Garfield Todd

Sir Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd

Sir Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd (born July 13, 1908 in Invercargill , New Zealand , † October 13, 2002 in Bulawayo ) was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1953 to 1958 . He later became an opponent of white supremacy in Rhodesia.

Life

Todd came to Southern Rhodesia as a missionary from New Zealand in 1934 and directed the Dadaya New Zealand Churches of Christ Mission School. There he worked with Robert Mugabe . In 1948 he was elected to parliament.

Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia

He succeeded Godfrey Martin Huggins in the office of Prime Minister on September 7, 1953 , after he became Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland . Reforms to improve the education of the black majority go back to his government. Among other things, he doubled the number of primary schools. He also introduced the designation “Herr” instead of the previous designation “AM” (African Male) for black Africans. He also allowed them to consume European beer and wine. His government worked to legalize relationships between white men and black women. For the white minority, however, these plans were too radical and dangerous, as they saw their claim to power at risk. His party urged Todd to resign on February 17, 1958.

After his resignation

Todd became increasingly critical of the white minority government over time. He was also an opponent of the unilateral declaration of independence of 1965. He tried at the University of Edinburgh to educate the British people about the injustice perpetrated by the Smith government on the black population, but the government forbade him to leave the country and placed him under house arrest. In 1972 Todd and his daughter Judith were incarcerated for the second time. Judith eventually had to go into exile while her father stayed on his farm near Bulawayo.

In Zimbabwe

In 1980 Rhodesia gained independence from Great Britain as Zimbabwe . Todd was appointed to the Senate on April 8, 1980, and remained there until his retirement in 1985. The Mugabe regime's violence against opposition members disappointed Todd. In 1986 he became Queen Elizabeth II. To Knight Bachelor beaten. Because of his criticism of Mugabe, he lost his citizenship of Zimbabwe in 2002.

literature

• Judith Todd: The Right To Say No . Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1972.
• R. Kent Rasmussen (Ed.): Historical Dictionary of Rhodesia / Zimbabwe (= African Historical Dictionaries. Volume 18). 1st edition. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen / London 1979, ISBN 0-8108-1187-1 .
• Peter Bridger, Mary Akers, David Yates, Felicity Wood (Eds.): Encyclopaedia Rhodesia. College Press, Salisbury 1973.

Web links

• List of Prime Ministers
• Patrick Keatley, Andrew Meldrum: Obituary: Sir Garfield Todd . The Guardian , October 14, 2002
• RW Johnson: Mugabe was rotten from the start. The Sunday Times , September 23, 2007, archived from the original on July 25, 2008 ; Retrieved July 5, 2016 (interview with Judith Todd, daughter of Garfield Todd; English).