Time Limit On Rhodesia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30947, 31 December 1965, Page 13

Time Limit On Rhodesia

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright)

LUSAKA, Dec. 30.

President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia said today Britain and Zambia had agreed on a time limit for the overthrow of the Rhodesian Government by economic means.

If sanctions failed to achieve the desired result, military means would definitely have to be considered, he told a press conference in Lusaka.

In Salisbury, the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Mr lan Smith, said last night the British Government’s “bungling” over the Rhodesian issue could be tthe direct cause of the shedding of blood and loss of life. In a statement he said it appeared the British people had been deceived over the Rhodesian crisis and had been misled into thinking that the petrol shortage in neighbouring Zambia had been caused by Rhodesia. Mr Smith said: “If the British block up the entrance to

a pipeline they should not express surprise when nothing comes out the other end.” The Rhodesian breakaway regime imposed a ban on the supply of oil products for Zambia on December 18 —the day after Britain announced an oil embargo on Rhodesia.

Mr Smith said sanctions were having a much more serious effect on Zambia’s economy than on Rhodesia. He said he had been told the position in Zambia was

deteriorating rapidly “and very soon conditions may become chaotic.” The Rhodesian Agriculture Minister, Lord Graham, in a statement also issued last night, said he intended setting up an organisation for the disposal of Rhodesia’s 1965-66 tobacco crop. An American Episcopal Bishop was refused entry to Rhodesia and told to return to London by the next plane when he arrived in Salisbury from London.

Bishop James Pike was met by Bishop Kenneth J. F. Skelton of Bulawayo at the airport. It was understood that Bishop Pike, of San Francisco, planned to tour Rhodesia to study racial problems. But immigration officials at the airport refused to permit the Bishop to enter the country, declaring him a “prohibited immigrant.” He was then held incommunicado at the airport pending the departure of the London plane. Bishop Pike is known to be an advocate of racial equality.