Lanterna Rally

Author: Richard F. Wiles

Publisher: Trafford Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1412055849

The setting is Zimbabwe. In a move instigated by Mugabe, the author, Richard Wiles, tells of the violence and terror which accompanied the seizures of farms owned by white farmers. He relates his own harrowing experiences when his farm is invaded by brutish thugs, who proceed to terrify his farm workers, disrupt his farming operations, and threaten him with death if he does not comply with their demands. Richard Wiles has established a woodland nature reserve on his property which the government has proclaimed a Protected Forest. As an avid environmentalist, it is his passionate love and concern. He is determined that the government should no rescind on the legal status which it has enshrined on the forest. Likewise, he will fight by every legal means to keep his home of 40 years, 33 of which he has shared with his wife, Beth, who lies in her grave in a quiet clearing of the wildlife sanctuary. The action begins in 2000. It was then that Mugabe recalled the guerillas who had helped him to power in 1980. He put them on the payroll and sent them onto farms to act as "political protesters". They were known throughout Zimbabwe as Warvets. It was a group of these Warvets who came onto the author's farm and set up their base in the farm village. From that moment they played havoc with ordered life. It was then too that Richard Wiles began writing a diary. This became the basis of the present book. Within the pages he tells of the diabolical nature of the Warvets and the maddening ambivalence of the police and ministerial officials. Unending stress and frustration will move him to dispair. Withal, when writing up his diary, his innate sense of humour will often break the surface.