The deceased leaders of Southern Africa: heroes, populists or villains?

I don't believe than Ian Smith and FW de Klerk could have continued resistance to black majority rule in the circumstances.  (This situation was foreseen in Harold McMillan's "Winds of Change" speech in 1960.)  Similarly, I think it would have been politically impossible for Mandela, Tutu or any other South African leader to suggest that black majority rule be delayed.  Politicians in the West, who had little at stake themselves, are indirectly responsible for the economic and social collapse of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and sending South Africa down the same path.

The main mistake made by de Klerk was not abandoning apartheid much earlier, and not setting in place an earlier transition to gradual black majority rule.  In this respect his predecessor PW Botha must take much of the blame.  De Klerk, however, did the world a big favour when he got rid of South Africa's nuclear weapons.

Rhodesia seemed to have a better record of including (in a very limited way) black politicians within its parliamentary institutions.  In this respect it is hard to understand why it was dealt with more severely than South Africa (the only explanation is that it was not already independent).

In all the chaos in Southern Africa from the mid 1960s to the early 1990s, Western democracies naively ignored the risks involved in instantly overturning the political order.  Britain's colonial territories by that time were of little economic benefit to it, and the West had relatively little to lose, except perhaps the risk of growing Soviet and Cuban influence in Africa.

In my opinion, if there was to be a prize for the most hypocritical country at that time, then Australia would probably deserve it.  Malcolm Fraser was strutting the world stage as a so-called "eminent person" tut-tutting white South Africa and the former Rhodesia to the glowing approval of the political class internationally and back home.  (Even South African liberals were contemptuous of Fraser.)

The hypocrisy in (farmer) Fraser's lack of empathy with white colonials in Southern Africa is that, if Australia had an Indigenous population of say 20 million during the 1970s or earlier, Australia itself would have faced the same predicament as South Africa.  Under such circumstances it is almost certain that white Australians would have adopted a less than liberal attitude themselves.

On our own doorstep a similar issue arose with PNG.  Many of those involved in administering PNG before its independence believe that Whitlam rushed independence for PNG, and that its political and administrative structures would have been stronger, if it had been permitted a longer transition.

In conclusion, given the actions of the international community, white leaders in Southern Africa were almost powerless in preventing the change, that ultimately drove their countries into increasing chaos and decay.  Similarly black leaders were as much the beneficiaries of changing international attitudes by the West, as they were instruments of change themselves.  Overall, decolonisation has been far less successful in Africa than in other parts of the world, especially Asia.