Rhodesia’s Status

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31737, 22 July 1968, Page 10

Rhodesia’s Status

Sir,—ln your editorial of July 20 you have made two glaring mistakes! First, Rhodesia is not, and never has been, a colony. Colonies are administered by the Colonial Office in London, using Colonial Office civil servants on loan to the colony. Rhodesia until U.D.1., for a few technical purposes, was under the Commonwealth Relations Office. Rhodesia was, and is, a self-governing country within the Commonwealth. Her civil servants are 100 per cent black or white Rhodesians. You use the word “insurgency.” Insurgency implies revolt. As you must well know, there is no insurgency in Rhodesia. Rhodesia is only faced by aggression from outside, by terrorists who rely on indirect assistance from the British Government, every possible help from Kaunda, the President of Zambia, and finally the Communist organisations established in the island of Zanzibar. Without the help of the first two, terrorism against Rhodesia would disintegrate tomorrow. —Yours, etc., ZIMBABWE. July 21, 1968. [lf our correspondent were correct, Mr Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence would have been unnecessary and the long negotiations between successive British Governments and the Rhodesian Government would have been superfluous. In September, 1964, the then British Prime Minister, Sir Alec DouglasHome, made it plain to Mr Smith that a unilateral declaration of independence would be both illegal and a revolt against the Crown.—Ed., “The Press.”]