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HOWZIT! We would like to take this opportunity of warmly welcoming you, to the official website of the Embassy of Rhodesia in Iceland, and to thank you for your visit and interest in our beautiful country.

Our aim is to present our perspective on what constituted the Republic of Rhodesia, its history and the ideals which it represented. We also freely express our opinion on the tragic events which have happened, and are continuing to happen, in the Republic of Zimbabwe, the despotic state created after the Marxist takeover of Rhodesia in 1980.

This site is not about race, but rather about the economic powerhouse which had been created from a wilderness in less than fifty years. Rhodesia was always arguably the most progressive country on the African continent, and was certainly the most peaceful in terms of race relations and tribal conflict.

This Embassy certainly recognizes that there were inequalities in Rhodesia, Rhodesians fully acknowledged the existence of inequalities and were working to progressively remove them.

Unfortunately the political situation in Africa from the 1960's onwards, with its gradual collapse into anarchy, tribal conflict and poverty, created many difficulties for the Rhodesian Government in its quest for a first world quality of life for all its people, regardless of racial or tribal affiliations.

The intensive bush war against Marxist terrorism during the 1970's diverted huge amounts of resources from social programmes, which could have accelerated the pace of peaceful change in Rhodesia. The complicity of the Western nations in this campaign of terrorist violence, most of which was directed against peaceful and defenceless black civilians, brought about the eventual collapse of Rhodesia in 1980.

It is noteworthy that despite the bush war, sanctions, and the on-going terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, Rhodesia was still able to progress to an elected black majority rule government in 1979. The elections which brought this government to power were witnessed by international observers, including a high profile team from the UK, and were seen to be free and fair. These were the last free and fair elections ever to be held in the country - the concept disappeared under the despotic regime of Robert Mugabe.

Old Rhodesia evolved into the new nation of Zimbabwe - Rhodesia in 1979, and adopted a new flag. However, the Western nations, still labouring under a sense of appeasement towards the Organization of African Unity, a collection of former colonies - most of whom were by now despotic and corrupt dictatorships, refused to recognise the new black majority government. In addition, having fulfilled the requirements of the United Nations in respect of the lifting of sanctions, they still refused to do so.

Put in an impossible situation, the new government was forced into a conference with the terrorist leaders in London, where pressure was applied for fresh elections which were to include the terrorist organizations. These fraudulent elections took place in 1980, accompanied by massive intimidation of the population by the terrorists. This proved to be the beginning of the end for democracy in Rhodesia. By the year 2000, a first world country had been reduced to the status of a poverty stricken international pariah nation.

We do not expect that all of our visitors will agree with our point of view, after all, the essence of democracy is that everybody has the freedom to express their political views, without fear of persecution. However, we hope that all our visitors are able to gain an insight into a once proud and vibrant nation, by browsing through the contents of our site.

To those visitors who hold an opposite point of view to that expressed by ourselves, we would say that it is always enlightening to see both sides of a coin, in order to reach a balanced and informed point of view.

POLICY STATEMENT

This Embassy believes passionately in freedom of speech, and the dissemination of information in that respect to as wide an audience as possible. As such, our home produced documentation is free to be used by all. At the same time, we also recognize the fact that people have title to their own material in respect of copyright.

We try to ensure that any outside material we use respects recognized international copyright regulations. Please let us know if any of the material made available by us contravenes your copyright, providing supporting documentary evidence of that fact, and we shall promptly remove it, or resolve the issue with you in order to keep the information publicly available, thank you.

STEFNA

Sendiráðið trúir á málfrelsi og frjálsa dreifingu upplýsinga til eins margra lesenda og mögulegt er. Þar með er okkar heimagerða efni öllum til frjálsra afnota. Á sama tíma virðum við þá staðreynd að fólk hefur höfundarrétt að eigin efni.

Við reynum að tryggja að viðurkenndur höfundarréttur fylgi öllu utanaðkomandi efni sem við notum. Vinsamlegast látið okkur vita ef eitthvað af okkar efni gengur þvert á höfundarrétt þinn, með gögnum sem sýna fram á slíkt og við munum fjarlægja það efni strax eða leysa málið í samráði við þig og leyfa þar með óheftan aðgang að efninu áfram. Kærar þakkir.