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At these prices, aided by last week's 6% devaluation, Rhodesia's carpetbaggers can pocket half their paychecks of $1,200 to $1,500 monthly earned in such critically labor-short industries as mining and engineering. Mining jobs are available to immigrants who can produce proof of having worked only 200 shaft hours. Such alien adventurers are often as undesirable as redneck mercenaries. Says one supervisor at a Rhodesian iron mine: "It's easy work. The niggers dig all the holes. You just stand over them."
None of the new immigrants, however, are as likely to succeed as the more farsighted speculators who are willing to bet on a black-inspired boom to come. The logic is fairly simple: if there is a peaceful transition to nationalist government, then the country's long economic drought under United Nations' sanctions will come abruptly to an end. Real estate, agriculture, tobacco, mining, even tourism—all should experience a quick revival. Companies from Stuttgart to Nagasaki have been sending semisecret scouting missions to Salisbury. "Zimbabwe is going to be the biggest boom country you've ever seen," burbles one enthusiastic investor. "The nationalists seem to feel it too. They don't want to drive the white man out. They just want to be part of the action."
Perhaps the best-known new Rhodesian is Robin Moore, author of The Green Berets and French Connection. He became an ardent defender of the white Rhodesian cause when he bought a house in Salisbury last year, and has cast himself in the role of "unofficial ambassador" for the American community. "I don't doubt that a lot of these types are the wrong people coming in for the wrong reasons," Moore said last week. "But some of them will permanently affect what happens to this place."