Envoy criticises Smith talks

Press, 11 January 1978, Page 6

Envoy criticises Smith talks

NZPA-Reuter Pretoria Britain’s Rhodesia peace envoy, Lord Carver, said yesterday that he did not think Mr lan Smith’s attempts at an internal settlement with black nationalist leaders would end the guerrilla war in Rhodesia or receive international approval. The main problem about the talks organised by the Rhodesian Prime Minister was that they distracted attention from the AngloAmerican proposals for a Rhodesian settlement, which were far from dead, he said. Lord Carver, Britain’s resident commissioner-desig-nate for Rhodesia, was addressing a news conference in Pretoria after talks with the South African Foreign Minister (Mr Pik Botha) on the Rhodesian problem. Of Mr Smith’s efforts to find a settlement with black leaders inside the territo-y, he said: , “We don’t think that any agreement that does not involve all the parties concerned is likely to be acceptable internationally, is likely to be lasting, or would bring about an end to the war.” Leaders of the Patriotic Front, which is waging the bush war against the white

Rhodesian Government, are excluded from the present internal talks.

The British envoy said he thought the ' principle obstacle “is that if they (the internal talks) are given so much publicity and attention, they distract people’s attention away from the fact that the Anglo-American proposals have been put forward, are on the table and are being proceeded with.” He described his talks with Mr Botha as “extremely valuable” and said that in his earlier visit to Mozambique — one of the black “front-line” African States confronting Rhodesia — he had reached a “very wide measure of agreement” with President Samora Machel on the Anglo-American proposals.

Lord Carver said he had agreed on the need to hold another meeting soon with the leaders of the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance. He thought they were in favour of fair and free elections in Rhodesia as part of the move to majority rule. “They have said so tK me personally,” he said. Asked ' about progress on the Anglo-American proposals, he said they had received “a very wide measure of agreement among al! the parties concerned.”