RHODESIA INQUIRY BRITISH JOURNALISTS MEET THE PEARCE COMMISSION

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 12

RHODESIA INQUIRY BRITISH JOURNALISTS MEET THE PEARCE COMMISSION

(By

PATRICK KEATLEY

in the ‘‘Guardian" Manchester)

l Reprinted by arrangement)

The Pearce Commission, which boards the plane for Salisbury in the second week of January, is the body of five wise men headed bv a former Lord of Appeal whose task is “to ascertain by direct contact with all sections of the population” whether the Smith-Home formula for Rhodesia is acceptable to 5,400,000 people as a whole

I would submit that this is a fair description, couched in the vocabulary of Whitehall, of the distinguished personages who filed into the council chamber of a Vic-1 torian building near Parliament Square, one afternoon! just before Christmas, to answer questions from cor-’ respondents concerned with African affairs. But I would submit also, on the evidence of our eyes and ears in the hour and a quarter we spent there, that we were in the presence of four darling dodos in the best English tradition, and one Welsh eagle.

Wholly unprepared Lord Pearce is a fairhaired gnome of a man, merry of features, avuncular of manner, open of mind, and undoubtedly sincere in his pursuit of truth. But, on form, to judge by some of the answers we heard in that council chamber, wholly unprepared for the conditions of undeclared interracial war in a settler country like Rhodesia where hotel rooms are bugged, witnesses photographed by Special Branch, and many many Africans are paid informers for the regime.

The eagle, as we saw him! in action last week, is William David OrmsbyGore, sth Baron Harlech, at 53 some 18 years younger than his chairman. He is a former Conservative Minister, Ambassador to Washington in the Macmillan era, and in the 1960 s the Tory deputy leader in the Lords. He showed his political training by swiftly pouncing when a questioner—or even the kindly Lord Pearce himself —showed signs of hesitancy. We saw this on the very first question, after the chairman had set out the basic data for the assignment they are going to carry out in southern Africa in the sweltering summer days of January and February. Someone asked if Lord Pearce and his deputy chairmen—Sir Maurice Dorman, Sir Glyn Jones, Sir Frederick Pedler and Lord Harlech—would be empowered to differ among themselves in any final verdict they might render about political opinion in Rhodesia. Could there be a minority report? Lord Harlech clearly had strong opinions on this one and no hesitation in putting them to his chairman. Snatches of his whispered advice drifted across the conference table and into the front rows of the audience. “ . . . Try to avoid it

. . . no need to have two voices ...” Then Lord Pearce was speaking in his unhurried, judicial voice.

“I’ll try not to dodge the question. We’ll not tie ourselves down.”

Unanimity desirable

He went on to say that it! would clearly be desirable to! render a single, unanimous judgment to the British Government and, implicitly, to the court of world opinion. But if there proved to be divisions between them, they would face that when they got back to London from their nine weeks on the road in Africa, and began the task of writing their report. The question of broadcasting is one of the most sensitive political issues buried away in the White Paper on the Rhodesian settlement proposals, distributed to M.P.s on the day the Pearce Commission was announced, just four weeks ago. The Smith regime has laid down the perimeter and Whitehall has had to like it or lump it. There will be access to the microphone for those ’parties at present represented in the Rhodesian National Assembly, and for! no others. In other words,’ the parties with the mass’ African following, Z.A.P.U.> and Z.A.N.U., do not qualify. Mr Nkorno (in detention) and Mr Sithole (in prison), are silenced, along with all their lieutenants and followers. Lord Pearce and his kindly men of goodwill seemed unable to penetrate the significance of the question. There was mention of the pamphlets—to be printed in Shona and Sindabele as well as English. Distribution could be through the schools and African trade unions. But the questioners persisted, for there were many in the room who have covered African affairs for a dozen years or more, including many a journey along the red dust roads of Rhodesia. They know that for the 70 per cent of Africans who live in the Tribal Trust Lands, more than three million of

them, it is radio that brings the world into the village and not the printed page. Lord Pearce, a transparently conscientious man. looked a bit fussed and worried by this odd turn of (events. Had they briefed him on this one? He looked right and left to his fellow commissioners and then pronounced his decision on the radio problem: “We shall be discussing it with the regime the minute we arrive.” The discussion would deal with access to radio by the Africans, as well as the use of the radio—so far not offered by the Smith regime —for the Pearce Commission to put its story across.

Lord Harlech, impatient, pounced, “Simply spouting . . . that is, speaking about it on the radio . . . may not be the best means of putting things across.” He said that the essential point was that the Commission and its staff of 16 assessors—aided by interpreters—should get out and about, to explain, expound, and discuss the complex proposals set out in the White Paper. Radio, as a oneway outpouring of data, was not necessarily the best way to achieve that.

One was left with the impression that if anyone on the Pearce Commission was going to square up to Smithy on this and do battle for the right to get broadcasting time, it was not going to be Lord Harlech.

Finally, how do the five wise men feel about the White Paper themselves?

Lord Pearce was swift and positive in his reply. “I see the Commission as being totally uncommitted. You should never make up your mind about what opinion ought to be, before you’ve even heard it.”

The darling dodos smiled. ’jThe eagle smiled. The i correspondents filed out. ’’most of us unsmiling and ’frankly puzzled. And what, ’said Alite, will five million i Africans make of it?

Patrick Keatley meets the British team (Lord Pearce, Sir Maurice Dorman, Sir Glyn Jones, Sir Maurice Pedler, and Lord Harlech) which will talk majority rule in Rhodesia.