Smith's fraudulent election
Xan Smiley
Salisbury A heady concoction of white Rhodesian lunacy and Anglo-American, cowardice now makes the prospects for a settlement look grimmer than ever, The antics of Rhodesia's television are traditionally so humorous that it was far from amazing that Mr Smith's sudden election announcement took second place to the apparently no less sombre news that a team of sturdy (presumably Anglo-Saxon) Rhodesian yokels had been cruelly barred from competing in the Dutch ploughing championships. But the situation is becoming so bleak that it hardly seems to make much odds whether the ploughmen upstage the politicians or vice versa. Yet, with guts and skill, one of Africa's better if nevertheless thoroughly imperfect societies could still be created in Rhodesia.
Predictably Mr Smith laid his usual charge of perfidy against the British. In particular he accused Dr Owen of backsliding over the crucial question of the guerrillas — what to do with them in the event of a settlement. According to Mr Smith, Dr Owen now says they must not only be integrated into the standing Rhodesian army during the delicate transition period but must be given preferential treatment as well. That accusation by Smith is not supported however, by the obvious satisfaction the Anglo-American diplomatic team expressed in Salisbury after seeing Rhodesia's top security chiefs themselves.
But what does ring true is the alleged discord inside the British cabinet — Causing Dr Owen to stall his plans — thanks, it is aid, to a loss of nerve by cabinet colleagues, including Callaghan. It had become increasingly clear that the guerrilla leaders, nominally answerable to Robert Mugabe, no longer want a settlement to which Smith could ever be party. Thus the time had come for Dr Owen to exclude them rather than accept their conditions which no white Rhodesian government could ever contemplate.
Once excluded the Mugabe guerrilla would assuredly intensify the war and try to intimidate rural blacks (who make up the vast majority) into boycotting any election that would hoist Mugabe's rivals into power — as any election would. It is at that point that the commitment of the British and Americans would have to be spelt out: to give support — moral, logistical, financial and military — to defend a nascent moderate black state of Zimbabwe. But it is sadly to be expected that Callaghan, the man who barely had the nerve to rescind Amin's invitation to Britain, will cringe at the thought of Britain wholeheartedly taking up her
colonial (or de-colonial) responsibilities. He is said to be obsessed with the Ulster parallel — the possibility that British troops who arrive as ring-holders may be sucked into a situation where they are inevitably paraded as oppressors.
That, of course, is a calculated risk the British would have to take if white Rhodesia is ever to concede power with anything approaching dignity. So long as there was a firm British commitment, it is near-certain that once rural Rhodesian blacks saw an African government well and truly in Power, they would deny the support (which they now give) to those guerrillas who continue to fight on for a 'pure' revolution. But as long as Smith retains power the guerrillas will continue to be looked after by the villagers.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Smith's much-publicised suspicion of the British is his real reason for kicking the latest Anglo-American proposals (whatever they' might have been) out of the window or for seeking a new mandate from the whites. Smith has an uncannily accurate sense of what the whites want: and he now fears the flowering of a resurgent right wing. To nip that in the bud is probably his chief reason for calling an election — with British 'deceit' and the consequent collapse of the latest initiative simply as a cover for his own pressing parochial requirements.
The tone he adopted for his election announcement was his toughest and most bloodyminded since Dr Kissinger's visit last September. By using the British as the whipping boy he hoped to convince his doubting white right wing that he is still prepared to dig in his toes while actually — once he had squashed the diehards — he intends to make further concessions to the. Nationalists, unencumbered by threats from the Right. But Smith's sensitivity to white opinion has never been matched by an ability to understand that blacks are no longer interested in the carrots he would now tardily like to offer them a better standard of living or the abolition of racial discrimination, much of which he himself introduced (nor by the way could he resist asserting that 'much discrimination today favours black Rhodesians'). Neither are blacks necessarily interested in democracy— Western style or otherwise. What they want is black rule.
Just as Britain should now take Mugabe's bellicose demands that total power should fall into his lap — a straightforward transfer from Smith to Mugabe and his guerrillas — at face value, similarly, Africans no longer see Smith's dogged pre-conditions for a 'settlement as mere bargaining counters to be
bartered at the conference table. It is beginning to look as if Smith means what he says when he demands a highly qualified franchise, white blocking powers in a black par-, liament, special white representation, and above all the retention of army and police in white ,Rhodesian hands. Bishop Muzorewa may at a pinch shuffle a few inches towards meeting some of those requirements — but only during a transitional period. But no nationalist movement can advocate anything less thati clearcut black power after independence without instantaneously losing massive black support.
Thus no 'internal settlement' can work unless the white-black handover is unequivocal. Smith now appears to recognise that Muzorewa's and Sithole's internally based movements, which are bereft of overt guerrilla backing, need to be sustained, to counter the fighters of Mugabe and Nkomo. But he seems unable to make the logical leap to acknowledge that if Muzorewa and Sithole are strong they will not ask for anything less than the whole cake. An African nationalist confessed to me that he felt sorry for Smith: he is politically, for the time being, spiked.
What little hope remains for a moderate black Rhodesia depends — as ever — on numerous imponderables. One that is becoming more relevant is the weakening domestic authority Of Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda, whose relationship with Nkomo is exceedingly close. If the British and Americans — against the odds — show a new commitment the need to split the Nkomo/Mugabe alliance will become vital. Evidently the Soviet Union, which arms Nkomo's guerrillas, will try to keep the insurgent movement alive, to destabilise Southern Africa. But if Anglo-America revealed an angry determination in assisting a moderate black Zimbabwe, then Kaunda, now under severe economic and political pressure at home, might order Nkomo's fighters, who are mainly Zambian-based, to disband. It is just possible that Nkomo might accept a second place in Zimbabwe if he were fobbed off with a suitably grandiose title — though that may be wishful thinking. The trouble_ is — to quote a leading Muzorewa man — there are about twentyfive black Rhodesians who all need to agree to become humble vice-Presidents.
Despite his Marxist-Leninist fervour and his growing indebtedness to Moscow, Machel of Mozambique also has motives for accepting a peaceful albeit bourgeois black Rhodesia, though his rapport with the guerrillas may be too strong for that. But none of these imponderable factors will be juggled into favouring the moderates unless Smith's whites recognise that the game is up. That will never happen unless the British and Americans commit themselves to a policy that will throw up a moderate black successor. That being unlikely, whether or not the whites reject the white bigots who are opposing Smith at the General Election, Rhodesia is headed for disaster.
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