On May 14, the New York Times published an op-ed article by Robert Rotberg, president of the World Peace Foundation, about the efforts of Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, to perpetuate his hold on power by instigating violence against white farmers, businessmen and a growing black-led opposition. Mugabe, a radical Marxist whose guerrilla forces had been trained by North Korea, won power in April 1980, in a free parliamentary election, which Ian Smith, the white leader who had declared Southern Rhodesia’s independence, and his moderate black allies had agreed to hold.

      The country was renamed Zimbabwe. Racial discrimination had been abolished a year and a half earlier, and black hopes were high. The whites were less confident about their future. Within five years, half the whites had fled the country, and the minority black tribes were as dissatisfied as the whites. Thousands of Mugabe’s political opponents had been killed by his army. His rivals had been exiled or neutralized, and Mugabe had proclaimed his intention to establish a one-party state. The once-prosperous country was in serious economic trouble and had become dependent on foreign aid.

      In the past year Mugabe has been sending what he calls “war veterans” to squat on hundreds of white-owned farms. Eight prominent white farmers, including Gloria Olds, who was shot twenty times. She was the mother of a farmer killed last year. The intimidation of whites has now extended to those who own factories. A hundred former employees stormed a textile firm on March 30. They beat up the white directors, but didn’t touch those who were black. But it isn’t only whites who are suffering from Mugabe’s racist policies.

      Nearly a million people have fled to South Africa from Zimbabwe. Many of the blacks realize that disrupting agriculture and industry by attacking the whites who own and manage the farms and the factories is not in their best interest. South African-owned businesses are among those under attack. But Mugabe seems not to care about the economy. He is concerned only with keeping power, defying the courts, arresting his critics and closing radio stations and newspapers.

      Rotberg does not mention it, but American Renaissance, a monthly newsletter, reports that the bloodiest war on whites in Africa is going on in South Africa, where nearly 500 white farmers have been killed since the blacks took over seven years ago. Thirteen white farmers were killed in January. Whites believe the government tacitly approves the killings.

      As black rule brings greater hardship and poverty instead of the better life that the blacks expected in Zimbabwe and South Africa, it is not surprising to see the demagogues make scapegoats of the whites who have remained in those countries to run their farm and businesses. As their numbers diminish, the economies are bound to suffer, and white flight will grow at an even faster rate. Realists foresaw this years ago. The idealists in the media are just beginning to catch on.

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