Killings, censorship provoke outcry

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 8

Killings, censorship provoke outcry

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury : I Rhodesia’s supreme Execu- i tive Council appears set for i a stormv meeting after the i killings of 22 African civil- I ians near Salisbury last Sat- I urday. 1 Political sources said that two of the three nationalists : in the top tier of the transi- ■ tional Administration — Bis- ] hop Abel Muzorewa and the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole — ] were expected to question the white Prime Minister (Mr lan Smith) closely about the conduct of the white-led security forces. Mr Smith, who was on holiday in South Africa when the killings took place, is believed to have demanded a full report on the incident from military headquarters. Officials in the Bishop’s United African National Council and Mr Sithole’s group were also upset over military censorship of press statements the parties released on the killings. The statements blamed security forces for the deaths of the 22. : From Johannesburg, NZPA-Reuter has reported i that of the three international news agencies with correspondents in Rhodesia

at present, the ban on reporting the contents of the statements was applied only to NZPA-Reuter. Reports by the domestic news agency, 1.A.N.A., and the “Rhodesia Herald” newspaper were also censored.

The U.A.N.C. publicity secretary, David Mukome, said he was astounded at the censors’ act, the first of its kind. “Every word of the statement had the backing of the bishop,” he said. He said he would urge Bishop Muzorewa to take up the matter with the Executive Council when it meets for its regular weekly session.

“Things don’t look too good for the internal settlement at the moment,” he added. >

Under censorship regulations introduced in January, correspondents in Rhodesia are forbidden from reporting without clearance any statement which relates to “any measure or act of any description whatsoever of the security forces or the Government for the purpose of combating or suppressing terrorism.”

The black co-Minister for Combined Operations, John Kadzwiti, said earlier that he was upset about the deaths of the civilians — all

but three of them women and children — but that the incident was “one of those things that happen in a war situation.” He said he did not envisage the Executive Council achieving much if it raised the matter with the military as “we are dealing with a ] very sensitive situation at 'Combined Operations headquarters.

"We are going to move verv fast to achieve de-esca-lation of the war so that things of this nature don’t happen again,” he added. The 22 were killed in an African reservation 12km north of Salisbury less than a month after at least 52 African tribespeople were killed, according to the military in a battle between troops and guerrillas near Port Victoria in the midlands.

William Chimpake, the black member of Parliament for the district in which the 22 were killed, has sent a protest note to all four members of the Executive Council describing them as toothless bulldogs. He said that none of the four — Mr Smith, Mr Sithole, Bishop Muzorewa. or Chief Jeremiah Chirau — had any effectiveness in controlling the forces at war.