‘I watched terrorists kill friends’ Farmer tells story of home town
BEFORE fleeing to Warwick, Oswald “Ossie” Pike watched in horror as 22 of his neighbours were brutally murdered at the hands of African “terrorists”.
Under attack from militant rebels associated with African despot Robert Mugabe, Mr Pike was driven from his farm in former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he and his wife Luitha raised two children and 1200 head of cattle.
But despite his determination to move on, Mr Pike watches in anguish as history repeats itself 37 years later.
Having suffered persecution himself, Mr Pike can sympathise all too well with the white South African farmers Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wants to resettle under a controversial fasttracked visa program.
As a beef farmer and miner on a property 80 miles out of Gwelo in Rhodesia, Mr Pike said he witnessed the murder of more than 20 neighbours before he fled to Australia with his family in 1981.
Living in Rhodesia under threat from Zanu and Zapu terrorists determined to drive white people from the region, Mr Pike and his wife Luitha carried machine guns around their necks for security.
“We fought a terrorist war for 11 years. You never knew when you were going to get murdered or stabbed in the back,” he said.
Many of the people murdered around him were white Rhodesian farmers like himself.
Mr Pike said if white South African farmers were resettled in Australia, they would also make valuable contributions to the country.
“They will be good citizens, that is all I can say,” he said.
“They just need the opportunity to get in and live somewhere peacefully.”