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Parallels between Apartheid SA & USA today*** I grew up in Rhodesia (which later became "The Zimbabwe Ruins"), and that gives me a perspective on life which is pretty alien to people in the Western world. The Rhodesia of the 1970's was very similar to Britain in 1941 at the height of the Battle of Britain. I have heard people remark that Rhodesians were "more British than the British", and I can vouch for that. I was there, and it was an experience which will remain with me all my life. Indeed, looking back, I am glad I was there.

Let me try to describe what Rhodesians then were like. Rhodesia was declared by the stupid UN (dominated by communists and assorted trash) to be "a threat to world peace". How 250,000 white people living in Africa could be a "threat to world peace" I do not know. I suspect it was just communist-speak meaning that if the Western world had the balls to stand by us, that the entire Soviet Bloc would throw in their lot against us. We were under comprehensive world sanctions meaning we could not buy anything or sell anything to anyone. We could not buy oil, weapons, cars - nothing. We could not sell our beef (Rhodesia had one of the finest beef herds back then - a far cry from the Zimbabwe Ruins of today). Rhodesia was under constant attack and pressure from everywhere.

The thing I remember the most about Rhodesia, and cherish the most, was the UNITY of the people. We whites were absolutely determined to resist the British handover to Marxists like Mugabe and Nkomo. We kept saying we would hand over power to "responsible government" - which meant: NO MARXISTS and NO SOCIALISTS! That was really the main thing we wanted. In the end, we did not get even that - we got our worst nightmare - Robert Mugabe.***

Mugabe made Zimbabwe a pariah state*** Mr Straw said in an article in the Observer that Mugabe's policies were leading his country to ruin. "In the name of his 'land reform' policies, Mugabe is reducing his people to starvation. "A fraudulent election earlier this year was characterised by murder and intimidation. His continuing use of state-organised violence since then underlines his determination to hold on to power at all costs." Mr Straw said that Zimbabwe was "a self-made pariah, not a colonial victim" and that the suffering of the country's black population was particularly shocking. "With countries in the region, the Commonwealth, the EU and the US, we will review the impact of the current sanctions regime." But he ruled out economic sanctions. "Mugabe's policies have already imposed too much economic hardship."

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, renewed his call in the Mail on Sunday yesterday for Mr Blair to make Zimbabwe the "make or break" issue at the summit. Mr Duncan Smith served in Zimbabwe as a soldier when it was still called Rhodesia and the British Army was keeping the peace in the run-up to independence. The experience, and particularly the realisation that political decisions could transform people's lives in very practical ways, persuaded him to become a politician. "It is easy to forget now just how much that infant nation had going for it. It was the bread basket of Southern Africa," Mr Duncan Smith said.***