Britain Has Bloody Hands in Zimbabwe

We should not be surprised, for British indifference to the plight of the Africans in Southern Rhodesia, and later Zimbabwe, goes back more than a century. Cecil Rhodes's company stole land and cattle from them without compensation – actions later sanctioned by the British government. In the 1950s, Britain set up the Central African Federation, including Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi), and allowed it to rule on a racist agenda ("the partnership of the rider and the horse", to quote its prime minister, Sir Roy Welensky).

We did nothing to prevent Ian Smith declaring unilateral independence in 1965, when we had the power to do so – I was there at the time and wrote a report, which I later heard had gone to a cabinet committee chaired by the Foreign Secretary, showing how we could end the rebellion.

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