RHODESIA CAN SANCTIONS DEFEAT THE ILLEGAL REGIME?

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30943, 27 December 1965, Page 8

RHODESIA CAN SANCTIONS DEFEAT THE ILLEGAL REGIME?

[From a special correspondent of "The Times'’ recently in Salisbury ) (Reprinted from “The Times”.)'

Two questions are now of prime importance in forecasting the course and gravity of the Rhodesia crisis. The first concerns the time it will take for economic measures alone “to induce Rhodesia to return to constitutional rule”, because the African states will not wait long before they try harder to bring armed force, British or otherwise, to bear. The second question, which is related, is: By what actual piocedure can economic measures alone bring back constitutional rule, if the assertion of British authority by military invasion is ruled out ?

; It is folly to underestimate j the support for Mr Smith’s junta, which goes far beyond the ranks of the Rhodesian Front. The way in which sanctions have been applied has given the rebel regime a head start in the struggle for : loyalties. White Rhodesians heard Mr Smith’s broadcast with varying degrees of apprehension, many of them expecting a crushing rejoinder and doubting the adequacy of their Government’s preparations to meet it. When foreign exchange dealings were suspended and the muddle over import licensing justified business fears about government planning, fear and uncertainty ruled. But when mail, aircraft, and normal contacts (apart from censorship) with the outside world went on, when the threatened isolation did not occur, and when even business began to return to normal, Mr Smith seemed to have guessed right, and backing for the rebellion grew. So did the belief that by the time the tobacco crop was harvested Britain would abandon the embargo. When the full range of sanctions and cuts in Rhodesia’s export income became clear, even anti-Smith Rhodesians felt committed. Mood of Defiance Propaganda has done its work—the ground had been well prepared. The mood when I left Rhodesia was of defiance, though in more responsible quarters defiance laced with despair. Morale was being underpinned by growing hostility to Britain, not just to Mr Wilson. Britain is represented as a weak country, the “tool of the Afro-Asians,” and both political parties are blamed, though it is hoped that the Conservatives will oust Labour and reverse its policy. This solidarity must be borne in mind in assessing the tactics of sanctions. Hardship alone rarely overturns a government which has no need, as the Smith regime

.has no need, to call an election for several years: which (has ample powers to govern without Parliament; and j which commands the loyalty of the police and security forces. If Rhodesia were a land of hardy white tobacco farmers and tough factory workers, or if the African population were at one with the white, it could hold out for years, for it is almost self-sufficient in essentials and has South Africa at its back. Its vulnerability to sanctions depends on the fact that a luxuryloving white minority of 220,000 must hold down a black majority of 3,500.000. and to do so must sustain; and finance a costly security organisation. Reasons to Leave Sanctions against Rhodesia make sense only on the assumption that they will produce widespread unemployment, which will prompt a decisive segment of the small white population to depart, once the high living standard it enjoyed in Rhodesia has been removed, and at the same time will increase African resentment to the point at which it will embolden the African masses to erode the grip of the weakened security forces.

A point in the process is apparently to be reached at which the illegal Smith Government accepts the inevitability of defeat, resigns, and the Governor appoints “moderate men” waiting to take over. Alternatively, the armed forces, realising that the rebellion has failed, and that the remaining white population is in jeopardy as law and order breaks down, will themselves take over and ask for British help. The only other possibility would seem to be a successful African uprising. In each case the end of economic sanctions would be to pose a threat of violence to which the white minority would have to capitulate. The last stage would seem to be a British military occupation to preserve public order, sustain the “interim government” and permit reconstruction. Are such assumptions valid? Unless mere “hardship” causes the white Rhodesians to find means to row out Mr Smith and his Ministers in a few weeks, it will be necessary to break Rhodesia’s back. This logic ought to be faced. How long it will take will depend on how completely export earnings are cut by other important trading powers, perhaps under a mandatory United Nations resolution, and how large and discouraging to Mr Smith are the desertions from the ranks of his white garrison. Unemployment in the towns will take a quick toll of people who live wholly by the pay packet and whose assets consist largely of mortgages and hire-purchase debts. Unless they are given quick succour they must depart southw -is in search of jobs. End in Disaster

Farmers and property owners will hold out much longer, as will public servants. The Government can also generate white and African employment, though only by inflationary finance which, in due course, will hasten the downward spiral. Until it is clear that the tobacco crop is not going to be sold except at disastrous prices, and only in part, it will be unwise to expect Rhodesia’s will to re-

.sist to be seriously shaken. This may occur by May or !June next year.

It takes time for any public :—or for the security forces—to appreciate a hopeless posiItion. Sanctions will hit the weak and the innocent, the “moderate” whites and the Africans, long before they hit the hard core of the rebellion. Even when the cutlook seems hopeless, those in power who have nothing to lose by fighting on will prolong rebellion, sure of safe billets in South Africa ultimately. Sanctions on this basis, and with some judicious South African aid, could be sustained a year or more.

j The tone of Mr Smiths i statements in th- last few days indicates that be and his fellow-conspirators realise that resolute and full-scale sanctions w'U end in disaster for them. They are, meanwhile, trying to strengthen a fanatical support for themselves by whipping up hatred against British “vengefulness.” Their calculations, as all the discussions I have had with Ministers and members of caucus indicate, have been that sanctions would not be penal, and that even if they were they would fail on three points: (a) because sanctions always have failed; (b) nccause international business with South African and Portuguese aid would evade them: and (c) because Britain and other powers would tire of them. Rulers’ Gamble This is the gamble of the ruling junta—a gamble, be it said, long discussed and anxiously considered, though in a framework of disastrously simplified notions of economics and world affairs. The danger that the crisis will prove uncontrollable arises from the African fear that these calculations are right. If it were certain that Rhodesia would fall in a year the Africans, and especially Zambia, would be wise to curb their temperamental impatience. There can be no such certainty. Zambia may disintegrate first; or a great international crisis elsewhere may divert attention. The difficulty of applying an oil embargo itself emphasises the uncertainties of concerted international action. Can anything be done to hasten the effects of attrition? The most obvious is to resort to force when sanctions have sufficiently weakened Rhodesia, and have produced doubts in tts own armed forces, for an operation to be mounted that would be economical and relatively bloodless. Such an operation would anticipate the military occupation which is ultimately inevitable if Britain is to decide Rhodesia’s future. The other move is clearly to show that white submission will be followed by a transitional period in which there will be time for irreconcilables to leave, for African leaders to be reconciled and trained, and for a new page in race relations to be started. But unless Britain is in control, and soon, such a reconstruction seems unlikely, it is not easy to see how a transitional regime, lacking the secure communications which so embarrass British efforts now, could guarantee any long stay of execution in the face of African nationalist pressure. Thus sanctions in Rhodesia will prove either an impotent' or a terrible weapon—nobody yet knows which.