JOHN ROBB,
Sir, - In 1979 that redoubtable figure from Central Africa, Prof Laurence Levi - at one time the only specialist neuro-surgeon between Cairo and Johannesburg - arrived at a medical conference in Coleraine. He appealed for a surgeon to join him in Harare Non-European Hospital in the city then known as Salisbury. With the agreement of the Northern Health and Social Services Board I was enabled to join Prof Levi and was glad of the opportunity to return to Africa.
It proved to be an interesting period of transition from Ian Smith's UDI to Bishop Miserewa's half-way house of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. The pendulum of history was swinging so that complete independence under Mr Mugabe seemed inevitable and, like others, I was glad to see the end of minority colonial rule.
Twenty years have now passed since Mr Mugabe became president, surely ample time to transfer through parliamentary legislation in an orderly manner the land that had been usurped by European conquest and to ensure that a young African population was trained and prepared to take responsibility for its husbandry.
Whatever the cause of the bitterness which lies in the heart and pervades the mind of Mr Mugabe, his vicious treatment of the Zimbabwean farming community, black as well as white, can only be described as wicked. The people of Zimbabwe deserve better than to be controlled by a tyrant. Why are African voices here in Ireland so silent? If they support Mr Mugabe let us learn of justification. If not, their silence does their position little favour. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN ROBB,
New Ireland Group,
Charlotte Street,
Ballymoney,
Co Antrim.