AHC: No Mugabe

You also thave the benefit of hindsight to know that Rhodesia was a racist shithole far worse for balck Zimbaweans who constituite more than 95% of the population.
Mugabe didn't start off "bad". As an activist before the Civil war he was hardly any different from Mandela, he was an inspiration to the majority of blacks and was imprisoned and tortured for speaking his mind. Had the Rhodesians decided to not supress the rights of blacks and had instead tried to achieve a proper comprimise that would have ensured that the black majority could rule, then we would have a very different Zimbabwe. Instead they were willing to fight a civil war to protect white supremacy instead of realising the writing on the wall(which even the racist government in South Africa was able to see)
Saying Stalin(Mugabe) is bad does not make the Nazi's(Rhodesians) good.

Tell that to the 20,000+ black Ndebele Zimbabweans Mugabe killed in the first 7 years of office in a genocidal campaign.He eclipsed the kill numbers of the bush war easily through this and his man made famines.

A better comparison would be, just because Nicholas the second caused huge amounts of deaths, and attacked all opposition, does not mean that those who fought him would not end up committing even greater crimes.

And you can’t really say Mugabe gets any points getting rid of white supremacy when he almost instantly replaced it with a Shona supremacy.
 
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Marius, my friend, you are quite correct. I wonder about the nedebele, taking a larger role, as the most well organized African ethnicity.
 
You also thave the benefit of hindsight to know that Rhodesia was a racist shithole far worse for balck Zimbaweans who constituite more than 95% of the population.
Mugabe didn't start off "bad". As an activist before the Civil war he was hardly any different from Mandela, he was an inspiration to the majority of blacks and was imprisoned and tortured for speaking his mind. Had the Rhodesians decided to not supress the rights of blacks and had instead tried to achieve a proper comprimise that would have ensured that the black majority could rule, then we would have a very different Zimbabwe. Instead they were willing to fight a civil war to protect white supremacy instead of realising the writing on the wall(which even the racist government in South Africa was able to see)
Saying Stalin(Mugabe) is bad does not make the Nazi's(Rhodesians) good.
Yes, Rhodesia was a deeply unpleasant place with a racist government but it provided medical care and didn't indulge in tribal massacres and consequently the average life expectancy for a black Rhodesian was 66 years. Under Mugabe average life expectancy fell to 48 years (though I do accept that the spread of AIDS would also have been a factor). And while most Zimbabweans would have welcomed an end to racism, I doubt if many of them would have found an 18 year shorter life span a desirable outcome. Demographics and changing social and political mores in the West meant that the fall of Smith's regime was inevitable. Hoping that Zimbabwe began with a capable black majority leader who actually made life better for the general population isn't a racist fantasy any more than speculating on a timeline where Lenin and Stalin were both gunned down in 1917 is a capitalist fantasy.
 
Muzorewa could have done better.

Muzorewa was a puppet of the Rhodesian Front and was widely regarded as such by the black population, this was why his coalition’s vote share collapsed when they had to contest a fair election despite him being backed by a vast amount of financial and material aid.
 
@Marius from what I've read resistance by the Rhodesian military to a British military intervention would have been minimal if not actually non-existent. Senior officers had doubts about UDI and at that point Rhodisia had not yet become a republic so it would be a question of loyalty to the Crown vs loyalty to a particular government. Rhodesian Intelligence reported that only some middle ranking officers and the mainly South African soldiers of the RLI could be relied on to resist British forces.
Interestingly the Black 'nationalists' were calling for British intervention.

Crushing UDI might have led to some form of transitional government. I'd expect Britain and the Commnwealth wanting to make sure the 'right' sort of people in charge as part of the move towards majority rule. Even South Africa accepted that majority rule in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was inevitable.

Moorcraft and McLaughlin discuss the likelihood of minimal Rhodesian Ressistance to British intervention in their book - The Rhodesian War: A Military History.

I'd argue that we probably should have intervened (with 20/20 hindsight) and Smith and the RF charged with treason, sedition and a bunch of other stuff.
 
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@Marius from what I've read resistance by the Rhodesian military to a British military intervention would have been minimal if not actually non-existent. Senior officers had doubts about UDI and at that point Rhodisia had not yet become a republic so it would be a question of loyalty to the Crown vs loyalty to a particular government. Rhodesian Intelligence reported that only some middle ranking officers and the mainly South African soldiers of the RLI could be relied on to resist British forces.
Interestingly the Black 'nationalists' were calling for British intervention.

Crushing UDI might have led to some form of transitional government. I'd expect Britain and the Commnwealth wanting to make sure the 'right' sort of people in charge as part of the move towards majority rule. Even South Africa accepted that majority rule in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was inevitable.

Moorcraft and McLaughlin discuss the likelihood of minimal Rhodesian Ressistance to British intervention in their book - The Rhodesian War: A Military History.

I'd argue that we probably should have intervened (with 20/20 hindsight) and Smith and the RF charged with treason, sedition and a bunch of other stuff.

The responsible thing for the british government to do would have been to make most of the troops stationed there Non-rhodesian to stop any potential coup in it's tracks, then just force through minority rule in layered steps over a few years and give independence as a commonwealth realm, which might help assuage white fears of majority rule.
 
Greater use could have been made of the Indian community as they had ties with both the whites and the non violent nationalists like Jeremiah chriau.
 
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