Ian Smith

Ian Douglas Smith ( born April 8, 1919 in Selukwe (now Shurugwi ), Southern Rhodesia, † November 20, 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa ) was a Rhodesian politician. He was Prime Minister from 1964 to 1979 of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

Life

Smith was born into a family schottischstämmigen. He was born in the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia and grew up there. He completed his studies at the South African Rhodes University. During World War II he served as a pilot in the British Royal Air Force in Europe and North Africa, 1945, he returned to his tobacco farm in Rhodesia.

Smith was the early 1960s, co-founded the Rhodesian Front, which began on the one hand for the independence of the country, on the other hand, but also for the maintenance of the supremacy of the white minority. He refused, the black majority in 1964 to participate in the government, which is why the Declaration of Independence of Southern Rhodesia in 1965, which now called itself Rhodesia, was not recognized internationally. Despite economic sanctions and failed negotiations with the British colonial power, the government was under Smith Rhodesia in 1969 a constitution and called 1970 a republic.

Smith legalized the opposition National Movement mid-1970s. 1976/77 to an inconclusive Rhodesia Conference took place in Geneva. The opposition won the 1979 elections, and Abel Muzorewa replaced Ian Smith as Prime Minister from. On April 18, 1980, the Republic of Zimbabwe became independent.

In the following years, Smith opposition leader of the Republican front was. However, the support of his policies on the part of the white minority decreased more and more, yet it still managed his party in the elections in 1985 to win 15 of the 20 planned for the white minority seats in parliament. President Robert Mugabe managed these guaranteed seats two years later, however, from Smith then retired to his farm. In 2005 he emigrated to South Africa where he died in 2007. At his positions he held until last fixed, especially during the economic decline of Zimbabwe after the year 2000. The farm, which he left his family after his death in 2012 was seized in the course of an expropriation by the state.