Tactics talks in Lusaka

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 8

Tactics talks in Lusaka

NZPA-Reuter Lusaka 1 Black Africa’s “front-line” Presidents 1 met in Lusaka, Zambia, yesterday for last- J minute consultations to co-ordinate tactics : before next week’s British-sponsored Rhodesia conference in Geneva.

While the Presidents of Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, and Botswana hold their summit, Rhodesia’s rival black nationalists are expected to have various inter-party talks to iron out their differences during the coming week. On the eve of the summit, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia said that the threat of increased violence hung over southern Africa and if majority rule could not be secured by negotiation, “then it must come out of the barrel of the gun.” At a state dinner for the visiting Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Ghandhi) on Saturday night, he said: “The bell for freedom tolls in southern Africa.” “Now is the time for Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) to be born. The time for Namibia’s (South-West Africa’s) independence has come. The time for burying South African apartheid in the gutters of history has come,” he said. United Press International reported that the London “Sunday Times” said Rhodesian guerrillas were "plotting a take-over” and would reject any interim government, even an all-black one, until the Rhodesian Army was destroyed. The “Sunday Times” said it had obtained tape record-

ings of a secret meeting in Lusaka, three days after the Rhodesian Prime Minister (Mr lan Smith) announced his acceptance of Dr Henry Kissinger's Rhodesia settlement plan. It said the recording revealed a “blueprint for an armed take-over of Zimbabe (Rhodesia) which runs counter to the Anglo-American plan for an agreed settlement.”

The newspaper said Mr Robert Mugabe, secretarygeneral of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Z.A.N.U.), and the most militant of the Rhodesian nationalists, had told the Lusaka meeting: “Even if the proposals gave 100 per cent black membership of Parliament, we would not accept it unless there was a total destruction of Smith’s army and immediate replacement by Z.A.N.U. forces. “The quest is not to go to a conference and argue which powers each will have. What we want is more time to fight and then the Smith Government will acknowledge that the time has come to give in on these proposals. “When Smith’s army is tired, he will come and say, gentlemen, lets talk about the transfer of power,”-NZPA-Reuter said.