AHC: Best Possible Zimbabwe

The Internal Settlement would not have ended the Bush War, and unless they are willing to abandon the policy of one man one vote for African nations, Mugabe is going to be the man in charge. Unless you have to remove Mugabe from the equation somehow, he's gonna be running the show.

abandon the policy of one man one vote for African nations? you mean like Mugabe did? from 1980 till 1990 there were 20 "white roll" seats in Zimbabwe's parliament, the same number as in Zimbabwe Rhodesia's Internal Settlement.
 
abandon the policy of one man one vote for African nations? you mean like Mugabe did? from 1980 till 1990 there were 20 "white roll" seats in Zimbabwe's parliament, the same number as in Zimbabwe Rhodesia's Internal Settlement.

Not the nations, the West. Everyone here has said "have Thatcher accept the Internal Settlement". This has two problems - it would not have stopped the Bush War, and it would have entrenched white priviledge in Rhodesia, which would set a very ugly precedent when dealing with the apartheid state. That's why it wasn't accepted in the first place - Thatcher and Carter were not going to give Ian Smith that much leverage, and they certainly were not gonna support entrenched white priviledge in Rhodesia when they were so against apartheid.
 
Not the nations, the West. Everyone here has said "have Thatcher accept the Internal Settlement". This has two problems - it would not have stopped the Bush War, and it would have entrenched white priviledge in Rhodesia, which would set a very ugly precedent when dealing with the apartheid state. That's why it wasn't accepted in the first place - Thatcher and Carter were not going to give Ian Smith that much leverage, and they certainly were not gonna support entrenched white priviledge in Rhodesia when they were so against apartheid.

a little late on the "entrenched white priviledge" front, as I pointed out the Internal Settlement and the Lancaster House Agreement are basically the same, but one puts a crazy person in charge and the other doesn't, when the 10 year ban on land reform in Lancaster ran out is when Zimbabwe started to go over the edge, by 1979 White Rhodesians (like White South Africans) have all the Economic power, is that a great thing, no its not, but if they keep the Economy healthy and the nation humming along and the majority has majority political power isn't that whats best for every one (given what we have to work with?)
 
How realistic is it that if Smith's Rhodesia Front hadn't come to power that some sort of power sharing deal could have been reached in the 1960's butterflying UDI and the Bush War? Maybe if they could have been avoided then Mugabe never comes to power or is less radicalised than IOTL?

As others have said above the tragedy is that Zimbabwe made real progress for the first 15 or so years after independence and then Comrade Bob lost the plot, he has had his achievements, most notably in education IIRC Zimbabwe had the highest literacy rate in Sub-Saharan Africa, unfortunately for Mugabe that meant the people could work out for themselves how much he was screwing them over.
 
Mugabe actually lost the first election in 1980 but made clear that if he did not get power he would certainly return to violence.

Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young and others decided that this somehow did not disqualify him and he did indeed take over the country.



If Mugabe and perhaps his top cronies were somehow removed instead of being walked into power...

Are you sure about that?

I read when Mugabe returned to Zimbabwe friom exile the number of people that welcomed him back at the airport was more than the entire white population of Zimbabwe.

And just doing a quick Wiki search says that ZANU-PF won 63% of the vote in 1980, a comfortable win by any standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_parliamentary_election,_1980
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Apparently Smith flew to Zambia in 1975 and personally offered Nkomo his support to form a government. Nkomo deferred, saying that he would have to discuss it with Mugabe. Obasanjo of Nigeria and Kaunda of Zambia supported the idea, but Nyerere of Tanzania and Mugabe shot it down.
 
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Land reform wasn't the problem, it was how it was done (violently and quickly, and given to cronies rather than small farmers) that was the problem. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan all benefited greatly from land reform programs Post-WWII: I'd argue that these programs were a major part of the East Asian Growth Miracle.
 
Mugabe actually lost the first election in 1980 but made clear that if he did not get power he would certainly return to violence.

Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young and others decided that this somehow did not disqualify him and he did indeed take over the country.



If Mugabe and perhaps his top cronies were somehow removed instead of being walked into power...


You mean the 1979 Zimbabwe-Rhodesian election right? Not the 1980 one?
 
Julius, yes! My bad.:eek:

Mugabe won the 1980 election but the credibility of an election after he made clear his intent to either take power or return to violence has to be considered somewhat uncertain...especially since the other parties were aware of this and of the Carter Administration's swing to Mugabe.
 
Julius, yes! My bad.:eek:

Mugabe won the 1980 election but the credibility of an election after he made clear his intent to either take power or return to violence has to be considered somewhat uncertain...especially since the other parties were aware of this and of the Carter Administration's swing to Mugabe.

Thought that might be the case, too many elections etc.

It is a hard one, but as others have said, it is hard to see how the UANC victory result from 1979 would stick if the other major armed player (out of three, the other being Nkomo and the UDI regime) refuses to abide by it. Even if the established powers agreed to respect the 79 result, who is going to enforce it?

I suspect that if the RF/UDI/British/US thought that the UANC winning in 79 would create a stable regime that would attract majority Black support post election, they would have stuck to it.
 
On this topic, I just found what looks to be a report drawn up in the US in 1983 on the War. So far it looks pretty interesting, but then I've only read 5 or so pages

WAR SINCE 1945 SEMINAR AND SYMPOSIUM
Rhodesia: Tactical Victory, Strategic Defeat

Major Charles M. Lohman, USMC
Major Robert I. MacPherson, USMC
7 June 1983Marine Corps Command and Staff College
Marine Corps Development and Education Command

Quantico, Virginia

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2546386/Rhodesia-Tactical-Victory-Srategic-Defeat
 
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