What these saboteurs hoped to achieve one cannot say but the repercussions of the incident were horrifying. Determined to find someone to blame for the embarrassment of losing four brand-new Hawk Mk60 fighters, Hunters and a Lynx, Mugabe’s bullyboys turned on Air Force officers who suffered arrest, foul torture and false accusations. This hysterical action by ignorant political thugs showed that ZANU did not understand that Air Force men could never have considered destroying the very aircraft they loved so much.
I have to say that this horror made me pleased I had left the service when I did. But knowing my friends were in prison I sought to see what I could do to help. The Commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe, Air Marshal Norman Walsh, told me to stay well clear of these matters, as they were very sensitive. He himself was under twenty-four-hour surveillance and did not require any more help than he and the imprisoned officers were receiving from lawyers Mike Hartmann, Rhett Gardener and Mike d’Enis.
More than a year passed before the officers were acquitted and released by a black judge on 31 August 1983. Outside the court they were immediately re-arrested and another long year followed before all were eventually released and deported from Zimbabwe, their service pensions having been denied them.
How those guys managed to put on a brave face on the few occasions they were seen during trial baffled me until I learned how Air Force technician-turned-chaplain, Boet van Schalkwyk, and the men’s wives had given so much support, love and spiritual guidance.
Barbara Cole’s book Sabotage and Torture tells the full sad tale of torture and trumped-up evidence against these unfortunate victims caught up in a wicked political game.
One of the few officers who remained in service with the Air Force of Zimbabwe was Ian Harvey who, with twenty-two years of service to Rhodesia, was a flight lieutenant from 1967 to 1980. Even before I moved to COMOPS, Ian had recorded 4,000 flying hours on Alouettes but then went on to exceed 6,000 hours; a world record I thought until I learned Mark Smithdorff had many more from his military service and fire-fighting operations in America.
Following another twenty years in service with Robert Mugabe’s Air Force, Ian finally retired in the rank air vicemarshal. For this he received no more than his Mercedes staff car.
Epilogue
RHODESIA CAME INTO BEING IN November 1890 and ceased to exist in April 1980. In only ninety short years Rhodesians transformed raw bush into a highly developed state—the breadbasket of Central Africa. Though always a member of the British Empire, self-governing Rhodesia never came under direct British rule. This suited Britain’s many governments because, unlike many members of the Empire, Rhodesia needed no support from British taxpayers. White Rhodesians, and many black ones too, were staunch monarchists who willingly gave support of arms to King and Queen in every British war fought in South Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Far East. Rhodesia’s contributions and status were always recognised and lauded until the mid-1960s.
By this time dismemberment of the British Empire had brought about the steep decline associated with party political handling of everything British. With this also came an end to an Englishman’s word being his bond; politically that is. So too had Britain’s political might been substituted by weakkneed policies of appeasement in which Rhodesia was another stepping stone down Britain’s road to self-destruction.
Establishing Britain’s Empire did not occur without some serious flaws, even unashamed exploitation of peoples and natural resources. But not one country so affected failed to enjoy massive development and a legacy of efficient infrastructure. This is plainly visible in those British colonies that were granted independence but retained responsible government in white hands. They continue to prosper whilst those that find it necessary to use colonialism as an excuse for their own failings, particularly in Africa, have suffered serious and ongoing decline. In spite of this, successive British governments have shamefully led Britons into feeling ashamed of their colonial past.
It was the British Government that created the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland by linking two British colonies to self-governing Rhodesia. Having in this way given three unequal countries equal status, Britain’s policies of appeasement kicked in to destroy its own brainchild after only ten years; this despite the fact that union of the three states had been an unqualified success. In appeasing the wants of power-seeking black politicians, common sense and the interests of ordinary citizens were forsaken. Remember Henry Kissinger’s words, “The politics of convenience has little to do with truth or logic!”
In compensation for agreeing to the dissolution of the Federation, Britain’s Conservative Government promised independence to each of the three states but only honoured its pledges to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The solemn promise of independence given Southern Rhodesia was ignored because of the newfound obsession to appease Africa’s black governments, no matter their corruption and total lack of management skills. Taking full advantage of Britain’s whimpering ‘apologies for her colonial past’, black governments followed the Soviet Union’s lead by introducing racism as a whipping tool. In turn this led Britain into creating the political mess that perfectly suited communist aspirations and led Rhodesians into a thirteen-year-long civil war.
Rivalry between Britain’s two main political parties has created seesaw situations within Britain itself, but none has been so damaging as suffered by Britain’s colonies. Every state granted independence experienced the intrigues and lies that had become the post-WWII hallmark of British political expediency. It was these traits that forced Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front party to declare UDI in 1965 after all options were rendered intolerable by both Labour and Conservative governments constantly moving the goal posts they themselves had set.
It can be argued that UDI was a mistake, but I know for certain that we would have become a communist state that much earlier had UDI not been declared. The question is: was it all worthwhile? Again I feel Ian Smith had to do what he did to gain time in hopes that the West would come to understand that Rhodesian plans to progress gently towards responsible black majority rule was a much better option than the hurried Marxist take-over we all feared and fought so hard to prevent. Argue as one might, the facts are that racism became the main political issue and Britain rejected white-led democracy in favour of black Marxism. In his bid to justify the horrific policy of apartheid, Prime Minister Vorster of South Africa used Rhodesia as his political pawn, thereby undermining all efforts to gain Western support. Even our hopes in Margaret Thatcher were dashed when we came to realise that ‘the Iron Lady with more balls than the men’ had succumbed to the policies of appeasement expounded by her gutless male colleagues.
Every living white Rhodesian was, and remains, incensed by the duplicity—particularly by Vorster—that led to Rhodesia’s unnecessary demise. Whereas the black folk did not recognise the dangers of voting ZANU into power, today they know better. But this late realisation cannot circumvent the unnecessary suffering and bloodshed they will surely face for bringing to power an unbelievably selfish, power-crazy, Marxist demagogue. Too late they have come to understand that ZANU’s promises of utopia in ‘liberated Zimbabwe’ were only for the good of Mugabe and his fat cats—certainly not for theirs. Even the CTs who fought and died to bring about the promises made to them by Mugabe are losers.