Little hope for Rhodesia talks

Press, 5 January 1979, Page 5

Little hope for Rhodesia talks

NZPA London The British Foreign Office appeared flustered yesterdav by the apparent press leak of a gloomy report by a special British envoy sent to southern Africa to find a solution to the Rhodesian problem. The envoy, a former Minister, Cledwyn Hughes, spent , three weeks talking to all sides in the bloody dispute in Rhodesia to assess the chances of a conference producing a peace formula The “Daily Telegraph" said that Mr Hughes had concluded there was little doubt that the black and white leaders involved would accept an invitation to a conference. h “But if they do attend there is little chance of a , successful conclusion.” the paper quoted Mr Hughes’s : report as stating. “All sides have moved further apart ...11 "Those in Salisbury concerned with the internal settlement have entrenched I their proposals and are not prepared to talk on the basis of the (September, • 1977) Anglo-American pro-/ posals. “Equally the leaders of i the Patriotic Front (guerrilla forces) are not prepared to I

talk on anv basis except that afforded by the AngloAmerican plan." the newspaper quoted Mr Hughes as reporting. The British Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan) will seek President Jimmy Carter's advice this week-end as Ihe considers whether to risk calling an all-party Rhodesia conference. Prospects for a successful ; Camp David-style summit meeting in Britain on the Rhodesian independence dispute appeared slim. Before deciding whether to take the gamble, Mr Callaghan will talk it over with President Carter at the fourpower meeting of Western ■ leaders in Guadeloupe, offi’cials said. In Salisbury, Church authorities have said that a Swiss Roman Catholic missionary was found shot dead in a black reservation in the Rhodesian Midlands cm Wednesday, three days after being abducted, apparently [by nationalist guerrillas. The murdered priest, the Rev. Martin Holenstein, aged 44. disappeared on New I Year's Day while on his way to say Mass at a rural church, a spokesman for the Midlands Catholic diocese of Gwelo said.