| "In a logical world it should be hard
to explain why Ian Smith, who took over a country where
he was already legally governing without a shot, without
a murder, a trial or even a coup, is a wicked, lawless villain
unfit to be negotiated with by decent men, whereas those
who seize their country by force and shoot, arrest or exile
the existing rulers, and then set up a military dictatorship,
are immediately recognized as the praiseworthy heads of
a respectable legal movement." Those words were written
by the well known authoress Mrs Elsbeth Huxley in the National
Review of Washington.
Honest men and women throughout the civilized world are
as puzzled as she is. Why is Rhodesia being treated like
an headstrong adolescent. Was she not ripe for independence?
Had she been unwilling to negotiate terms and give guarantees?
Brig. Andrew Skeen is in a unique position to provide
the answers. he was the High Commissioner for Southern
Rhodesia in London from July to November 1965 until that
day he was informed he was "no longer acceptable to the British
Government as High Commissioner."
Along with many personal sidelights he gives the inside
story of the protracted struggle between a young country
claiming the right to sever parental apronstrings, and
a mother country unwilling to accept the justice of that
claim. It is a story of Rhodesia's fight for independence;
it may also be the story of England's biggest blunder.
Flycover damaged, but hardback book is in great condition.
A worthy addition to any library on Rhodesia.
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