceeded to massacre the Matabele of rival Joshua Nkomo, rob the whites of their property, drive them out of their country and create the hellhole that is Zimbabwe.
Yet such is the power of democracy worship, this secular religion, to blind people to the evidence of their own eyes that virtually every Western leader favored one-man, one-vote democracy in Rhodesia.
More on pre-surrender Rhodesia from Derb:
Mel Reynolds, a black ex-Congressman who left office after some problems with underage girls, was in Zimbabwe negotiating with the black government.
I had to explain that Reynolds, who had been jailed for sex with a 16-year old girl, wasn't charged with possessing child pornography, but with possessing pornography—the kind that's perfectly legal in America.
Steve Sailer wondered why Stanley Fischer, who had been governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013, was being pushed as vice chairman of America's Federal Reserve in 2014. I pointed out that Fischer, in addition to being an Israeli/American dual citizen, was also a Rhodesian, having been born there and lived there until 1960.
This gave me the opportunity to quote something Peter Brimelow wrote in the pre-Purge National Review:z
"domestic ethnic-group pressure clearly plays a role in Washington's essentially contradictory attitudes to the white settler communities of southern Africa and the Middle East" [Time to Rethink Immigration? June 22, 1992]
There's more:
Here's the image for that last:
More recently
And finally, while the white-run government of Rhodesia quietly and democratically declared independence in 1965, Rhodesia wasn't officially independent until the Lancaster House Conference in 1980, when it was handed over to "Comrade Bob" Mugabe, who changed the name to Zimbabwe. And the way they got from Point A to Point B wasn't democracy, and it wasn't sanctions, it was terrorism on a grand scale.
Joshua Nkomo’s army shot down Rhodesian civilian airliners—with Russian SAM-7 missiles—on two separate occasions. In one of them, Air Rhodesia Flight 825, the guerrillas massacred 10 people who had survived the crash on the ground.
Below, a recording of the Dean of the Cathedral of St. Mary and All Saints of then white Salisbury, Rhodesia speaking at a memorial service for the dead, warning the civilized West that if they ignored terror in Rhodesia, it would come for them, too. He was right.
