Mounting opposition to Rhodesian settlement

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 12

Mounting opposition to Rhodesian settlement

(From JOHN BORRELL, in Salisbury.)

As the Pearce Commission prepares to assemble in Salisbury early next month to test the acceptability of the AngloRhodesian settlement, opposition from both the Left and the Right is beginning to build up.

Already, Africans have formed a new political party which is set on wrecking the settlement while the more extreme Right wingers are talking of “tearing up” the settlement agreement within two or three years.

Most educated Africans regard the rate of political advancement offered by the settlement as too slow and too dependent on European good will. Right wing Europeans, on the other hand, see the settlement as a sell out of white supremist interests. Not surprisingly it is the Africans who have reacted most strongly to the settlement terms.

When the terms were first announced many Africans seemed prepared to accept the settlement on the grounds that something was better than nothing. While some still argue this way, there appears to be a growing number of Africans who want all or nothing; they want what they regard as a fair settlement or none at all. At the African National Council’s first meeting in Salisbury shortly after the new party was formed, Africans were urged to fan out over the country to establish branches of the council. They were also urged to reject the proposals and to spread the word “in the townships, compounds and traditional tribal lands.” Countering pressure The council feels that one of its main tasks is to counter the pressure being put on the chiefs by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rhodesia’s all-powerful administrator of tribal areas. The council remembers the way the chiefs were used to back Mr Smith’s proposals for the racist 1969 constitution under the guise that the chief reflect the opinions of the country’s five million Africans. Mr Joshua Chinamano, a former political detainee and one of the guiding hands behind the new council, sees rejection of the settlement terms as the African’s only hope of getting a fair deal in Rhodesia. “If we allow the settlement to go through as it now stands we are stuck with the new constitution. It can only be changed by violence, which nobody wants, because the African is going to find that political power is always just beyond his reach.

“If we can get the African people to tell the Pearce Commission that they reject the settlement, the council is hopeful that Mr Smith and the British Government will have to confer again. “The Europeans are desperate to have sanctions brought to an end and if we hold out a bit longer it may force them to settle on terms more favourable to the African,” he says.

What the African National Council recognises is that if the Pearce Commission returns to Britain and reports that the Rhodesian people reject the settlement proposals, both Mr Smith and the British Government will be in an awkward position. So keen are both sides to settle the independence dispute that a further round of talks could be arranged; if this occurred the Africans would press to be represented at the talks.

Spreading the word to rural districts is not easy. In many places there is a shortage of the White Paper and there has been no attempt by the Rhodesian Government to have the paper printed in Shona or Ndebele, the two main African languages. Furthermore, there have been cases of police intimidation of Africans urging their fellows to reject the terms. In the rural district of Mrewa near Salisbury, a former political detainee was arrested by the police and held for five days without trial. He was released after press inquiries were started but police continued to deny knowledge of the arrest. The man’s arrest apparently embarrassed the Government because a directive has gone out to district commissioners and the police telling them to “play it cool” while the test of acceptability is being conducted. The Right wing, mean-

while, is talking in terms of accepting the settlement but of “tearing the constitution up in two or three years time" in line with most other African states granted independence by Britain. So far no new right wing party has emerged—in this context Mr Smith’s Rhodesian Front party must be looked on as moderates—but there are continual rumours of the establishment of a new party which will consolidate Right wing opinion in Rhodesia.

It seems likely that this party will only be formed if and when the settlement is ratified. By then it will be in a position to play on European artisan fears of rapid Africanisation and the erosion of what the Right euphemistically calls “the Rhodesian way of life.” As the trend in Rhodesian politics is firmly toward the right, what at the moment is regarded as the lunatic fringe, may in years to come may adopt a cloak of respectability and their ideas of “tearing up” the constitution become much more fashionable. .

Mr Smith has said repeatedly—and there is no reason to doubt his sincerity—that there will be no tearing up of the settlement agreement. But, for all his good will, he may not be in a position to stop it. Liberalism—even a touch of it —is hardly the in-thing in' White Rhodesian politics.