Interim Govt rejects talks with guerrillas

Press, 12 April 1978, Page 8

Interim Govt rejects talks with guerrillas

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury Rhodesia’s interim Government has rejected an Anglo-American call to sit down and discuss the future of the country with black nationalist guerrillas. But the multi-racial interim Government, set up to implement an internal settlement in Rhodesia, said it would welcome a visit to Salisbury by the British Foreign Secretary, (Dr David Owen) and the American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance). Dr Owen' and Mr Vance are expected! to go to Tanzania this week[ for talks with two guerrilla leaders, Joshua Nkomo and; Robert Mugabe, who have! (rejected the internal settle-: ment.

! The interim Government statement was made after four hours of talks between its representatives and Mr John Graham of the British Foreign Office and Mr Stephen Low, the American Ambassador to Zambia. The Anglo-American envoys tried unsuccessfully to persuade the interim Government to take part in an all-party conference with the leaders of the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance. The interim Government is led by a partnership of the white Prime Minister (Mr lan Smith) and the moderate black leaders, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, and Chief Jeremiah Chirau. In its first important move since taking office, the interim Government is expected today to begin freeing hundreds of political

' prisoners as part of its programme to bring indepen- ■ dence and majority rule to i Rhodesia. The Government is also i expected to name the 18 members of the lower tier Council of Ministers who will supervise the day-to-day running of the territory during the transitional period before independence. Under the March 3 agreement, nine of the Ministers will be white and nine black, three nominated by each of the three black members of ! the Executive Council. I Mr Garfield Todd, a for[rner Rhodesian Prime MinisIter, has come out strongly (against the Rhodesian interInal settlement. j Mr Todd in an interview 'published in “The Times” in [London said that the Salisbury settlement had no chance of stopping the war because the black politicians who had signed it did not control the guerrillas. Mr Todd, who gave the interview in London on Sunday, said that the rural areas, including his own, were largely under the control of the guerrillas. He would have approved the settlement if the black politicians involved had beer able to stop the war as they said they would and thus prove the guerrillas were with them.

He said that Bishop Muzorewa represented a lot of Africans and probably still had support but many were “changing their .support and listening to the boys in the bush.”

Mr Todd was Prime Minisiter of Southern Rhodesia during 1953-58.