Salisbury delaying of black majority rule blow to West

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 6

Salisbury delaying of black majority rule blow to West

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury British and American hopes of arranging an allparties conference on Rhodesia’s future appeared yesterday to have suffered a further set-back with the Salisbury Government’s announcement that it was deferring the introduction of total black-majority rule.

The Rhodesian Govern- i ment said that elections in 1 April among the country’s 6.8 M blacks and 250,000 whites would be followed by a Government of national unity in which whites would ' hold 28 per cent of Cabinet seats. This arrangement ' could last at least until 1984. The announcement was made as a British peace i envoy, Mr Cledwyn Hughes, and his United States associate, Mr Stephen Low, arrived in South Africa en route to Zambia on a mission assessing prospects for an all-parties conference. It widened still further the gap between Rhodesia’s biracial transitional Government and the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance fighting to bring it down. The Patriotic Front, which seeks unqualified black majority rule, scorned the March 3 agreement setting up the transitional Government principally because it

reserved 28 of the 100 Par- s liamentary seats for whites. < But the so-called “Salisbu- i ry Four” — the Prime Min- ( ister (Mr lan Smith) and three black nationalists, Bis- < hop Abel Muzorewa, the 1 Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, and < Chief Jeremiah Chirau — are now even more clearly ! committed to giving special 1 treatment to the white mi-1 nority. The transitional Govern- 1 ment’s credibility both at I home and abroad had al- 1 ready been damaged by its ' postponement of elections 1 from December to April, by its delay in scrapping racial 1 discrimination, and by its ' decision to conscript young blacks into the war against 1 the Patriotic Front. A spokesman for Mr Sith- ! ole’s faction of the Zim- . babwe African National i Union told NZPA-Reuter: “It ' will be difficult to sell this white arrangement to our <

supporters. After the call-up and the postponement of majority rule. This will cause some unrest.” But, although Z.A.N.U. and Bishop Muzorewa’s United African National Council expressed reservaions, the new plan was publicly backed by the party leaders who told reporters it was in the national interest. The Government said the arrangement for a multiparty national Government, including whites, was to ensure political stability in a fledgling Zimbabwe. Political sources said this reflected concern in ruling circles about a possibility of inter-factional fighting after an election. All three parties in the transitional Government have groups of well-armed supporters spread across the country, and some officials have expressed doubt whether those defeated at the polls would accept the verdict without a struggle.