A place for whites in Zimbabwe

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 12

A place for whites in Zimbabwe

Bv

TONY HODGES

in Salisbury

Black nationalist leaders are now actively campaigning to persuade whites to re-m-'in in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) after a change of government. They are touring the country, speaking to groups of businessmen, farmers and professionals, promising that they will not introduce sweeping economic changes if they come to power. They are offering attractive terms to the whites on important issues such as land ownership, pensions, nationalisation policy and the pace of “Africanisation” in the civil service, m spite of their rejection of Rhodesian Front demands for forma! guarantees of minority rights in a new constitution.

Dr Gordon Chavunduka, one of the principal leaders of Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Council (U.A.N.C.), assured a recent meeting of chartered accountants in Salisbury that his party “would back the private sector” if it formed a government. The U.A.N.C., he said, was opposed to nationalisation for its own sake and would not consider nationalising a company unless the move served the interests of the country. This attitude runs through a major U.A.N.C. policy statement drafted by Dr Chavunduka. a university lecturer appointed by the U./ ''.C. a month ago to draw up a party programme.

Dr Chavunduka’s economic policies are echoed by Dr Joshua Nkomo’s African National Council Zimbabwe (A.N.C.Z.). Addressing a meeting organised by the Association of Rhodesian Industries on May 10, Mr Josiah Chinamano, who as

A.N.C.Z. vice-president is Dr Nkomo’s highest-ranking representative in the country, stressed that there “appear to be strong reasons for the first majority government including much of the present economic system in its existing form in the first place, and only making changes in the light of experience gained.” Mr Chinamano assured his audience of businessmen that “no sane government would disturb the economic system by nationalising for the sake of nationalisation” and said that free enterprise would be permitted “indefinitely” so long as it did not deny all Zimbabweans the nation’s wealth. The A.N.C.Z. and the U.A.N.C. leaders stress in their speeches that they are not communists. “The U.A.N.C. wants to develop an African ideology based on traditional forms of economic organisation,” Dr Chavunduka said in a statement last month. “It should be pointed out that these traditional forms contain elements of both socialism and capitalism.”

Th. same idea is contained in a U.A.N.C. pamphlet “Looking to the Future with U.A.N.C.” which is being distributed in Salisbury. “Our main objective,” it says, “will be to extract the very best out of capitalism and the very best out of scoialism in order to create a hybrid.”

M- Chinamano is also keen to reassure white businessmen about the ideological leanings of Mr Robert Mugabe, with whose wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Z.A.N.U.) the A.N.C.Z. is allied in the

Patriotic Front. "All I know about him,” he told them, “is that’ he is a devout Catholic and that Catholicism and communism go ill together.” The economic policies of the U.A.N.C and the A.N.C.Z. are much the same as those of the African National Council Sithole (A.N.C.S.), the “internal” wing of the Z.A.N.U. faction led by the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole. “We are opposed to the communist system,” said Mr Phineas Sithole, the A.N.C.S. national secretary, who is also president of the African Trades Union Congress (A.T.U.C.). He said he favoured a mixed economy with greater State control over the multinational companies.

The A.N.C.S., which appears to be growing rapidly at. the expense of Bishop Muzorewa’s U.A.N.C, was holding its first National Congres on June 5 in Salisbury. While guaranteeing an important place for private enterprise in a black-ruled Zimbabwe, the nationalist leaders are suggesting to businessmen that the country will enjoy an economic boom after a transition to black rule.

Once a settlement is relatively advanced manufacturing industries and commercial farms will be poised to break into major new markets in black-ruled Africa. In addition, they say, Rhodesian industry will be buoyed up by an influx of private foreign capital as well as the $1.5 billion Zimbabwe Development Fund proposed by the Western Powers. The U.A.N.C. and the A.N.C.Z. are also anxious to reassure the country’s 16.000 white civil servants that there will no whole-

scale removal of white employees from the Government administration. “Promotion will be on merit and not on colour,” Mr Chinamano told a recent meeting of the Rhodesian National Affairs Association, dismissing a rapid “Africanisation” of the civil service. Dr Chavunduka was more explicit: “A large section of the European population is Rhodesian, and they will not become expatriate workers. ‘Africanisation’; meaning replacing them with black

Rhodesians, will not be an acceptable policy for the U.A.N.C. and will not be a problem for us.”

The nationalist leaders are also placing on record their opposition to a State takeover of the large white-owned commercial farms — so long as they are being used productively and are not abandoned. Observers here predict, however, that the policy will leave the majority of commercial farms in white hands. At present, some 6000 white farmers own

about 15.5 million hectares of agricultural land, while about four million Africans depend for their livelihood on about 17.6 million hectare.-. A bl ack-run Government would also, like the regime in neighbouring Mozambique, retain economic links with South Africa. “It is our intention to maintain the economic ties for a long time because the two countries are so tied together that a break would ruin Rhodesia." Dr Chavunduka said. — 0.F.N.5., Copyright.