Surprise call for more talks

Press, 24 February 1977, Page 6

Surprise call for more talks

■NZPA Salisbury A Rhodesian black nationalist movement has unexpectedly called for immediate rcjsumption of the Geneva peace [conference as policy-makers (in the white minority Governjment remained split on how ,fax to go in dismantling racist laws. I The call for a return to the Geneva conference — adjourned in December in a deadlock over who would ’wield power in an interim biracial government — came from Mr Joshua Nkomo s Zimbabwe African People's Union, though it is not known whether it had Mr Nkomo's approval. The latest developments emerged as security chiefs disclosed that the four-year I old guerrilla war had cost 15 lives since the week-end In a reversal of Mr Nkomo’s earlier refusal to renew discussions after the collapse of the talks. Z.A.P.I Mid: l“The people who are confronting each other on the 'battlefield must of necessity come together and hammer |OUt a peace plan." Z.A.P.U., which commands ‘one of two guerrilla armies fighting to topple the Government of the Prime Minister (Mr lan Smith), said that iresumed talks should be hetween the Rhodesian leader. (Mr Nkomo, and Mr Robert Mugabe, who heads the arms lof the Zimbabwe African National Union. In Washington, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations (Committee has approved legislation to prohibit the importation of Rhodesian chrome into the United (States. The measure would repeal ,a 1971 amendment which perImitted the importation of (chrome from Rhodesia dos[pite United Nations sanctions (imposed against the country |in 1966.