Guerrillas to join talks, but bush war will continue

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 9

Guerrillas to join talks, but bush war will continue

NZPA-Reuter Dar-es-Salaam Patriotic Front guerrillas have announced that they will attend a Zimbabwe Rhodesia peace conference in London, but said: “The war will continue.”

The gueirilla leaders. Rober‘ Mugabe end Joshua N ;omo, said in r joint statement that they already controlled most ' the coun ry and, though they were willing to talk, they would not stop fighting. They said that the British Tory Government led by the Prime Minister, (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) \>as biased and had forfeited aay right to supervise the future of its breakaway colony. The Salisbury Administration of the Prime Minister (Bishop Abel Muzorewa) announced its intention to attend the conference, planned for September 10, soon after this month’s Lusaka Commonwealth summit meeting published its new peace initiative. Without the participation of the guerrillas fighting from bases in Mozambique and Zambia, the plan would have been doomed from the start.

Mr Mugabe, who heads the Zimbabwe African National Union, and Mr Nkomo, leader of the Zimbabwe

African People’s Union, left Dar-es-Salaam after a weekend meeting to formulate a joint approach at the London forum. Their statement was read to a news conference by senior Z.A.N.U. and Z.A.P.U. officials. It said: “By accepting the British invitation to attend the proposed conference, the Patriotic Front must clearly be understood to have done nothing more than indidate its willingness to negotiate a solution. “It rejects both the proposed constitutional framework, which has as its basis the illegal internal settlement constitution, and the proposal of a cease-fire. The war jvill continue. “The Conservative Government of Britain, having publicly endorsed the fraudulent elections held by the present illegal regime in April as ‘free and fair,’ and having pronounced themselves in favour of lifting sanctions, has forfeited every right to supervise the process of change. “It is decidedly biased in

favour of the illegal regime,” the statement said. In Salisbury, the Government said there was no point in Patriotic Front guerrilla caders attending the conference. A Government spokesman said the constitutional issues “are for discussion between the Government of this country and the Government o' the United Kingdom.”

The spokesman said: “The Patriotic Front decision to go is only of academic interest to us. As far as this Government is concerned th're is no point in the Patriotic Front being there.”

Informed sources said Bishop Muzorewa was not happy with the British proposal that his delegation be limited to 12 but there ws.s no official confirmation that he had asked London to allow him a bigger team. Nor was there any official confirmation about whether the former Prime Minister, lan Smith, would attend, although it is thought most unlikely that he will be left out.