Die Kolonel
28th May 2008, 12:10
The last adventurer
U.S. Special Forces vet joined fight against Mugabe
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Posted: May 24, 2008
12:30 am Eastern
By Anthony C. LoBaido
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Editor's Note: Journalist Anthony C. LoBaido has published scores of stories about South Africa and Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia. LoBaido has spent several years living, working and traveling in southern Africa over the past two decades. In his latest segment, LoBaido brings to light the story of J. Columbus Smith, an American Special Forces veteran who fought in the Rhodesian Bush War.
"They can't change the name of a country, can they?"
Cecil John Rhodes
Chobe sunset (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
The very name Rhodesia conjures images of Edwardian England and the spirit and might of the British Empire. Once the peaceful, thriving breadbasket of southern Africa, Rhodesia experienced a bloody fight to the death in the 1960s and 1970s that pitted black vs. white, capitalist vs. communist and globalist vs. nationalist.
Known today as Zimbabwe, few in the Western world are aware of Rhodesia's maverick history. Rhodesia's founder, Cecil Rhodes, carries a moniker akin to the anonymity of the Serbian superinventor Nicola Tesla. How could such truly great men of unfathomable accomplishments remain so unknown? Yet while scarcely remembered or seriously studied in postmodern times, Rhodes' achievements continue to resonate through the internationalist ideals of the Rhodes Scholar program and the development of English as a Second Language to assist cultural colonization and Anglo-American influence around the globe.
Rhodes rivals Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill as the leading figures of the erstwhile British Empire. Having mutated, the British Empire continues today through venues such as the Rhodes Trust, British Commonwealth, overseas military bases and the London-based finance and arms profiteering industries. The British SAS might be the most elite special forces unit on Earth. Prince Charles towers over the Wales Business Council while huge offshore oil deposits off of the Falkland Islands project wild profits for the future of British Petroleum.
(Story continues below)
The dream of Cecil Rhodes was at once simple, audacious and outlandish: a single, unified Africa from Cape Town to Cairo under the British Crown. Victoria Falls and Lake Victoria were to be only the beginning. The mineral and agricultural wealth of a United States of Africa harnessed by British law, Anglo-Saxon culture, medicine, education, history and, of course, the English language would rival that of the United States of America. Thus, the 1776 revolution and the "shot heard round the world" would become irrelevant for the British Empire.
Victoria Falls (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
With the diamond and gold fields of South Africa under British control after the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, Rhodes looked north. For there lay the path to Cairo. (Tragically, some 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in British concentration camps, as a handful of Boer farmers fought the greatest military power then on Earth to a standstill.)
Of course, there were native African tribes to contend with in what was to become known as his personal Rhodesia. (Rhodes ironically wondered about his place in posterity shortly before his death by musing, "They can't change the name of a country, can they?") A separate entity called "Northern Rhodesia" also was established.
In a strange footnote of history, Northern Rhodesia was invaded by Germany during World War I, the only British-affiliated country to have been invaded. German Gen. Paul Emil Von Letow-Vorbek salvaged naval guns and used them as artillery, home brewed his own brand of quinine and carried a steamer in crates across Lake Tanganyika. A Zeppelin loaded with supplies was even launched to help the German East African forces and floated as far south as the Sudan.
Rise of primal man
Truly visionary in a manner not unlike Tesla or Jules Verne, Rhodes was smart enough to arm the Matabele tribe against the Mashona. A century later, Rhodes' worst instincts and fears about primal man came to pass as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and the brutal dictator Robert Mugabe brought in mercenaries from North Korea's Fifth Brigade to engage in the Matabele Massacre. Mugabe's Mashona, or "Shona" for short, had been long-standing rivals of the Matabele. The operation launched against the Matabele was called "Gukurahundi," or the Shona term for the "first rain that washes away the chaff of the last harvest before the advent of spring rains."
Official figures vary, but it is estimated that about 30,000 Matabele were killed. The Catholic archbishop puts the figure at 20,000. It was an ominous warning of what would become a fascist, archetype Maoist revolution in Rhodesia, a country roughly the size of Montana. Mugabe, with the help of his own Hitler Youth-style corps, called the "Green Bombers," would go on to slaughter Zimbabwe's white farmers, take away their land and plunge the nation into a hell hole of debt, hyperinflation, murder, AIDS and hopelessness.
Today more than 82 percent of Zimbabweans are Shona. Gukurahundi continues in a mutated form. With the Matabele subdued and the "white race card played," Mugabe has no remaining choice but to turn on the black African opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC.
The Bush War
J. Columbus Smith in a 1979 New York Times photo
How did Rhodesia, once a source of agricultural bounty for Africa, turn into a living nightmare of despair? Perhaps the answer can be found in the combat experience of J. Columbus Smith an elite U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who joined the Rhodesian Army in a quest to save the beautiful nation from Mugabe. Smith has lived a life few men will ever know. Moreover, he is part of a remnant that personally fought for what was left of Western civilization in the mid 1970s before the fall of the Berlin Wall, globalization, political correctness and massive Third World immigration.
Back in the days of the Rhodesian Bush War, as it was known, Mugabe was a Spartan-like rebel. He was raised by Jesuits and sent his own son to a Catholic school. Such was his determination that Mugabe would go on to stare down the entire Western world over issues ranging from his anti-white ethnic cleansing and opposition to genetically modified foods.
Battling Mugabe and his Marxist-Maoist cadres was the job of elite Rhodesian Special Forces soldiers such as Willem Ratte and Bert Sachse. Yet Rhodesia, while abandoned by the West to face Mugabe's terrorists who in turn were backed by North Korea, China, the old USSR and its communist bloc satellites was augmented by a team of well-trained, highly motivated American volunteers.
Among these "Amerikaners" was J. Columbus Smith. The son of an Air Force pilot and a first class military brat, Smith earned a journalism degree from Sam Houston State in Texas. He served in the U.S. Army and qualified for the Special Forces. Because of his journalism background, he was appointed public information officer for all the Green Berets in Vietnam.
"My grandfather, William Robert 'Bob' Smith, was a Texas Ranger, and my dad a decorated air hero in World War II," Smith told WND. "My heritage is a long, unbroken military line, including a drummer boy in the American Revolutionary War. My serving in Vietnam was a continuation of my family's service to this great nation of ours."
J. Columbus Smith in a 1977 news photo
In Vietnam, he said, "all of the reporters came my way, and I escorted some famous combat photographers around the country to various Special Forces camps," mostly in the Central Highlands.
Smith said among the people he met were Horst Faas; Errol Flynn's son Sean; Peter Arnett, then with the Associated Press; and Helen Gibson of United Press International.
Asked why he joined the Special Forces, Smith said, "I'm an excitement addict. I like the buzz of a war zone. I volunteered for airborne school and Special Forces training because I sensed there would be excitement. I'm also an anti-communist. I saw Sputnik fly over New England when I was 12 or 13 years of age, and I felt an icicle of fear. ... The race (for the world) was on, and I wanted to be a part of it."
The story of how Smith came to fight in Rhodesia started out innocuously enough.
"A friend of mine had been to Rhodesia. and sensed I would enjoy the challenge. He visited me in San Antonio and asked if I would like to give it a go, and I said yes. I went in the autumn of 1976 to Salisbury as a freelance journalist," he told WND.
"Upon my arrival in Salisbury, I was sent before a panel of colonels who asked me many questions about combat tactics. What would I do if ... X,Y, Z. This lasted for more than an hour, after which I was offered a 'short service commission' of three years. I accepted. I was sent to Llewellyn Barracks near Bulawayo as a training officer. We trained mostly ethnic-Europeans but also some African intakes. They were conscripts all. Next door was Methuen Barracks, the home of the Rhodesian African Rifles or 'RAR.' After holding the staff position in Vietnam, which I could not evade, I was keen to command troops in the field, albeit I was 33 years old."
J. Columbus Smith (Courtesy J. Columbus Smith)
Smith said that at first he was "received with suspicion."
"People wondered if I was a spy. Of the foreign nationals, we Yanks had the worst reputation. I suspect I am one of just 20 Yanks who actually completed his three-year contract."
Nevertheless, he said, the RAR accepted me, and I became a platoon commander of 40 African soldiers. We patrolled the Tribal Trust Lands. A year or so later I was promoted to captain and had the privilege of commanding a company of 200-plus men from time to time. We patrolled the bush looking for terrorists."
Continued Smith: "Rhodesia was then struggling for survival already under communist onslaught for about a dozen years. There were 250,000 whites and 6 million blacks. Small groups of communists, trained in the USSR, Cuba, Libya, Zambia and Mozambique infiltrated into Rhodesia from the latter two nations. Since the first incursion in 1965, terrorists were now all over the country. The 'front' was everywhere when I arrived in late November 1976.
"Small terror groups led by a political commissar and armed with AK-47s, SKSs, RPG-7s would drop into a remote 'kraal' after dark and chop off a few limbs with a dull axe just to get everybody's attention and then request loyalty and information about Rhodesian security forces. This actually worked. It was standard tactics, and that's why we called them communist terrorists or 'CTs' for short."
Smith told WND that blacks did have legitimate grievances.
"Yes, of course they did. Was Rhodesia addressing them? Yes. By 1977, after years of paralyzing sanctions and a threat of a Western invasion, Ian Smith had accepted the principal of majority rule, promised majority rule elections, but not communist domination.
Smith explained that the Rhodesians fought with a minimum number of troops.
"Despite claims of having a total force strength of 10,000, I doubt we ever had more than 1,000 troops on the ground at one time. But, oh my, what a force! Man for man perhaps the toughest army in the world at that time. The idea of losing any battle or 'contact' with the enemy simply didn't occur to anyone. I never saw or heard about any defeat on our side while I was there. I don't say this to be immodest. One must always be humble.
Elephants in southern Africa (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
"Small unit commanders were given a lot of freedom to tailor their patrols to the situation," Smith said. "It was both a relaxed army and a highly efficient one. My unit, the RAR, was the oldest unit in country. My soldiers were Africans from two tribes, the Shona and Ndebele. Until the last two years of the war when African officers came on line the officers were white."
So effective was the Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign that years later, the Rand corporation published a study on it.
"We had great esprit de corps and unity. The blacks and whites sweated shoulder to shoulder in a hunt for communists in the bush. We spent 42 days in the bush, looking for and engaging groups of CTs. We never lost. Then we had 10 days of R & R.
"This meant simply drinking beer and chasing women in either of the two major cities, Bulawayo and Salisbury, now Harare. Or maybe both. Yes, life was that simple at the troop level, but it was taut cable at the top."
Smith told WND the government in Rhodesia was desperate for world recognition and were frankly puzzled it was not forthcoming in light of embracement of the principal of majority rule by Ian Smith, the ruling Rhodesian Front and plans for a majority rule election to select a black prime minister.
While serving in the Rhodesian Armed Forces, J. Columbus Smith had the opportunity to meet the leader of Rhodesia, Ian Smith.
"I met Ian Smith and immediately liked him. Half of his face seemed frozen and didn't move. This was from a terrible World War II plane crash. I felt racism in apartheid South Africa immediately. It hit me in the face when I visited Johannesburg. It radiated off the faces in the street. But I didn't see it or feel it in Rhodesia. Was I blind?
"I did see a lot of protection of blacks by the white district commissioners. They were protective mother hens over their black charges," the soldier said. "I didn't see starvation or slums. I know that the blacks in Rhodesia couldn't vote until the 1979 election. Yet I treated my soldiers very fairly and they treated me the same way. I led from the front, and they respected that. There was this balance of respect. Surely I am blinded somewhat by the wonderful camaraderie that existed between black and white soldiers. Perhaps the black soldiers were too.
"In the middle of nowhere I would stumble across people so primitive they seemed like Adam. The gap between us was a thousand years. These were a pre-wheel Stone Age people with terrible fear of evil spirits and of the witch-doctor riding from kraal to kraal each night on the back of a hyena. Also they were afraid of a certain tribe just across the river. Obviously, we all know there are good and bad people in every culture on Earth, and better technology doesn't make one a better person. I don't mean to be critical.
Victoria Falls (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
"We offered things like 'universal jurisprudence,' 'freedom from starvation,' 'protection from the hostile tribe,' 'freedom from contagious disease, 'curing of ancient diseases,' 'straight roads instead of crooked paths,' contour plowing, fertilizer and cattle dipping against tsetse fly and standardized education. But, of course, that made the ethno-Europeans out to be the 'bad guy' for some odd reason. Clearly there are those who enjoy the lack of progress in Africa. Africa is easier to control when it is weak, backward, corrupt and divided."
Concerning Rhodesia's betrayal by the West, the soldier said, "In his UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) Speech of 1965, Ian Smith stated that he didn't believe Mugabe and his ilk were up to governing the nation. Looking back over 40 years later, was he wrong?"
Indeed, the UDI saw Rhodesia pull away from the mother crown. Rather than negotiate with Mugabe's terrorists, Rhodesian leader Ian Smith, a fighter pilot who was shot down over Italy during World War II while fighting for the allies, stood up to Maoism, Marxism and communism while the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world, wounded from Vietnam and menaced by the old Soviet Union, sat idly by.
In his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Ian Smith asked about the concepts of loyalty, honor and Western civilization.
Kissinger, while polite, firmly told Smith, "I am afraid those things have no place in the modern world."
"White regimes would not survive in southern Africa," Kissinger also said.
The new world order and seeds of the African Union were being firmly planted by the globalists at the Council on Foreign Relations and Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
South Africa, which long has fought for Rhodesia, cut off aid, hoping apartheid would be spared by the West for doing so. The sellout was on. Many Rhodesians, including elite soldiers such as Willem Ratte, Bert Sachse and Luther Eeben Barlow, who would become the backbone of South Africa's elite special forces in the war against Cuba and the USSR in Angola, fled to South Africa. (Barlow went on to found Executive Outcomes, the world's foremost mercenary outfit in the 1990s.)
Says J. Columbus Smith, "We were a thorn in Margaret Thatcher's side. Rhodesia was betrayed before Ronald Reagan became president, so it wasn't his fault. Under Jimmy Carter, the Yanks blackmailed Iran to cut off oil to South Africa. All South Africa had to do to get the oil back was to stop the fuel transport trucks from traveling north across Beitbridge into Rhodesia. Rhodesia's purpose, ultimately, was to buy a little more time for South Africa.
Smith pointed out that in the U.S., Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, delivered Carter the black vote that helped to put the Georgia governor in the White House. After that, he said, Young could have anything he wanted.
"One of the things Young wanted was Mugabe at the helm in Zimbabwe," Smith said.
"Carter bullied the world into ignoring Zimbabwe-Rhodesia's first majority rule election in April of 1979 and pushed that same world to endorse a second election a year later in which Maoist-Marxist Mugabe was bullied into running," Smith continued.
"Since when do Marxists volunteer to stand elections?" he asked. "Mugabe boycotted our first election (in which I voted) and infamously said 'I'll take (this country) through the barrel of a gun.' The guns of course, were all communist bloc weaponry, identical to that seen in today's Iraq and Afghanistan. Mugabe 'won' the second election amid reports of voter murder and intimidation. That was 27 years ago, and Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have curiously 'won' all elections since. 'One party rule' was always Mugabe's stated goal."
Smith noted that in 1977, Winston Churchill III said, "The West is holding Rhodesia down while the Soviet Union cuts her throat."
Added Smith; "I have written to President Carter twice asking his to use his ex-president and Nobel laureate pulpits to condemn his old protιgι publicly. Thus far he has not.
"Only a few caught the irony of the moment when President Carter picked up his 'Peace Prize' in Oslo in 2002 when farm seizures and killing were at their highest in Zimbabwe. Carter a just-minted peace prize winner didn't mention Zimbabwe in his acceptance speech. What a surprise!"
Such was J. Columbus' fame as a soldier in Rhodesia that he was quoted in the New York Times Sept, 2, 1979.
An article on that date stated: "The way I see it, this is the only real experiment in democracy on the African continent and the way the rest of the word demurs brings tears of rage and frustration to my eyes. [T]o help this country go to majority rule was one of the big thrills of my lifetime."
Asked what his family thought of his experiences, Smith, who eventually became a policeman, told WND, "My family considers me an oddball for having anything to do with Vietnam or Rhodesia. They hate me for both. I am suspect. No one has shown the slightest interest in the adventure of it all. But that's what drew me to Rhodesia adventure. It was the best three years of my life. For me back then, Rhodesia was simply Shangri-la. It was the first day of creation every day."
A nation that can work
Clearly Zimbabwe can work. There should be an agricultural bounty, beyond tobacco. There's also coal, chromium ore, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin and platinum ready to be mined. The 2002 census claimed there were a little over 11 million people living in Zimbabwe. Due to AIDS and emigration, that figure will need to be reassessed.
Crunching the numbers on Zimbabwe in terms of human health is depressing at best. Infant morality stands at just under 63 deaths per 1,000 births. Women in Zimbabwe are expected to live to be about 35 years of age, men to almost 38, according to the CIA World Fact Book. Over 25 percent of the population is HIV/AIDS positive, which approaches the rate of neighboring Botswana, an otherwise thriving country with 54,000 elephants at the Chobe Reserve, abundant diamonds, natural plants that can be used as diet suppressants and the British Army desert warfare training center.
Tracey Anne Peach is another ex "Rhodie." A mixed race woman of black, white and Greek blood now living in the U.K., and married with a little girl of her own, she recently reflected on her old life in "Zim."
"I left Rhodesia-Zimbabwe in 2000," she told WND. "We could see the economic situation getting worse. Things slowly started getting more and more expensive. The Zimbabwean dollar was devaluing at a very quick rate. Luckily, our family home was paid off, so it was just bills. It was becoming a struggle to survive. Just after I left, the petrol (lines) started."
As for race relations in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, Peach said, "They were good. Then and now. Things were good. The different races were getting on quite well. Most Zimbabweans are warm, caring, respectful people.
"What Mugabe did to the white farmers was despicable," she said. "Innocent people suffered for nothing. People lost their lives, their homes and families. What amazes me is how other countries did nothing."
Peach turned melancholy when asked if she misses Africa.
"Yes, it's in my blood. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of Zimbabwe," she said. "We were in paradise beautiful climate, big houses, maids, gardeners. What more could you ask for?"
The future of Rhodesia
As for the future, Mugabe is 83. It is rumored he has throat cancer. He is shunned by all on planet Earth, save for allies such as Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il and the Chinese Politburo. Zimbabwe's constitution will allow Mugabe to stay in power until he is 90. Mugabe continues to practice yoga and vacillates between his Spartan upbringing and new-found tastes for the good life. He has been known to use the state airline to assist first lady Grace Marufu on her shopping jaunts. He showed up at Thabo Mbeki's last inauguration and was greeted as though he were a rock star.
Tobacco had accounted for 30 percent of exports, with gold second at 11 percent. But now heroin, mandrax, methamphetamines and other drugs are emerging in a narco-economy not unlike the dynamic seen in Burma. Infrastructure is decaying. The military has turned its back on all acceptable standards of humanity and soldiering. Only 100,000 Zimbabweans use the Internet. Those who write the truth about what's going on in the country and use the Internet to reach the outside world are often hounded by the government.
Strangely, the American media cheered on the farm debacle. In fact, the farm invasions were lionized by the late Peter Jennings of ABC News, who made the murders and rapists killing the ethno-European farmers out to be the heroes. Over 400,000 agricultural jobs have been lost as the economy collapses.
Loyal Gould, who built the journalism schools at Baylor and Wichita State universities, served as a journalist with Jennings in Vietnam. Gould, a devout Quaker, is the only English-speaking journalist in the world to have covered the Auschwitz trials from start to finish. He was Richard Nixon's interpreter during the infamous trip to East Berlin.
"They called him 'Pretty Peter' because he was handsome and others were jealous," Gould said of Jennings.
"Once people have passed away, it is improper, of course, to attack them when they are no longer around to speak for themselves. Regardless, Mugabe is a wretch, but there doesn't seem much the rest of the world is willing to do about him except hope that with time he will either die or fade away."
Today, Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party terrorizes the opposition Movement for Democratic Change with impunity. There are no free elections. The currency has been debased. The tobacco crop long a cash cow has been decimated. Rare rhino are poached while their horns believed by certain Asian nations to contain magical powers are sold overseas at a great price. Basic services are all but unattainable. Shelves are empty. The very best Zimbabweans have fled for the UK and beyond. ANC leader Mbeki cannot challenge Mugabe because of the African "Big Man" rule, which respects longevity.
Sachse, who served 34 years in Rhodesia's and South Africa's special forces, led Sandline's successful mercenary war against Charles Taylor and the RUF rebels in Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s. He told WND, "You see the order here in Cape Town? This is what we fought for. For civilization. Without us Cape Town would be just like the rest of Africa a bloody mess."
Mugabe has also sent his own gang of mercenaries to gain a stake in the troubled Congo's mineral resources. Formerly known as Zaire, over 2.4 million have perished since 1994 in the biggest conflict since World War II.
J. Columbus Smith lamented, "Make no mistake, Africa can theoretically work. It can be saved from its own wicked leaders and transnational colonization if and only if Africa's leaders learn the meaning of the word 'empathy.' But to be perfectly honest, I couldn't go back there now to see what's happened to Rhodesia, it's simply too sad. The MDC is little more than Swiss cheese since it's riddled with CIO [Mugabe's version of the CIA] operatives and has been compromised as a resistance and opposition movement.
"For now I'm content to watch Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Blood Diamond.' People ask me about the spirit of the Rhodesian soldier well, that's what Leo brought to the screen. Humbly, I can say I was the real thing."
What can the U.S. do? Asset freezes and travel bans on Zimbabwe's top 200 officials have had little effect on the ruling elite. The International Crisis Group has asked for the Southern African Development Community group of nations, the SADC, to get Mugabe to voluntarily step down. But the SADC is divided, as some of its members are still aligned with the old school ways of the USSR and Mainland China.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has noted "outposts of tyranny" from Burma to Venezuela to North Korea to Zimbabwe to Iran. (Outposts must have main garrison homes, and those homes are Russia and China.) President Bush signed an executive order against Zimbabwe.
For his part, Mugabe, speaking of whites, has gone on record saying, "Yes, some of them are decent people." Yet Willem Ratte noted, "This is the real face of Africa beyond the smiling goody-goody face of Nelson Mandela. Brutal, corrupt, racist and totally efficient at wiping out all opposition."
Yet Mugabe has long had his "white angels" running interference for him in the U.K. The most notable of whom is the ethereal Jan Bradenkamp. Mugabe's intelligence service has even gone so far as to take down legendary mercenary Simon Mann in a plot to install a rightist ruler in oil rich Equatorial Guinea. Mann and his group were detained in Zimbabwe, where they had foolishly sought a transit point and weapons.
Luther Eeben Barlow a character not unlike the role played by DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond" fled Rhodesia only to deliver Angola to leftist control via his mercenary group Executive Outcomes. Kevin Woods, recently released from barbaric jail conditions in Zimbabwe after a long incarceration, was a South African agent who had penetrated Mugabe's inner circle.
In a page out of "The King of Scotland," it is said Mugabe became infuriated when he learned of Woods' true status. Even Mandela had pleaded for Woods' release.
Massive detention of MDC supporters continues. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa recently said over 200 MDC members were arrested by Mugabe's forces. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has replaced Ian Smith, the white farmers and the Matabele as the ZANU-PF's boogeyman de jour.
Will the truth about Zimbabwe become fully known and acted upon by all decent people in Africa, the West and the rest of the world?
As noted by actress Nicole Kidman in the film "The Interpreter," which many believed to have been made as a psycho-social operation against Mugabe, "Even the faintest whisper can be heard above the sound of armies when it speaks the truth."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65173
U.S. Special Forces vet joined fight against Mugabe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 24, 2008
12:30 am Eastern
By Anthony C. LoBaido
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Editor's Note: Journalist Anthony C. LoBaido has published scores of stories about South Africa and Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia. LoBaido has spent several years living, working and traveling in southern Africa over the past two decades. In his latest segment, LoBaido brings to light the story of J. Columbus Smith, an American Special Forces veteran who fought in the Rhodesian Bush War.
"They can't change the name of a country, can they?"
Cecil John Rhodes
Chobe sunset (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
The very name Rhodesia conjures images of Edwardian England and the spirit and might of the British Empire. Once the peaceful, thriving breadbasket of southern Africa, Rhodesia experienced a bloody fight to the death in the 1960s and 1970s that pitted black vs. white, capitalist vs. communist and globalist vs. nationalist.
Known today as Zimbabwe, few in the Western world are aware of Rhodesia's maverick history. Rhodesia's founder, Cecil Rhodes, carries a moniker akin to the anonymity of the Serbian superinventor Nicola Tesla. How could such truly great men of unfathomable accomplishments remain so unknown? Yet while scarcely remembered or seriously studied in postmodern times, Rhodes' achievements continue to resonate through the internationalist ideals of the Rhodes Scholar program and the development of English as a Second Language to assist cultural colonization and Anglo-American influence around the globe.
Rhodes rivals Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill as the leading figures of the erstwhile British Empire. Having mutated, the British Empire continues today through venues such as the Rhodes Trust, British Commonwealth, overseas military bases and the London-based finance and arms profiteering industries. The British SAS might be the most elite special forces unit on Earth. Prince Charles towers over the Wales Business Council while huge offshore oil deposits off of the Falkland Islands project wild profits for the future of British Petroleum.
(Story continues below)
The dream of Cecil Rhodes was at once simple, audacious and outlandish: a single, unified Africa from Cape Town to Cairo under the British Crown. Victoria Falls and Lake Victoria were to be only the beginning. The mineral and agricultural wealth of a United States of Africa harnessed by British law, Anglo-Saxon culture, medicine, education, history and, of course, the English language would rival that of the United States of America. Thus, the 1776 revolution and the "shot heard round the world" would become irrelevant for the British Empire.
Victoria Falls (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
With the diamond and gold fields of South Africa under British control after the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, Rhodes looked north. For there lay the path to Cairo. (Tragically, some 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in British concentration camps, as a handful of Boer farmers fought the greatest military power then on Earth to a standstill.)
Of course, there were native African tribes to contend with in what was to become known as his personal Rhodesia. (Rhodes ironically wondered about his place in posterity shortly before his death by musing, "They can't change the name of a country, can they?") A separate entity called "Northern Rhodesia" also was established.
In a strange footnote of history, Northern Rhodesia was invaded by Germany during World War I, the only British-affiliated country to have been invaded. German Gen. Paul Emil Von Letow-Vorbek salvaged naval guns and used them as artillery, home brewed his own brand of quinine and carried a steamer in crates across Lake Tanganyika. A Zeppelin loaded with supplies was even launched to help the German East African forces and floated as far south as the Sudan.
Rise of primal man
Truly visionary in a manner not unlike Tesla or Jules Verne, Rhodes was smart enough to arm the Matabele tribe against the Mashona. A century later, Rhodes' worst instincts and fears about primal man came to pass as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and the brutal dictator Robert Mugabe brought in mercenaries from North Korea's Fifth Brigade to engage in the Matabele Massacre. Mugabe's Mashona, or "Shona" for short, had been long-standing rivals of the Matabele. The operation launched against the Matabele was called "Gukurahundi," or the Shona term for the "first rain that washes away the chaff of the last harvest before the advent of spring rains."
Official figures vary, but it is estimated that about 30,000 Matabele were killed. The Catholic archbishop puts the figure at 20,000. It was an ominous warning of what would become a fascist, archetype Maoist revolution in Rhodesia, a country roughly the size of Montana. Mugabe, with the help of his own Hitler Youth-style corps, called the "Green Bombers," would go on to slaughter Zimbabwe's white farmers, take away their land and plunge the nation into a hell hole of debt, hyperinflation, murder, AIDS and hopelessness.
Today more than 82 percent of Zimbabweans are Shona. Gukurahundi continues in a mutated form. With the Matabele subdued and the "white race card played," Mugabe has no remaining choice but to turn on the black African opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC.
The Bush War
J. Columbus Smith in a 1979 New York Times photo
How did Rhodesia, once a source of agricultural bounty for Africa, turn into a living nightmare of despair? Perhaps the answer can be found in the combat experience of J. Columbus Smith an elite U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who joined the Rhodesian Army in a quest to save the beautiful nation from Mugabe. Smith has lived a life few men will ever know. Moreover, he is part of a remnant that personally fought for what was left of Western civilization in the mid 1970s before the fall of the Berlin Wall, globalization, political correctness and massive Third World immigration.
Back in the days of the Rhodesian Bush War, as it was known, Mugabe was a Spartan-like rebel. He was raised by Jesuits and sent his own son to a Catholic school. Such was his determination that Mugabe would go on to stare down the entire Western world over issues ranging from his anti-white ethnic cleansing and opposition to genetically modified foods.
Battling Mugabe and his Marxist-Maoist cadres was the job of elite Rhodesian Special Forces soldiers such as Willem Ratte and Bert Sachse. Yet Rhodesia, while abandoned by the West to face Mugabe's terrorists who in turn were backed by North Korea, China, the old USSR and its communist bloc satellites was augmented by a team of well-trained, highly motivated American volunteers.
Among these "Amerikaners" was J. Columbus Smith. The son of an Air Force pilot and a first class military brat, Smith earned a journalism degree from Sam Houston State in Texas. He served in the U.S. Army and qualified for the Special Forces. Because of his journalism background, he was appointed public information officer for all the Green Berets in Vietnam.
"My grandfather, William Robert 'Bob' Smith, was a Texas Ranger, and my dad a decorated air hero in World War II," Smith told WND. "My heritage is a long, unbroken military line, including a drummer boy in the American Revolutionary War. My serving in Vietnam was a continuation of my family's service to this great nation of ours."
J. Columbus Smith in a 1977 news photo
In Vietnam, he said, "all of the reporters came my way, and I escorted some famous combat photographers around the country to various Special Forces camps," mostly in the Central Highlands.
Smith said among the people he met were Horst Faas; Errol Flynn's son Sean; Peter Arnett, then with the Associated Press; and Helen Gibson of United Press International.
Asked why he joined the Special Forces, Smith said, "I'm an excitement addict. I like the buzz of a war zone. I volunteered for airborne school and Special Forces training because I sensed there would be excitement. I'm also an anti-communist. I saw Sputnik fly over New England when I was 12 or 13 years of age, and I felt an icicle of fear. ... The race (for the world) was on, and I wanted to be a part of it."
The story of how Smith came to fight in Rhodesia started out innocuously enough.
"A friend of mine had been to Rhodesia. and sensed I would enjoy the challenge. He visited me in San Antonio and asked if I would like to give it a go, and I said yes. I went in the autumn of 1976 to Salisbury as a freelance journalist," he told WND.
"Upon my arrival in Salisbury, I was sent before a panel of colonels who asked me many questions about combat tactics. What would I do if ... X,Y, Z. This lasted for more than an hour, after which I was offered a 'short service commission' of three years. I accepted. I was sent to Llewellyn Barracks near Bulawayo as a training officer. We trained mostly ethnic-Europeans but also some African intakes. They were conscripts all. Next door was Methuen Barracks, the home of the Rhodesian African Rifles or 'RAR.' After holding the staff position in Vietnam, which I could not evade, I was keen to command troops in the field, albeit I was 33 years old."
J. Columbus Smith (Courtesy J. Columbus Smith)
Smith said that at first he was "received with suspicion."
"People wondered if I was a spy. Of the foreign nationals, we Yanks had the worst reputation. I suspect I am one of just 20 Yanks who actually completed his three-year contract."
Nevertheless, he said, the RAR accepted me, and I became a platoon commander of 40 African soldiers. We patrolled the Tribal Trust Lands. A year or so later I was promoted to captain and had the privilege of commanding a company of 200-plus men from time to time. We patrolled the bush looking for terrorists."
Continued Smith: "Rhodesia was then struggling for survival already under communist onslaught for about a dozen years. There were 250,000 whites and 6 million blacks. Small groups of communists, trained in the USSR, Cuba, Libya, Zambia and Mozambique infiltrated into Rhodesia from the latter two nations. Since the first incursion in 1965, terrorists were now all over the country. The 'front' was everywhere when I arrived in late November 1976.
"Small terror groups led by a political commissar and armed with AK-47s, SKSs, RPG-7s would drop into a remote 'kraal' after dark and chop off a few limbs with a dull axe just to get everybody's attention and then request loyalty and information about Rhodesian security forces. This actually worked. It was standard tactics, and that's why we called them communist terrorists or 'CTs' for short."
Smith told WND that blacks did have legitimate grievances.
"Yes, of course they did. Was Rhodesia addressing them? Yes. By 1977, after years of paralyzing sanctions and a threat of a Western invasion, Ian Smith had accepted the principal of majority rule, promised majority rule elections, but not communist domination.
Smith explained that the Rhodesians fought with a minimum number of troops.
"Despite claims of having a total force strength of 10,000, I doubt we ever had more than 1,000 troops on the ground at one time. But, oh my, what a force! Man for man perhaps the toughest army in the world at that time. The idea of losing any battle or 'contact' with the enemy simply didn't occur to anyone. I never saw or heard about any defeat on our side while I was there. I don't say this to be immodest. One must always be humble.
Elephants in southern Africa (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
"Small unit commanders were given a lot of freedom to tailor their patrols to the situation," Smith said. "It was both a relaxed army and a highly efficient one. My unit, the RAR, was the oldest unit in country. My soldiers were Africans from two tribes, the Shona and Ndebele. Until the last two years of the war when African officers came on line the officers were white."
So effective was the Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign that years later, the Rand corporation published a study on it.
"We had great esprit de corps and unity. The blacks and whites sweated shoulder to shoulder in a hunt for communists in the bush. We spent 42 days in the bush, looking for and engaging groups of CTs. We never lost. Then we had 10 days of R & R.
"This meant simply drinking beer and chasing women in either of the two major cities, Bulawayo and Salisbury, now Harare. Or maybe both. Yes, life was that simple at the troop level, but it was taut cable at the top."
Smith told WND the government in Rhodesia was desperate for world recognition and were frankly puzzled it was not forthcoming in light of embracement of the principal of majority rule by Ian Smith, the ruling Rhodesian Front and plans for a majority rule election to select a black prime minister.
While serving in the Rhodesian Armed Forces, J. Columbus Smith had the opportunity to meet the leader of Rhodesia, Ian Smith.
"I met Ian Smith and immediately liked him. Half of his face seemed frozen and didn't move. This was from a terrible World War II plane crash. I felt racism in apartheid South Africa immediately. It hit me in the face when I visited Johannesburg. It radiated off the faces in the street. But I didn't see it or feel it in Rhodesia. Was I blind?
"I did see a lot of protection of blacks by the white district commissioners. They were protective mother hens over their black charges," the soldier said. "I didn't see starvation or slums. I know that the blacks in Rhodesia couldn't vote until the 1979 election. Yet I treated my soldiers very fairly and they treated me the same way. I led from the front, and they respected that. There was this balance of respect. Surely I am blinded somewhat by the wonderful camaraderie that existed between black and white soldiers. Perhaps the black soldiers were too.
"In the middle of nowhere I would stumble across people so primitive they seemed like Adam. The gap between us was a thousand years. These were a pre-wheel Stone Age people with terrible fear of evil spirits and of the witch-doctor riding from kraal to kraal each night on the back of a hyena. Also they were afraid of a certain tribe just across the river. Obviously, we all know there are good and bad people in every culture on Earth, and better technology doesn't make one a better person. I don't mean to be critical.
Victoria Falls (Photo: Anthony LoBaido)
"We offered things like 'universal jurisprudence,' 'freedom from starvation,' 'protection from the hostile tribe,' 'freedom from contagious disease, 'curing of ancient diseases,' 'straight roads instead of crooked paths,' contour plowing, fertilizer and cattle dipping against tsetse fly and standardized education. But, of course, that made the ethno-Europeans out to be the 'bad guy' for some odd reason. Clearly there are those who enjoy the lack of progress in Africa. Africa is easier to control when it is weak, backward, corrupt and divided."
Concerning Rhodesia's betrayal by the West, the soldier said, "In his UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) Speech of 1965, Ian Smith stated that he didn't believe Mugabe and his ilk were up to governing the nation. Looking back over 40 years later, was he wrong?"
Indeed, the UDI saw Rhodesia pull away from the mother crown. Rather than negotiate with Mugabe's terrorists, Rhodesian leader Ian Smith, a fighter pilot who was shot down over Italy during World War II while fighting for the allies, stood up to Maoism, Marxism and communism while the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world, wounded from Vietnam and menaced by the old Soviet Union, sat idly by.
In his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Ian Smith asked about the concepts of loyalty, honor and Western civilization.
Kissinger, while polite, firmly told Smith, "I am afraid those things have no place in the modern world."
"White regimes would not survive in southern Africa," Kissinger also said.
The new world order and seeds of the African Union were being firmly planted by the globalists at the Council on Foreign Relations and Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
South Africa, which long has fought for Rhodesia, cut off aid, hoping apartheid would be spared by the West for doing so. The sellout was on. Many Rhodesians, including elite soldiers such as Willem Ratte, Bert Sachse and Luther Eeben Barlow, who would become the backbone of South Africa's elite special forces in the war against Cuba and the USSR in Angola, fled to South Africa. (Barlow went on to found Executive Outcomes, the world's foremost mercenary outfit in the 1990s.)
Says J. Columbus Smith, "We were a thorn in Margaret Thatcher's side. Rhodesia was betrayed before Ronald Reagan became president, so it wasn't his fault. Under Jimmy Carter, the Yanks blackmailed Iran to cut off oil to South Africa. All South Africa had to do to get the oil back was to stop the fuel transport trucks from traveling north across Beitbridge into Rhodesia. Rhodesia's purpose, ultimately, was to buy a little more time for South Africa.
Smith pointed out that in the U.S., Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, delivered Carter the black vote that helped to put the Georgia governor in the White House. After that, he said, Young could have anything he wanted.
"One of the things Young wanted was Mugabe at the helm in Zimbabwe," Smith said.
"Carter bullied the world into ignoring Zimbabwe-Rhodesia's first majority rule election in April of 1979 and pushed that same world to endorse a second election a year later in which Maoist-Marxist Mugabe was bullied into running," Smith continued.
"Since when do Marxists volunteer to stand elections?" he asked. "Mugabe boycotted our first election (in which I voted) and infamously said 'I'll take (this country) through the barrel of a gun.' The guns of course, were all communist bloc weaponry, identical to that seen in today's Iraq and Afghanistan. Mugabe 'won' the second election amid reports of voter murder and intimidation. That was 27 years ago, and Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have curiously 'won' all elections since. 'One party rule' was always Mugabe's stated goal."
Smith noted that in 1977, Winston Churchill III said, "The West is holding Rhodesia down while the Soviet Union cuts her throat."
Added Smith; "I have written to President Carter twice asking his to use his ex-president and Nobel laureate pulpits to condemn his old protιgι publicly. Thus far he has not.
"Only a few caught the irony of the moment when President Carter picked up his 'Peace Prize' in Oslo in 2002 when farm seizures and killing were at their highest in Zimbabwe. Carter a just-minted peace prize winner didn't mention Zimbabwe in his acceptance speech. What a surprise!"
Such was J. Columbus' fame as a soldier in Rhodesia that he was quoted in the New York Times Sept, 2, 1979.
An article on that date stated: "The way I see it, this is the only real experiment in democracy on the African continent and the way the rest of the word demurs brings tears of rage and frustration to my eyes. [T]o help this country go to majority rule was one of the big thrills of my lifetime."
Asked what his family thought of his experiences, Smith, who eventually became a policeman, told WND, "My family considers me an oddball for having anything to do with Vietnam or Rhodesia. They hate me for both. I am suspect. No one has shown the slightest interest in the adventure of it all. But that's what drew me to Rhodesia adventure. It was the best three years of my life. For me back then, Rhodesia was simply Shangri-la. It was the first day of creation every day."
A nation that can work
Clearly Zimbabwe can work. There should be an agricultural bounty, beyond tobacco. There's also coal, chromium ore, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin and platinum ready to be mined. The 2002 census claimed there were a little over 11 million people living in Zimbabwe. Due to AIDS and emigration, that figure will need to be reassessed.
Crunching the numbers on Zimbabwe in terms of human health is depressing at best. Infant morality stands at just under 63 deaths per 1,000 births. Women in Zimbabwe are expected to live to be about 35 years of age, men to almost 38, according to the CIA World Fact Book. Over 25 percent of the population is HIV/AIDS positive, which approaches the rate of neighboring Botswana, an otherwise thriving country with 54,000 elephants at the Chobe Reserve, abundant diamonds, natural plants that can be used as diet suppressants and the British Army desert warfare training center.
Tracey Anne Peach is another ex "Rhodie." A mixed race woman of black, white and Greek blood now living in the U.K., and married with a little girl of her own, she recently reflected on her old life in "Zim."
"I left Rhodesia-Zimbabwe in 2000," she told WND. "We could see the economic situation getting worse. Things slowly started getting more and more expensive. The Zimbabwean dollar was devaluing at a very quick rate. Luckily, our family home was paid off, so it was just bills. It was becoming a struggle to survive. Just after I left, the petrol (lines) started."
As for race relations in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, Peach said, "They were good. Then and now. Things were good. The different races were getting on quite well. Most Zimbabweans are warm, caring, respectful people.
"What Mugabe did to the white farmers was despicable," she said. "Innocent people suffered for nothing. People lost their lives, their homes and families. What amazes me is how other countries did nothing."
Peach turned melancholy when asked if she misses Africa.
"Yes, it's in my blood. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of Zimbabwe," she said. "We were in paradise beautiful climate, big houses, maids, gardeners. What more could you ask for?"
The future of Rhodesia
As for the future, Mugabe is 83. It is rumored he has throat cancer. He is shunned by all on planet Earth, save for allies such as Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il and the Chinese Politburo. Zimbabwe's constitution will allow Mugabe to stay in power until he is 90. Mugabe continues to practice yoga and vacillates between his Spartan upbringing and new-found tastes for the good life. He has been known to use the state airline to assist first lady Grace Marufu on her shopping jaunts. He showed up at Thabo Mbeki's last inauguration and was greeted as though he were a rock star.
Tobacco had accounted for 30 percent of exports, with gold second at 11 percent. But now heroin, mandrax, methamphetamines and other drugs are emerging in a narco-economy not unlike the dynamic seen in Burma. Infrastructure is decaying. The military has turned its back on all acceptable standards of humanity and soldiering. Only 100,000 Zimbabweans use the Internet. Those who write the truth about what's going on in the country and use the Internet to reach the outside world are often hounded by the government.
Strangely, the American media cheered on the farm debacle. In fact, the farm invasions were lionized by the late Peter Jennings of ABC News, who made the murders and rapists killing the ethno-European farmers out to be the heroes. Over 400,000 agricultural jobs have been lost as the economy collapses.
Loyal Gould, who built the journalism schools at Baylor and Wichita State universities, served as a journalist with Jennings in Vietnam. Gould, a devout Quaker, is the only English-speaking journalist in the world to have covered the Auschwitz trials from start to finish. He was Richard Nixon's interpreter during the infamous trip to East Berlin.
"They called him 'Pretty Peter' because he was handsome and others were jealous," Gould said of Jennings.
"Once people have passed away, it is improper, of course, to attack them when they are no longer around to speak for themselves. Regardless, Mugabe is a wretch, but there doesn't seem much the rest of the world is willing to do about him except hope that with time he will either die or fade away."
Today, Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party terrorizes the opposition Movement for Democratic Change with impunity. There are no free elections. The currency has been debased. The tobacco crop long a cash cow has been decimated. Rare rhino are poached while their horns believed by certain Asian nations to contain magical powers are sold overseas at a great price. Basic services are all but unattainable. Shelves are empty. The very best Zimbabweans have fled for the UK and beyond. ANC leader Mbeki cannot challenge Mugabe because of the African "Big Man" rule, which respects longevity.
Sachse, who served 34 years in Rhodesia's and South Africa's special forces, led Sandline's successful mercenary war against Charles Taylor and the RUF rebels in Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s. He told WND, "You see the order here in Cape Town? This is what we fought for. For civilization. Without us Cape Town would be just like the rest of Africa a bloody mess."
Mugabe has also sent his own gang of mercenaries to gain a stake in the troubled Congo's mineral resources. Formerly known as Zaire, over 2.4 million have perished since 1994 in the biggest conflict since World War II.
J. Columbus Smith lamented, "Make no mistake, Africa can theoretically work. It can be saved from its own wicked leaders and transnational colonization if and only if Africa's leaders learn the meaning of the word 'empathy.' But to be perfectly honest, I couldn't go back there now to see what's happened to Rhodesia, it's simply too sad. The MDC is little more than Swiss cheese since it's riddled with CIO [Mugabe's version of the CIA] operatives and has been compromised as a resistance and opposition movement.
"For now I'm content to watch Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Blood Diamond.' People ask me about the spirit of the Rhodesian soldier well, that's what Leo brought to the screen. Humbly, I can say I was the real thing."
What can the U.S. do? Asset freezes and travel bans on Zimbabwe's top 200 officials have had little effect on the ruling elite. The International Crisis Group has asked for the Southern African Development Community group of nations, the SADC, to get Mugabe to voluntarily step down. But the SADC is divided, as some of its members are still aligned with the old school ways of the USSR and Mainland China.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has noted "outposts of tyranny" from Burma to Venezuela to North Korea to Zimbabwe to Iran. (Outposts must have main garrison homes, and those homes are Russia and China.) President Bush signed an executive order against Zimbabwe.
For his part, Mugabe, speaking of whites, has gone on record saying, "Yes, some of them are decent people." Yet Willem Ratte noted, "This is the real face of Africa beyond the smiling goody-goody face of Nelson Mandela. Brutal, corrupt, racist and totally efficient at wiping out all opposition."
Yet Mugabe has long had his "white angels" running interference for him in the U.K. The most notable of whom is the ethereal Jan Bradenkamp. Mugabe's intelligence service has even gone so far as to take down legendary mercenary Simon Mann in a plot to install a rightist ruler in oil rich Equatorial Guinea. Mann and his group were detained in Zimbabwe, where they had foolishly sought a transit point and weapons.
Luther Eeben Barlow a character not unlike the role played by DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond" fled Rhodesia only to deliver Angola to leftist control via his mercenary group Executive Outcomes. Kevin Woods, recently released from barbaric jail conditions in Zimbabwe after a long incarceration, was a South African agent who had penetrated Mugabe's inner circle.
In a page out of "The King of Scotland," it is said Mugabe became infuriated when he learned of Woods' true status. Even Mandela had pleaded for Woods' release.
Massive detention of MDC supporters continues. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa recently said over 200 MDC members were arrested by Mugabe's forces. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has replaced Ian Smith, the white farmers and the Matabele as the ZANU-PF's boogeyman de jour.
Will the truth about Zimbabwe become fully known and acted upon by all decent people in Africa, the West and the rest of the world?
As noted by actress Nicole Kidman in the film "The Interpreter," which many believed to have been made as a psycho-social operation against Mugabe, "Even the faintest whisper can be heard above the sound of armies when it speaks the truth."
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