Kissinger looks tor support for Rhodesia fund

Press, 8 September 1976, Page 8

Kissinger looks tor support for Rhodesia fund

ZPA-Reuter Paris The United States Secretary of State (Dr I lenr\ Kissinger) consulted France and \\ est Germany yesterday, apparently hoping that they would help to pour monev on the troubled affairs of southern Africa.

Although United States; officials said no decision had been reached. Dr Kissinger is believed to have been seek-, ing British, French, and; West German support for a; fund to provide a “golden handshake” for white Rho-i desians who would not wish to remain under black rule. I The fund would help an eventual majority Govern-; ment in Rhodesia to buy the property of whites who wished to leave. Dr Kissinger consulted the British Prime Minister (Mr; James Callaghan) in London; on Monday, soon after his! talks in Zurich with the South African Prime Minister (Mr John Vorster). He met the French Presi-| dent (Mr Valery Giscard. d’Estaing) for breakfast at I the Elysee Palace yesterday,! then flew to a meeting in

Hamburg with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany. He planned to return then to Washington, and, if the five African Presidents meeting in Dar-es-Salaam agreed, would go to South Africa next week to begin a round of shuttle diplomacy between South Africa and its black African neighbours, the United States officials said. Dr Kissinger alluded to the fund programme only inI directly at a news conference in Zurich on Monday | when he spoke about eco-| ;nomic advances that would give all races in Rhodesia an;

opportunity to live side by side. United States officials have said the press reports of a SUS2OOOM Western aid pro-; gramme are high, but they have offered no alternative! figure. After his three days in Zurich for talks with Mr Vorster, Dr Kissinger disclosed no details of any plans for a solution of the problems of Rhodesia, where the; white-minority Government! is under attack from nationalist guerrillas. and of Namibia (South-West Africa), which South Africa has continued to rule in defiance of the United Nations.

Dr Kissinger descr bed the talks as fruitful, and said he ■ believed a basis existed for ' further negotiations. He said his objectives, ishared by Britain and the ')States of black Africa, were independence, majority rule, i minority rights, and econo- ■ mic progress. Mr Vorster told reporter ' “Progress has certainly been made.” If a five-nation black African summit now meeting in Tanzania invited him to begin shuttle negotiations. Dr Kissinger would fly to Dar-es-Salaam and Lusaka next Monday, the United States officials said.