Rhodesia at bay
Anthony Lejeune
When I first visited Rhodesia fourteen years ago I described Salisbury as looking like a mixture of Welwyn Garden City and any mid-Western town—with just a touch of exoticism added by the plane trees which line its broad streets and the black-andwhite crows flapping and cawing in their branches.
It has changed hardly at all. But what used to be merely boring is now rather astonishing. For the capital of a beleaguered nation Salisbury appears extraordinarily tranquil and prosperous. There are fewer visible security precautions than in London, because there have been—at least until this week—fewer bomb-scares. Saturday afternoon at the Mashonaland Turf Club might be an English race meeting in the 1930s. Decent whisky is hard to get, but the Rhodesian gin isn't bad. Shortages come and go. One week you can't buy typewriter ribbons, next week you can't get torch batteries. Electric light bulbs are rather scarce. Cigarettes have become disagreeably dry because there is no silver paper in which to wrap them. But the Rhodesians are so used to this kind of problem that they hardly notice it any more: and for many of them the sheer exhilaration of beating the sanctions has more than compensated for the trouble.
Not being able to travel freely abroad is, , no doubt, oppressive. As that almost exaggeratedly English-seeming figure, the Defence Minister, P. K. van der Byl, observed, it's annoying not to be able to visit one's tailor. But, whatever else may be said about Rhodesia's stand during the past ten years, there can be no question that the Government's economic strategy and the efforts of Rhodesian businessmen have been spectacularly successful.
Rhodesia has been compelled to diversify in many directions which would have been desirable anyway—thereby illustrating the general truth that economic sanctions tend to benefit the countries against which they are aimed, just as economic aid tends to harm the countries which receive it.
Only an occasional figure in battledress, and the poignantly nostalgic Forces request programmes on the wireless, remind one that there is a simmering war at what Rhodesians call 'the sharp end' ; that is, in the operational areas. The sporadic, but almost universal, mobilisation (of White Rhodesians; the Blacks, who fight beside them, are all volunteers—far more than the army can train) has developed a new coherence in the community, which is itself an element of strength. An illuminating remark was made to me by a girl of left-wing inclinations at the university. She complained that military service had transformed all the White undergraduates, Who a few years ago would have been conventionally left-wing, into right-wingers; which in turn, she said, created a new polarisation, separating them from the Black students, who probably constitute the most disaffected element in Rhodesia.
In general, I found less serious worry about the future in Rhodesia than in South Africa, presumably because the Rhodesians have grown accustomed to living under siege, whereas the Angolan debacle shook many South Africans very severely. To what extent, then, is Rhodesia's apparent confidence an illusion, liable to be shattered horribly overnight ? One has to peel off layers of nonsense before even the right questions emerge.
If it had not been for the revolution in Portugal, there seems no reason to doubt that Rhodesia could have survived indefinitely. Now there must be doubt. The insurgents may be supplied with increasingly sophisticated weapons, and reinforced from outside by men better able to use such weapons and with more stomach for battle than the present raggle-taggle army of terrorists. If so, Rhodesia's resources of men and materials might simply not be enough.
Visitors from Britain or America have to explain—but are not, I fancy, believed— that there is virtually no chance whatever of the British or American governments accepting any compromise which would allow Rhodesia to survive in a recognisable form. What the politicians in Washington and London, and most of the press, mean by a 'settlement' is a negotiated surrender.
It may be that a negotiated surrender is the best that the White Rhodesians—and, indeed, non-Nationalist Black Rhodesians—can hope for: but they should not deceive themselves, as some do (especially the larger businessmen, who tend always in such situations to be the softest element), into believing that they could negotiate any terms which would be compatible with what they have been fighting and suffering for during the past ten years. If they can buy more time, however, the pattern of political pressures—and this is much more a matter of geopolitics than of political morality— could still change.
It seems to me that only two questions matter. The first is: are the Rhodesians now prepared to negotiate a surrender? The answer is clearly 'At the moment, no.' The second question, which is therefore the vital
question, is: if the going gets really tough in Rhodesia, how will South Africa react ? The official answer, implied by the South African Government and accepted by the Rhodesian Government, is that South Africa will provide all aid short of military help. Facilities, and if necessary equipment, will continue to be available : but there will be rlo South African troops.
Official answers, however, are not alwaYs the final answer. This is a question which can be, and is being, argued in several different ways. One school of thought was epitomised by a woman I saw marching around Cape Town with a placard saYing 'Smith Must Go. Rhodesia Endangers South Africa'. Mr Vorster and many of his colleagues probably do regard Rhodesia as an embarrassment, a stumbling-block to 'their policy of détente with Black Africa. Believers in apartheid argue that Rhodesia brought these troubles on herself by n°I providing the safety-valve of separate development: Having burnt their fingers 111 Angola, the South Africans would certainlY be very reluctant to embark on further expeditions to the north.
On the other hand, the policy of détente may be seen to have been another illusion; If Rhodesia falls, 'the full fury of the eneMY must be turned on South Africa. BelatedlY the South African Government, which is very clumsy in its public relations and propaganda, has realised the need to counter the mass of alarming rumours which, for lack of hard' news, the Angola affair gene* rated. The first example of this propaganda effort was the television film, The Battle for Bridge 14, designed to puncture the mYth of the invincible Cubans. The more success' ful such propaganda is, the less will South Africans be afraid to help Rhodesia. though the atmosphere of Rhodesia is incorrigibly British, whereas the atmosphere surrounding the South African Government is thickly Afrikaans, too much should net be made of this racial split. Some 40 per cent of Rhodesia's White population are Afrikaners; family and personal links between the two countries are very close. If the worst happened and Rhodesia began to collapse in flames, the South African Government would almost certainly be compelled bY pressure of public opinion to organise at least a rescue operation. Meanwhile clear, if unpublicised, advice is said to have come from an interesting source. The Israelis, with whom South Africa seems to be forging a new relation' ship, are experts on political survival desPite the hostility of the outside world, and on military defence against numericalbi superior, but less sophisticated, enemies' Never mind about 'world opinion', they saYi rely on yourselves and do what has to be done—as they did at Entebbe. South Africa, they think, should keep the enemy at bay far to the north as possible—which means supporting Rhodesia—while gaining vale able experience in the techniques of counterinsurgency. If the crisis in southern Africa mounts, this argument may yet prevail.
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