Carter hope on Zimbabwe rests in House

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 5

Carter hope on Zimbabwe rests in House

NZPA-Reuter Washington The Carter Administration is pinning its hopes on the House of Representatives to save its policy of continuing trade sanctions against Zimbabwe Rhodesia, after the second blow to the policy on successive days in the Upper House of Congress, the Senate.

The Senate has voted, 897, to approve President Carter’s SIOI,OOOM defence bill for 1980 with an amendment tacked on that would lift the trade embargo against the breakaway British colony. The Senate had earlier voted, 52-41, to overturn last week’s decision by the President to keep sanctions even though there is now a blackled Government in Salisbury.

The House Speaker (Mr Thomas O’Neill) says he thinks the House will vote to lift sanctions, but Administration officials believe “education” on the issue will give the President’s supporters a majority when the vote takes place in a few weeks.

Mr O’Neill told reporters he thought it was unlikely that the House majority against the President would be sufficient to override a Presidential veto. If the President uses his veto, he has his way unless both House and Senate vote against it by a two-thirds majority. The narrow margin in the Senate on the first vote suggests that is unlikely. However, if the House of Representatives agreed with the Senate, President Carter would have to veto the defence bill as well. That would be painful — because the Senate gave him all the weapons he asked for, including the New MX intercontinental nuclear missile.

Last year, he vetoed the main weapons bill in a dis-

pute with Congress over whether to build a new nu-clear-powered aircraft carrier; supporters of new Zimbabwe Rhodesian Prime Minister (Bishop Abel Muzorewa) believe he will be reluctant to do the same thing again.

The President has to veto the whole bill: he cannot simply strike out the Rhodesia clause. If he vetoes the bill and Congress fails to over-ride it, the sanctions issue could be revived only if new legislation were proposed to lift the trade barriers. Bishop Muzorewa yesterday urged Britain and the United States to take swift action to remove trade sanctions from Zimbabwe Rhodesia and recognise his new b 1 a c k-dominated Government.

But he said the British appeared more intent on defer, ring action. This, he sc’.d. had resulted in hostile black African States’ taking up a more aggressive stance against his country. The lifting of aanctions and recognition would encourage wavering guerrillas of the Patriotic Front alliance to take advantage of a Government amnesty offer, the Bishop said. “This, in turn, would lead to a dramatic de-escalation in the fighting and a sharp reduction in the casualty rate on both sides,” he said.

Bishop Muzorewa said none of the black “frontline" States — Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, snd Tanzania — had responded to peace overtures he had put out since his General Election victory last month.

“Indeed, some of them have clearly taken decisions to pressurise the so-called Patriotic Front into escalating the war against us,” he said.