South Africa:The death of Rhodesia's last prime minister Ian Smith was met with little mourning yesterday as former foes recalled a staunch defender of white rule.
Zimbabwe's state-controlled broadcaster said Mr Smith would be best remembered for his racism and the deaths of many people in the former Rhodesia.
Opposition figures also recalled the destruction "Good Old Smithy" - as he was known to his supporters - wrought, but said he compared well in certain respects to his successor Robert Mugabe, who has brought Zimbabwe to the brink of bankruptcy.
Many other Zimbabweans, who struggle under hyper-inflation and chronic food shortages, simply greeted the news with indifference. "He was a historic relic and many people are concerned today about survival," said Eldred Masunungure, a political analyst in Harare.
In a surprising move, Mr Mugabe's information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said his government extended its condolences to Mr Smith's family.
"At least 50,000 of our people were killed by his soldiers. Some of us suffered in jail, detention without trial and in exile but we said at independence let bygones be bygones," he said.
"We extended the hand of reconciliation to Mr Smith at independence, allowed him to live freely in Harare, because we were not fighting him but the system he stood for."
Others showed less restraint. Mr Ndlovu's deputy Bright Matonga described Mr Smith as "an unrepentant racist".
Roy Bennett, a former opposition MP in exile in South Africa, said Mr Smith "created an immense amount of suffering" but "those who replaced Smith happen to be worse and even more oppressive. Whatever one can say about Ian Smith, and whatever his bad points were, the man was honest and certainly Zimbabwe was the jewel of Africa when it was handed over to Robert Mugabe in 1980," said Mr Bennett, a Movement for Democratic Change leader.
Prof Keith Gottshalk of the University of Western Cape, said Mr Smith had "left a poisoned chalice of embittered race relations" in Zimbabwe, affecting also Mozambique and South Africa.