Скачать или смотреть Rhodesia: The Dark History Of Zimbabwe

In this recording with the UK-based podcast 90sBabyShow, Temi Alchémy discussed the dark history of Rhodesia, a Southern African state that existed from 1965 to 1979.

Under Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith, Rhodesia maintained a white minority colonial regime during the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1979. In 1965, Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, then fought nationalist guerrilla movements including the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).

This brutal colonial regime led by Smith marked one of the most heinous crimes committed against about 93 to 95 per cent of the Black majority, who he ruled with no equal political and economic representation.

In the late 1970s, as the war intensified, Rhodesian security forces operated a covert chemical and biological warfare (CBW) programme. During this period, the country experienced over 10,000 recorded human cases of anthrax, making it the largest recorded anthrax outbreak in modern history.

Evidence also shows that Rhodesian forces contaminated selected food supplies and water sources used by guerrilla fighters, deploying toxic chemicals such as parathion and thallium, and in some instances using cholera bacteria in counter-insurgency operations.

Ian Smith was never prosecuted for these crimes. After the collapse of the unrecognised Rhodesian state, he briefly served as a minister in the short-lived Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government in 1979 and remained active in politics until 1987, before dying on 20 November 2007.

This is what colonialism looks like in its ugliest form.