A moderate and tolerant movement to an independent Zimbabwe, supported and advised by the UK government, was opposed and aborted by armed white supremacists (Mugabe crimes cannot be ignored, Letters, May 19).

They lost the lot and got exactly what they deserved as a result. The dictator Robert Mugabe, who came to power in an armed national struggle against the white reactionaries, and the desperate situation now in Zimbabwe, are the direct product of this dense stupidity.

People like Ben Freeth may well have been running Rhodesia well by their own judgment, but that did not confer legitimacy on them running somebody else's country without the consent of the native population. Sadly, it is not the dispossessed white farmers who have suffered the most, but the poor people of Zimbabwe.

Dave McEwan Hill

Sandbank, Argyll