“I begged Robb to write this book for historical reasons. I think history is important. History is extremely important in politics. Winston Churchill’s own amazing political career was built largely on nothing, but a knowledge of history. Robb and I spent our high school years in Churchill High School in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). The school was named after Winston Churchill and he gave it his blessing. Prior to that Robb and I went to Admiral Tait Junior school.

Our teachers taught us many things, but they also warned us of what awaited us in life. They imbued us with values and taught us to stand up for things we believed in. I remember our teachers telling us that life is indeed unfair, but that one must go out there and put energy into life. I remember being told that you get out of life in direct proportion to what you put into it. We must not expect life to give us things. We must go out there and make things happen. Some of that Churchillian attitude rubbed off on us. Perhaps now, after all these years, these values are more important to Robb and I than we understood back then.

Those were tumultuous and chaotic times. In those days, Rhodesia made world news headlines almost daily - much like South Africa was to do. Sometimes I actually miss them. Uncertainty was ever present in our lives. I remember standing in the school hall with our headmaster leading the prayers, praying to God that he would guide our leaders on the wisest course of action to save our country from evil. To us, Robert Mugabe was the ultimate embodiment of evil.

I remember too, sitting at home listening to my parents chatting to their friends and everyone agreeing that Rhodesia must not end up like Zambia to the north of us. Zambia, like all countries which ended up under majority rule, started out great and then things went wrong. Eventually, it became a mess. Countries to the north, west and east of us were ending up like this. We wanted to avoid that fate at all costs, and so we fought a desperate war trying to hold off the inevitable.

Despite all these hopes, prayers and battles, Zimbabwe today is far worse off than Zambia ever was. And the cause is not hard to find. In our case, of all the possible outcomes which could have occurred, the worst one happened. A curse was cast upon that nation, and that curse had a name: Robert Mugabe.

I remember sitting in class, in Churchill High School on the day when Robert Mugabe was first elected. Someone had brought a radio. The first official election results were to be broadcast. All of us in the class were white. And we knew that our fate would be decided on this day. Nobody spoke. We just listened to the radio broadcast. Then it was announced that ZANU (PF), Robert Mugabe’s party had won a landslide 93% of the vote. Nobody said anything. We just sat there. My heart dropped. Of all the possible outcomes - the very worst one had come to pass. It was as if we had fought a whole war for nothing.

My brother, who had been in the Rhodesian SAS and later, in the territorial forces had fought in the war. He said we should all get out of the country. He said there was zero hope under Mugabe’s rule.

So the next year, before finally finishing off school, I dropped out and went alone, as the first member of my family to leave Zimbabwe. I went to South Africa initially in the hope of joining the Air Force, but an Afrikaans-speaking Colonel recommended to me that since I was so English, I should rather join the Navy - because there were more English-speaking people in the Navy.

So I left, and thus parted company with my school and everyone I knew, including Robb. We were to live the next 25 years of our lives apart, until one day Robb found me and left a message for me on my website.

Little could I have guessed what strange turns Robb’s life had taken. He had remained in Zimbabwe and he wanted to be in the Police. So at the tender age of 19 he became one of the very few remaining whites in Zimbabwe’s Police force. With Whites leaving the Police Force, he was to eventually stand out like a sore thumb. With his Churchillian attitude and Western values, Robb tried to play the role of the honest Policeman. He tried to do his duty, and he tried to stand up for the things he believed in - like the rule of law.

But he was in the wrong country. Being honest, and believing in the truth and in good versus evil, is not a good thing in a country ruled by an evil man, who only uses democracy as a facade to hide his totalitarian and racist mindset. Fate was to throw Robb into Mashonaland where a war would break out - a secret one-sided war - where a few Matabele people would rebel against Mugabe’s rule, and where Mugabe would respond by murdering civilians en mass with an iron fist. Without plan or design, Robb, who had only shortly been out of school, soon found himself embroiled in a black-on-black war, an honest Policeman trying to serve an evil Master who was intent on murdering anyone who even hinted at opposing him. And murder them, he did. Nobody knows exactly how many were killed. It is said that in the Rhodesian war, from 1965-1980, that 30,000 people died. Yet, in a mere few years in the 1980’s, Mugabe was to murder another 20,000-30,000 Matabele people.

It often happens in Africa that enormous wars are waged, and little is ever known or written about them. Millions die - but they are mere statistics. Back in 1998, I wrote an article for WorldNetDaily’s magazine in the USA. I warned that there was an “African World War” in progress and that millions would die. Nobody seemed to care. Now we refer to that war as the Civil war in the DRC (formerly Zaire). Twelve African nations were involved and 4 million people died. But how many books have been written about it? Only one that I know of.

Many books were written about the Rhodesian War. But how many have been written about Mugabe’s genocide of 20,000+ Matabele people? None that I know of. Yet it was people who were killed. Living, breathing humans were murdered - sometimes in the most despicable way - though they committed no crime.

Robb was one of very few white men caught up in this hideous series of events. I thus begged him to write about what he had seen because it provides a rare insight into events which were suppressed. Mugabe and his CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation), did all they could to cover up the mass graves and to deny that anything was amiss. Mugabe was the darling of the Western world in those days. As Robb and other Policeman were busy picking up bodies and parts of bodies of women and children, the Western Media was singing high praises to “moderate” Robert Mugabe.

In this book, Robb writes about his life as a Policeman. He writes about the daily grind, the excitement and the humour of life as a Policeman and a prosecutor. But then too, his experiences take him into hideous situations where he has to pick up dead bodies; or he stumbles on a mass grave; or interviews witnesses to the slaughter. His friends are shot dead and he sometimes has to pick up their bodies himself to take them to the mortuary. But in the end, there are ominous signs that if this lone white Policeman does not leave the killing fields… then he too will end up as just one more corpse.

This book is the story of a young white man, freshly out of school who just wanted to be a Policeman helping his community and his country. But fate had other things in store for him and instead he finds himself drawn into a nightmare. As Robb readily admits, those events scarred him for life. Some of the things he was involved in remain nightmares for him to this day and he tells me that he tries as much as possible to put them out of his mind.

That curse which descended upon Zimbabwe has still not been lifted. What happened in the 1980’s could easily happen again on an even bigger scale. Perhaps, given the extremely dire situation in that country now, worse, much worse, may yet happen.

I hope that when next you hear: 10,000 people died, or 100,000 people died or a million people were murdered in Africa that perhaps you will sit back and think about Robb’s book. Perhaps you may then think quietly that real, living, feeling people were involved. Their screams and their tears went unrecorded - because nobody today really cares about the suffering brought on Africa by dictatorial curses such as Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

Jan Lamprecht
Johannesburg
12 October 2006″

Learn more about my book “Without Honour” at www.withouthonour.com where you can order the book either as a printed paperback from Lulu for just £12.99, or as an e-book from Jan’s website www.africancrisis.co.za US$12, or Lulu for £6.

As I state in the book, “Please also be aware that, being a disabled person, I would want any funds raised by the sale of this book to be used to assist my wife in her daily care of myself. Thank you for your understanding.”

WH

Take care.

‘debvhu