A Giant Among Men – Rhodesian Farmer Martin Olds: “Farmers are Enemies of the State!”

SHOCK AND AWE! Technically known as rapid dominance, it is a tactic based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the “enemy’s” perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. In April 2000, the ruling ZANU-PF dictatorship celebrated Zimbabwe’s 20th ‘Independence Day‘ by orchestrating the brutal assassination of national hero Martin Olds using the infamous North Korean trained ‘5th Brigade’ thugs.

by Sally-Ann Lowe (Source: Peter Stiff’s “Cry Zimbabwe: Independence – Twenty Years On” 2000).

Editor’s Update: Additional eye-witness information has been included after Dr Peter Hammond reviewed the article. Incredibly Martin, in his solitary and heroic fight against 70 ZANU hired thugs was finally defeated by Zimbabwe’s restrictive gun laws. The laws restricted the rounds of ammunition that farmers could hold.

A Giant Of A Man

Heroic third generation Rhodesian farmer Martin Olds held out alone in his burning farm house, despite being severely injured, for 5 hours against a well-armed professional military hit squad of 70 thugs with AK47 automatics and armour piercing bullets. What a giant among men! 

His assassination had been ordered by the militarily useless Mugabe, who had never won a single battle during the Rhodesian Bush War (any war?).

In stark constrast, Mugabe’s prime achievement was bankrupting an impressively successful nation that thrived during almost 15 years of global economic sanctions and the globally backed terrorist Bush War. One example, was his commitment of national resources to support Marxist President Kabila in the Congo blood-diamond civil war. By itself, that was enough to bankrupt the entire nation.

So weak was Mugabe and ZANU-PF that, in order to hold onto power in Zimbabwe, the basket-case ruins of Rhodesia’s bread-basket, they had to order a massive military operation to murder a solitary white farmer – a family man. The Central Intelligence Organization, CIO, (Mugabe’s secret police) were ordered to mount an army of shock-troops masquerading as war veterans. (It was common knowledge the so-called veterans were too young to have fought in the bush-war).

Without the backing of the British establishment, the USSR, Communist China and the rest of the world; this inept tyrant would have rightfully died in obscurity.

Martin was a highly respected individual both within his local community and in fact the whole Zimbabwe nation. He had been a Rhodesian Bush War elite Grey Scout, and an international karate black belt competitor.

Above: Lake Kariba’s crocodiles are often 5m or more in length and regularly kill people. Martin was awarded a medal for bravery (by MUGABE, the President of Zimbabwe) for another act of bravery – again, not waiting for back up, Martin leapt to his friend’s rescue when George Parkin was grabbed by a huge crocodile. A tug of war ensued – which Martin eventually won. He joked that he decided it was easier to face the croc than George’s wife, Lesley Elizabeth Parkin !!! Further below, today’s ZANU dictator President Mnangagwa is known as “The Crocodile” for his gangster style terrorism on isolated women and children.

Forty-two year old Martin owned and ran a productive 12,000 hectare cattle ranch, with a modest home in Matabeleland, Compensation Farm. Just a few kilometres out of the local village Nyamandlovu it had been in the Olds family for three generations. In addition he owned a thriving butchery in the village which also had a local police station. He was happily married to Kathy Olds, with 2 teenage children, his family being the joy of his life. 

He determinedly battled on like most of the remnant of surviving farmers, despite the corrupt Zimbabwe government’s anti-White racism and the nation’s seriously deteriorating economic, political and social conditions. These were the predicted consequences of Rhodesia’s betrayal by Britain, America and South Africa’s political leaders on behalf of the Sneak Rulers, the world bankers. Yet far worse was to come.

Above: Grey’s Scouts are legendary and highly respected.

By the year 2000, Communist China’s puppet Marxist Mugabe and his ZANU party cronies had been clinging to power for 20 years. It was time for the 2nd phase of the communist revolution: consolidation of despotic power permanently. All threats had to be removed. All risk of retribution for crimes against humanity (including the slaughter of more than 20,000 Matebele by Shona tribe Mugabe) had to be quashed. It was also time for the wholesale expropriation of white farming families’ properties. 

Don’t Frighten the White South Africans – At Least For Now!

In 1990, to Mugabe’s delight, the British Establishment’s Lancaster House 10-year Constitutional restrictions on expropriating Whites’ farms expired.  However, as a sneaky tactic, he was requested by Mbeki of South Africa’s Communist ANC party to ‘hold off’ his mass farm evictions in Zimbabwe until after the ANC had achieved the reigns of power in South Africa.

Above: Marxist ‘Rob-it’ Mugabe was called ‘Gifted’ by mainstream media (especially The Guardian) as he slaughtered black and white Rhodesian’s in ‘liberated’ Zimbabwe- Ruins and funded his personal blood diamond wars in foreign nations.

The intention was to avoid ‘frightening’ White South Africans before the upcoming referendum. The referendum was framed as a choice to achieve ‘a peaceful negotiated agreement’ with the ANC. Yet again, as predicted, it was a calculated political betrayal. Today South Africa is just another Marxist One-Party-State nation in rapid decline. Mugabe and his ZANU cronies, had reluctantly agreed to wait for the South Africa betrayal. Now this final restraint was no longer necessary and the marxist gloves were off! 

Already the agitations were simmering, Mugabe’s thugs had started sporadic farm evictions and intimidation in 1998. Now, despotic Mugabe decided to rewrite the Constitution to:

1. Enable him to be the dictator President virtually for life and to,

2. Remove the annoying Constitutional requirement that farms expropriated must be compensated.

Governments stealing private property without paying for it is against international law which overrides national law. Nor is it justifiable based on race, especially in southern Africa. So, the war of terror against farmers began in earnest.

Marxist Mugabe was stunned and outraged when the people of Zimbabwe had the audacity to reject his proposed new draft Constitution. Many called it ‘the daft Constitution’. Worse still, he and his cronies were shocked to realize this result meant he would not win the next election. The people had suffered enough and wanted him out. He had especially lost big in the cities, with a marginally better result in rural regions where the voter turnout was very low.

His dilemma now was how to retain power in the 2000 election? How to ensure a high rural turnout? He returned to the tactics Communist China taught him – send savages as a proxy army to terrorize unarmed villagers, families and farmers. Once again, rural votes would be in his favour.

Mugabe Declares War on White Farmers To Resurrect His Dictator For Life Dream

A new, democratically legitimate multiracial opposition party supported by some Whites including some farmers, the MDC, which criticised Mugabe and his ZANU-PF’ party’s corruption and lawlessness, was gaining popularity and threatened his power. He was determined to crush the MDC and win the next election by following the blueprint of a top secret election strategy written for him by South African based consultant, Dieter Nerf  which had proposed a government manufactured, anti-white, racist land issue agenda as the solution.

“Nerf recommended the land issue become the driving force in ZANU-PF’s election campaign and that ‘unorthodox methods’ and ‘unconventional elements’ be used. He identified land as an issue that would gain ‘quantum leaps’ if properly exploited. ‘We believe that circumstances building up to the 2000 elections require us to break away from standard formulas and expected tactics. Most of the ideas proposed under this heading are for discussion and need not be committed to paper’.”

The Sunday Independent revealed the above information and Dieter Nerf confirmed to the Voice of America the authenticity of the document with no remorse but whined that the Zimbabwe government had failed to pay him! 

From this blueprint the plan was formulated to intimidate, beat, and murder MDC politicians, members and sympathizers and to destroy their rural support base. In particular, to target White farmers, their Black farm employees then follow up by next terrorizing rural teachers and finally, businesses. Mugabe requested his CIO set the wheels in motion, to ‘neutralize’ the White farmers through terror, humiliation, intimidation and murder. 

Above: Charles Laurie’s empirical studies analysed 21,491 incidents of violence and intimidation across Zimbabwe over the 2000-2008 period. He identified eight types of violence against farmers, their families and their employees: Abduction/Unlawful arrest; Assault; Murder; Attempted murder; Rape; Torture; Intimidation/Verbal threat; Property damage/theft.

To achieve this, Mugabe and the CIO sent for his trusted friend ex-ZANLA lieutenant, Air Marshall Perence Shiri. Known as ‘Black Jesus’, he was former commander of the infamous North Korean trained 5-Brigade thugs and the Beast of Bhalagwe who had slaughtered 20,000 to 30,000 of the rival Matabele tribe’s men, women and children during the so-called War of Gukurahundi. He knew nothing about flying planes yet the Zimbabwe Air Force became Shiri’s own personal fiefdom. 

Above: Perence Shiri Rose from Bush War Terrorist Rabble to Matabele Massacres to Head of Zimbabwe Air Force. Despite his infamous savagery, even after ‘liberation’, in 1986 Britain gave him a place at Royal College of Defence Studies in London, an institution that describes itself as “the senior Defence academic institution in the United Kingdom. The most prestigious institution of its kind in the world”. Pictured above as an honored guest of British Aerospace at the Farnborough Air Show in 2000. And we’re told Mugabe hated Britain!

Failed Referendum Revenge – State & Military Organized Mass White Farm Invasions

The ‘Veterans’ farm invasions of 1998 would be repeated but this time it would be a nationwide campaign, more thoroughly organised and enforced with more ruthless conviction to drive the rural population on to Mugabe’s side. This required a new deal with disaffected Mugabe thug Chenjerai ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi who controlled the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association. Mugabe and Hunzvi had had a previous fallout. The ‘veterans’ were needed for the farm invasions and were bribed to do it with a pension increase of 41%!

Above: Educated by east European Communists, he married a white Polish woman and beat her so frequently and severely she fled him with their children. He declared he’d break the skull of MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. ‘Democracy’ in Africa.

Mugabe’s Veterans’ Letter to Queen Elizabeth: Pay us Money or White Farmers Will Die!

The war ‘Veterans’ had written to Queen Elizabeth, via the British High Commissioner in Zimbabwe, threatening violence against White farmers if the Queen’s government refused to pay money to Mugabe to compensate farmers whose properties were expropriated. This letter was ignored, providing a green light for the Hell to come.

Unemployed riffraff and street thugs from the towns were offered supplies, support and money to ‘occupy’ White farm lands. Military and government vehicles were used to transport the terrorist gangs to peaceful family farms in strategically selected regions. They were given instructions to threaten and cause havoc and fear against farm families and their employees including violence. They were given total power and protection.

Villagers, farm employees and even in some cases, the white farmers themselves, were forced to attend the dreaded pungwes – all night indoctrination meetings which had initially been used in the ‘liberation’ war and again to intimidate voters 3 days prior to voting in the first handover elections. These involved enforced singing of pro-ZANU liberation songs, beatings, humiliations, even murder, of selected individuals as examples to the rest. The ideas of pungwes came from Red China with its ‘cultural revolution’ and was also part of terrorist ‘hearts and mind’ indoctrination of reluctant tribesmen during the Bush War. They continued after ‘liberation’ as a convenient cover for wealth and power grabs by ZANU officials. using race and the complicity of the West to indulge in torture, terror and murder for wealth, including gold and diamonds.

“Pungwe’s” have been popular with ZANU terrorists since the 1960’s to the present. For example, ZANU Trasport Minister Goche and his thugs used Pungwe’s to carry out attacks: “The transport minister’s trail of brutality stretches as far back as the 2000 parliamentary elections when scores of perceived opposition activists were butchered in and around the Shamva Gold mine areas.”

Martin Olds, Singled Out By CIO And a 70 Man Professional Military Hit Squad Armed With AK-47 Automatics

The British Establishment and in fact the whole world had insisted on Rhodesia ending the limited franchise and euphemistically “handing-over” Rhodesia (as if it were a child’s piggy-bank) to create a ‘democracy’. At the time a common refrain in southern Africa was “One man, One vote, One time, One bugger-up”. Rhodesia’s 700 tribal Chiefs, however, supported Ian Smith’s plan to gradually expand the limited franchise. Britain and the world over ruled the tribal chiefs and Mugabe was gifted power and unsurprisingly no longer supported ‘democracy’.

From Colin Weyer: Following a long tradition, at the Opening of Parliament the government and opposition members enter the chamber in pairs, led by the Prime Minister, The Hon ID Smith and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr JM Gondo.

Although Martin Olds was an MDC sympathizer he personally refrained from any overt political involvement, was a staunch believer in upholding the law and he chose to adopt an apolitical stance. However, as a respected figurehead in the farming community as well as nationally, he would have been perceived as a well respected and influential White man.

Martin Olds was identified as a ‘threat’ to the ZANU state party. He was specifically singled out by Mugabe and his No. 2 man, the current President M’nangagwa, for assassination by the CIO’s new terrorist gangs disguised as “war veterans”. His murder was to be a terrifying warning to the rest of the white farming families and all farm employees. 

Mnangagwa AKA ‘The Crocodile’ for taking large gangs of terrorist thugs funded by the Chinese to kill isolated white farming families in the eastern Highlands of Rhodesia.  Later, in the new ‘democratic’ Zimbabwe, he was instrumental in the torture and slaughter of 30,000 or more Matabele.

Martin informed his wife that he had received a death threat. He then received a tip off from a source close to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF that Mugabe’s war ‘veterans’ were going to target his area Nyamandlovu the following week. After some consideration he chose to remain on his farm but arranged for his family to immediately move to the city of Bulawayo. He promised to join them on the 18th April to celebrate the public holiday, the 20th anniversary of Independence Day. He then informed the local police station that he would use his weapon to defend his person and his property against any invader that broke through his farm house security fencing.

Just three days earlier on the 15th April in another area, Macheke, David Stevens, a prominent farmer and local MDC party organiser, and his black foreman Julius Andoche, had been brutally tortured and murdered.

Julius Andoche’s lips had been hacked off and sent around the kraals to show the tribesmen what would happen to them if they did not support Mugabe. David had forgotten to remove a ‘Just Say No’ bumper sticker on his wife’s vehicle referring to the referendum. It was seen by the ZANU organised invading ‘squatters’.

Above: 1975, Chikombe Mazvidza of Kandeya Tribal Trust Land. Robert Mugabe and his ZANU / ZANLA thugs terrorised and frightened the unwilling tribespeople of Rhodesia into “supporting” him and, in 1980, voting for him whilst the British observers turned a blind eye.  The Communist Chinese funded ZANU terrorist gang cut off the ears, nose and chin from Chikombe Mazvidza. They then forced his wife to cook and eat the flesh. A burning ember was thrust into his mother’s genitals and two other locals were also assaulted. His five children and 60 villagers were forced to watch.

Martin awoke early, before dawn, on 18th April and got ready for his trip. He looked forward to being united with his family in Bulawayo. Being Independence public holiday celebration, he was not really concerned that trouble might brew on such a day. He had taken the basic precaution, after receiving the death threat, of placing his variety of the usual farm guns – hunting rifles, pistols and shotguns – in strategic positions around the house as a defensive measure. These were kept fully loaded with spare ammunition nearby, just in case.

The Convoy of Evil

“At 04.00 on 18 April emergency personnel at the ambulance centre in Robert Mugabe Way, Bulawayo, looked on curiously as a convoy of no less than 13 vehicles including cars, pick-ups and minibuses sorted itself out on the opposite side of the road. The men there might nominally be called veterans, but they were not the usual rag-tag of out-of-works from the Bush War 20 years before. 

Unusually, they were well-armed with AK-47s and had a purpose and demeanour about them that suggested honed military skills and recent training. ZANU-PF had bussed this Chishona-speaking group in from Mashonaland, especially for the task to hand. They were commanded by the infamous Comrade Jesus of Karoi and were probably stiffened by regular CIO or army personnel.
They were a hit squad.”

This ominous convoy passed by the Nyamandlovu police station and waved knowingly to the police on their way to Martin Olds farmstead. The police, who in turn were armed with FN carbines, were clearly expecting the hit squad and the police put up a roadblock immediately after they had passed through to prevent any help from reaching Martin while he was under attack. Just before dawn this Convoy from Hell arrived at the workers’
compound. They rounded up the employees including Jukumani Sibanda, who had worked for Martin for 10 years, and placed them under armed guard.

The well organized hitmen then completely surrounded the farmhouse security fence and ‘set up seven firing positions’.  A shocked Martin phoned a neighbouring farmer and told him he was surrounded by between ’30 and 40′ well armed veterans and that the position looked pretty serious. There were in fact, 70 ZANU PF employed savages.

Martin then made the decision to walk out unarmed to speak to them; no doubt hoping to diffuse the dangerous situation. In reply he was immediately shot in the leg shattering the bone. Under fire, through sheer
will power Martin somehow managed to make it back into his house where he quickly made a splint for his leg using two planks to enable some continued mobility.

“He fought for his life, sending out an SOS on his CB radio, while moving from room to room and returning the fire of his attackers. The walls of his modest home were soon peppered with bullet strikes. He was a trained soldier salted by combat from the Bush War, even though it was 20 years before. He was gutsy to boot and knew what he was doing.”

Realizing his attackers would cut the phone line, Martin quickly made another call to his neighbour explaining he had been shot and asked that
an ambulance be called. This ambulance was prevented from reaching Martin by the armed police at the road block. Not realizing the complicity of the police, he then phoned his mother, Gloria Olds, who lived in the area and asked her to phone the police. Although she did this four times the police failed to respond. Martin’s 20 year-old neighbour meanwhile courageously attempted to come to his aid but was stopped by automatic gun fire from the hit squad. The murderers meantime drained fuel from Martin’s motorbikes in his farm garage and made Molotov cocktails.

“They cut the security fence, advanced on the house and threw the flaming Molotovs, intending to burn him out. Martin fought a desperate rearguard action although his weapons were no match for the automatic AK-47’s, many of which were loaded with armour piercing bullets. He had kept his own weapons loaded which enabled him to switch from one to the next. He was a crack shot, especially at close range. The fight lasted three hours [in fact it was 5 hours as later reported in the Guardian newspaper] during which he wounded at least two of the veterans.”

The ambulance called for Martin was forcibly detained at the police road block. They were then ordered to treat the two wounded “veterans”. Meanwhile, the remaining 68 “veterans”, had set the house ablaze. Martin sheltered in the bathroom by filling the bath with water to avoid the intense heat and flames but eventually he was forced to exit via the window and crawled along the side of the house, dragging his splinted leg behind him.

Tragically he was eventually spotted. He got to his feet and limped away through the smoke and flames but the murderous thugs rushed him and bashed in his head with a heavy wheel spanner. They then killed him with a shot through the jaw into the brain. “Because of his heroic resistance, his attackers had taken their revenge on his bullet riddled body and savaged it with iron bars and axes.”

Above: Martin’s employee Jukumani Sibanda was distraught by Martin’s murder, exclaiming “He didn’t deserve to die like this!” Below image by Costs Manzini AFP.

Farm Disaster Report 2008: “…today David Stevens’ Arizona Farm, once one of the country’s most successful tobacco-producing operations, is derelict, its buildings collapsing and its fields reduced to a vista of tall weeds and encroaching bush… [All] the infrastructure on [Martin Olds’] Compensation Farm, which was a thriving safari and wild animal conservation operation, is burned out and abandoned. All the animals, including a herd of rare sable antelope and Olds’ herd of 1,000 pedigree cattle, have been killed for the pot. Peasant subsistence farmers settled by the government on the land in mud and wattle huts have been unable to produce crops…”

Editor’s Update via Dr Peter Hammond:

Because of restrictive Zimbabwe laws, gun owners were limited to something in the region of only 120 rounds of ammunition at any one time. Martin ran out of ammunition as a result.

Because the Zimbabwe government was deeply embarrassed by their casualties and the fact that it took several hours for their elite fifth Brigade to finally overcome Martin, they officially claimed only a few wounded.

However, eyewitnesses reported fleets of ambulances and other vehicles to cart away the fifth Brigade dead and wounded. Military intelligence in Pretoria informed me that Martin killed at least 18 of the attackers and wounded an [un]known number of others.

I understand why from both perspectives, that of the Mugabe regime and from the farming community, they both wanted to downplay the casualties of this several-hour gunfight, but realistically, a Greys Scout would not have been able to keep a company of well armed 5^th brigade attackers at bay for hours without causing numerous casualties.

Dr Hammond via email

Martin’s Family & Mother Are Now Targeted

Martin’s wife then too received death threats so fled for her life to the UK penniless with her children and applied for asylum. Vindictively, the British
Establishment continued their persecution of white Rhodesians and now, Zimbabweans including those with children. The British government, while opening its doors to non-white economic “refugees”, refused Kathy’s genuine asylum application. Only due to outrage from the sympathetic British public who learnt about their plight, did the government eventually cave in and approve their residency.

A year later in 2001 Martin’s mother, 68 year old farmer Gloria Olds, too was murdered on her farm by the same CIO organized thugs. They even used the same technique of first shooting the legs to prevent mobility before being savagely slaughtered. The Guardian (9th March, 2001) reported:

She tried to crawl to her truck. Two killers with AK-47 automatic rifles followed her, shot her three dogs, and then riddled her with bullets …. At yesterday’s service the distraught Rev Paul Adrianatos said: 

“For those responsible for the murders of Gloria and Martin Olds, I pray that they be cursed. For officials and cabinet ministers who ignore and act against just laws, I pray for your curse. For the leaders of this country who are not honest, sincere [nor] have compassion for the people, I pray that they be removed or cursed.”

Rev Adrianatos had to leave Zimbabwe, because in reprisal, government officials refused to renew his work permit. He criticized the inertia of the police after Gloria Olds’ murder. They said they could not come
because they had no transport. No police roadblocks were set up to apprehend the savages. So once again the local police were complicit.

The Pattern Of Unjustified Hatred Continues

Mugabe was ZANU PF. The ZANU PF terrorists are still ruling the record-breaking ever collapsing one-party state that once was Rhodesia; The Bread-Basket of Africa.

White Farmer John D. (2018):

“My family had a farm out there 10-20 years back. One day a load of pickup trucks full of blacks with AK47s arrived at the farm and told
them to leave on foot, and they could only take what they could carry. As they walked away the farm was burnt down. Today their formerly productive farm is just scrub land, the local natives are unemployed.

My white family built their farm around the local villagers. The villagers lost nothing, but gained [free] fresh water wells, schooling, medical care, and wages. None of the local villagers wanted us to leave. Now they have
nothing. Just seems a shame that a productive farm that contributed to everyone is gone, for no reason.”

To those who still believe Mugabe was an aberration read this, or even remotely justified read this, and watch the following short video: “If You See A Pattern Close Your Eyes”.

In loving memory of Martin and his courageous Rhodesian Spirit. May Christ’s Love surround you and all of Rhodesia’s and Zimbabwe’s innocent murdered farmers and families. Rest In Peace. You are not forgotten!