Word: rhodesia
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Born in 1924 in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Brutus was raised in South Africa by his white father and Black mother, both of whom were schoolteachers. After graduating from college, he worked as a teacher, journalist, and anti-apartheid activist until his arrest in 1963 for violating a government "banning order" that prohibited him, among other things, from attending any meetings. He had gone to a gathering of the South African Olympic Committee as part of his long effort to isolate the country in the sports world...
Police first grew suspicious when ZAPU insurgents, who had fought grudgingly alongside ZANU forces during their seven-year guerrilla war against the white-dominated, government of what was formerly Rhodesia, did not turn over all their arms as required when the strife ended in 1979. After a series of armed robberies in the Bulawayo area last year, police arrested a number of former ZAPU guerrillas and persuaded them to reveal the location of the caches...
...determine who planted the explosive. While not directly accusing whites, Mugabe blamed the "destabilization" in the country on the acts of those who had served the white government of former Prime Minister Ian Smith as it fought to prevent blacks from taking over what was then known as Rhodesia. Mugabe claimed that some of these counterinsurgency and sabotage specialists were still in the army and the police force. Said he: "We will take action against them. We are justified now." On New Year's Eve, three white police officers were arrested for allegedly maintaining arms caches in their homes...
Sanctions often ultimately strengthen rather than weaken their intended victim. The U.N. embargo of Rhodesia, which began in 1966, spurred that country to improve greatly its own domestic manufacturing capacity. Some scholars believe that the same thing could happen in the Soviet Union. Says Robert L. Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley: "Sanctions might stimulate the Soviets to develop more indigenous technological capabilities that might in the long run strengthen the Communist state...
Brutus was born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, but spent most of his life in South Africa. He fears his life will be in danger if he returns to Zimbabwe because he was a vocal critic of white-minority rule there and in South Africa, he said, adding that he left Zimbabwe in 1966 on the threat of imprisonment...