ON some levels, it would seem, Mr. Bill Cook and I share the same world view. For instance, I have read some of his opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on the Letters to the Editor page and largely concur with him.

In addition, I believe that he is referred to as "The Irishman" on the talk radio circuit and has spoken most eloquently on the same issue. However, if he Mr. Cook is indeed an Irishman, then I am perplexed as to why he would express doubts as to the benefits of sovereignty ? the right of a people to rule and govern themselves.

After all, which people have had a more glorious history of resisting British colonialism and finally winning Independence (at least in Eire) than the Irish? Why didn't they just accept defeat like the Scots and the Welsh and allow themselves to be absorbed into the United Kingdom with its Anglo head? Isn't the real issue in Northern Ireland not religion at all but the question of a united Ireland, an Independent Irish nation on all of the island?

It is true that Robert Mugabe was once an African hero in my eyes having done away with the boast of Ian Smith that black majority rule would never come to pass in the former Rhodesia "in a thousand years".

But I am not one who will close my eyes to what I can plainly see. I would refer Mr. Cook to a I wrote in the aftermath of the last election in Zimbabwe (, March 22, 2002). To make clear how I feel about some aspects of the historical development of post-Independence Africa, I made the following statement concerning African leaders who have "betrayed the great dream of African Independence and self-determination with their plundering of the continent's natural resources and their brutal misrule; I would gladly stand by the side of Saint Peter and be a witness as they are consigned to the hottest part of Hades."

But in regard to Mr. Cook's recent letter to theon Zimbabwe's post-Independence dictatorship, I would like to freshen his memory on the history of struggle of the African peoples of Zimbabwe. is a Shona word for "struggle" that had its political origins in the uprisings of the 1890s when African peoples fought to prevent white settlers coming from South Africa into what was then Rhodesia and taking over their lands. They were sent north across the Limpopo River by the then-British South African Company headed by that chief colonialist Cecil Rhodes, after whom white-ruled Rhodesia would be named.

For more than 70 years after the defeat of the first African uprising this question of land and the dispossession of African people by white settlers would be the central issue in Rhodesian (and then Zimbabwean) affairs. It was why they fought in the 1890s in the first war; it was why they fought in the 1960s and 1970s.

whites divided the country up to their benefit, declaring the most fertile areas as European-designated areas; which meant that Africans could neither buy nor settle in any parts of them. All major roads, railways and cities and towns also fell with in so-called white designated areas. Meanwhile the Africans were consigned to so-called African designated areas ? increasingly overcrowded areas which quickly lost their fertility through overuse and the crush of population.

As a result African farmers increasingly found themselves as farm workers, forced to find employment on white-owned farms.

So let's be truthful as to why the white population became dominant farmers and owners of the best lands. It was part and parcel of the colonial legacy that was designed to give the settler population the advantage while the African was denied the same benefits.

In addition the white farmer was given access to cheap farm loans, government help to develop their farms and laws to protect them from potential African competition. Is it any wonder they would be in the best position to develop their land while the African found himself landless? Of course, to change this state of affairs would mean a major change of Zimbabwe's economy, a disruption of that once thriving economy. But look at the situation another way: would Britain, say, accept that its industrial and manufacturing base, its farming industry, should be dominated by an immigrant population which gained its position of strength through an imposed colonial legacy? I don't think so. Just look how London views the prospect of thousands of migrant workers crossing its borders to take even the most menial jobs.

Even if Robert Mugabe were not there, the issue of the right to the land would still be a point of conflict.

On the question of Matabeleland, yes, a potential revolt was brutally put down by Mugabe. But the situation was far more complex than Mr. Cook would have us believe.

At the centre of the conflict was the political rivalry between Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, each with his respective tribal base and with two different guerrilla armies fighting to overthrow the Smith regime.

like in the uprising in the 1890s, the Shona and the Ndebele peoples came together to fight a common enemy. In the second war which led to the independent state of Zimbabwe, Nkomo and Mugabe formed the Patriotic Front which saw the two political groups ? Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Nkomo's The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) together with their guerrilla armies ? unite against Ian Smith's Rhodesian government and its army.

But, of course, the political rivalry between Mugabe and Nkomo over who was going to lead the Independent state never quite went away and resulted in the sharp, short conflict in Matabeland. Now the contexts in which this conflict took place. Its origins lay in the political rivalry between the two liberation leaders more than the traditional tribal conflict which one has to consider when looking at Africa.

But, more importantly, the Matabeleland revolt must be viewed in the context of the total liberation of Southern African region, including apartheid-ruled South Africa. The apartheid regime was in a desperate struggle to forestall the day when its own black majority would take power. To do that, it continued to conduct campaigns of destabilisation in neighbouring African countries.

This was to prevent South Africa's neighbours from supporting the liberation struggle within the apartheid state. So South Africa was fighting what it called a low-key guerrilla war in South West Africa (which would later become the Independent state of Namibia). It also invaded Angola and supported an insurgency in Mozambique, which probably resulted in the death of the country's first president Somora Machel in a mysterious plane crash near the South African border. Zimbabwe was not going to become another Angola or Mozambique. So any revolt partially sponsored by South Africa had to be put down.