‘Rhodesia’ to go

Press, 27 August 1979, Page 9

‘Rhodesia’ to go

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury The Zimbabwe Rhodesia Prime Minister (Bishop Abel Muzorewa) has announced that the word “Rhodesia” will be dropped from his country’s name before next month’s Constitutional talks in London. The country would then be known simply as Zimbabwe, the Bishop told a rally in the south-eastern town of Fort Victoria. The announcement means that for the first time since 1890, all reference to Cecil Rhodes, the British colonial settler, will be eradicated from the territory’s name. A government spokesman said a legislative committee headed by the Justice Minister (Mr Chris Andersen) would attempt to prepare a bill changing the country’s name, probably next week. Zimbabwe has long been the African nationalist name for the territory, taken from the ancient Zimbabwe ruins — regarded as a symbol of the country’s African past before the arrival of white settlers who sent a pioneer column to Salisbury in 1890. Bishop Muzorewa’s opponents are likely to see the deletion of the word Rhodesia as merely a cosmetic move.