War or peace in Rhodesia?

Robert Blake

The capitulation, for no other word can describe it, of Mr Ian Smith will leave white Rhodesians in a state of shellshock for a long time to come. All accounts from those who have recently been in the country agree that life in Salisbury and Bulawayo is, if not 'normal', at least not more abnormal than it has been for the last two or three years. It is no doubt true that military service has increasingly disrupted business and that shortages of many goods have become more and more noticeable. But Rhodesia has not outwardly seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and many white Rhodesians must have believed that the 'illegal regime' had plenty of life left in it yet. These appearances were delusory. Nothing but imminent economic and military disaster, along with the knowledge that no one would come to the rescue, not even the South African government (which was in fact covertly working in the opposite sense), would have persuaded Mr Smith to surrender.

It is still not absolutely certain that he has surrendered. The proviso about the cessation of guerrilla warfare, guaranteed by Dr Kissinger, but in reality unguaranteeable, could be used as an excuse to go back on the bargain if warfare continues. But Mr Smith's dignified, moving and seemingly irrevocable statement has made it almost impossible for him to reverse, and his personal prestige in white Rhodesia is so great that most people will accept his word that the end has really come. If there is a last moment white backlash, it would probably be led, not by Smith, but by the Foreign Minister, Mr P. K. Van der Byl, the hardliner who held the post of Minister of Defence until he was shunted recentlyperhaps significantly—into a less important position. Any such action would, of course, be mad, but one cannot entirely exclude the possibility, given the isolated and introverted world in which white Rhodesians live.

When Mr Smith declared independence on 11 November, 1965 he was taking an immense gamble. The possibility of such action had been considered more than once in the past during the stormy history of the Central African Federation and its immediate aftermath. Sir Roy Welensky toyed with the idea. Winston Field, Ian Smith's immediate predecessor, considered it, but decided for indefinite postponement. He was deposed as a result, and Smith entered office in 1964 with a categorical assignment to secure independence, legally if possible, illegally if necessary. Reams have been writ ten about UDI, but its motives remain a puzzle----on the rational level. I have been engaged on a history of Rhodesia and have been there often during the last eight years. 1 have asked many people both supporters, neutrals and opponents why the decision was taken. I have never received a convincing answer.

Logically it was quite unnecessary. The 'Whitehead Constitution' of 1961 gave the Europears the power to postpone majority rule for a very long time. Not perhaps for ever, but well beyond 1978. Admittedly the limited franchise given to the Africans could not legally be revoked without the agreement of the British Government, but there was no need to revoke it as far as the whites were concerned ; the speed at which Africans met the income and educational qualifications which might in the end make them a majority of the electorate depended upon the policy of a white-dominated government. Of course it would have been far better if that constitution had been regarded as Sir Edgar Whitehead meant it to be—a means of introducing, with goodwill all round, a multi-racial democracy. But the point is that, even if the Europeans were determined to preserve their position as a ruling caste, they could easily have maintained it for the foreseeable future' without tearing up the Whitehead Constitution.

Nations, like individuals, do not always conduct their affairs in the light of rational self-interest, let alone liberal altruism. Nations too, can have a rush of blood to the head a sort of collective insanity which defies reason and calculation. I asked several members of the Rhodesian Front cabinet why they supported UDI. With one accord they expatiated on their anxiety and doubts before taking the plunge, but they said they had reason to believe that the Labour Cabinet of 1964 intended to bring in majority rule as soon as possible. This was nonsense. From 1923 onwards there had been a usage (sufficiently well established as to be called 'The Convention'), that the British Government would never legislate in Southern Rhodesian internal affairs except at the request of the Southern Rhodesian Government. 'The Convention' had, moreover, been categorically confirmed in 1961 at Sir Edgar Whitehead's request. British ministers might try to persuade, even to hector. They would not have done more; if they had, that would have been the moment for UDI. Of course Labour politicians engaged from time to time in the usual rodomontade about 'one man, one vote'. Intelligent Rhodesians must have known that this meant nothing.

When the UDI was made, Mr Ian Smith said that it would be a 'three days wonder' and Sir Harold Wilson said that capitulation would be a matter of weeks rather than months. Both were wrong. If Smith seriously

believed that a British government of any political complexion could in the middle 1960s shrug its shoulders at the defiance of '4 white minority of 250,000 ruling five million voteless blacks he was living in an utterly unreal world.The late Lord Malvern at the Salisbury Club once described him to me, with the penetrating voice of the very deaf. as 'a farm boy from Selukwe [the Rhodesian equivalent of, say, Cirencester], devious, parochial and suspicious'. One can be moved by the dignity, indeed in a personal sense the tragedy of his defeat without dissenting from that judgment. Ian Smith had a more limited outlook than any of his predecessors. For that very reason he embodied and symbolised the attitude of four-fifths of his compatriots who understand little of the modern world and hate the little that they do.

Sir Harold Wilson's miscalculation probably stemmed from a misunderstanding of the South African attitude. His advisors are said to have been told that the South African Government would treat Rhodesia on the basis of 'business as usual' ; and they interpreted this as meaning that there would be no change in the volume of trade between the countries. If the figures had remained the same, Rhodesia would indeed have found it hard to survive. But what the South African authorities meant was something quite different, viz, that they would not accept sanctions and would not interfere with business which could find its own level. Later South Africa was to go much further and give positive military aid.

South Africa and Portugal have been the twin keys to the success of U DI; the dependence of Zambia on transporting copper exports via Rhodesia has been another. Once the first flurry was over white Rhodesians settled down with remarkable cornplacency to their future, apart from a few distinguished and articulate dissentients such as Garfield Todd, Sir Roy WelenskY. Sir Robert Tredgold. 1 can remember the surprise which was expressed at a postprandial talk which I once gave in Salisbury in 1971 when I said that the greatest weakness in the Rhodesian position was Portugal. Surely, people said in reply, Portugal and the Portuguese colonies are 'sound' allies' My answer was that the Portuguese colonists took orders from Lisbon, and Lisbon might pull out for all sorts of reasons; the whites there did not control their own destinies, .a5 they long had in South Africa and Rhodesia. The politics of a far-off capital, like de Gaulle's Paris in 1958, would determine the fate of its African colonies which were no more geared for a UDI than Kenya Ill 1962-3. 1 cannot, however, pretend that I predicted the date when this would happen' As long as the white Rhodesians thought they could hold their position the various negotiations were doomed to failure. Tiger and Fearless foundered on the determination of the Rhodesia Front to retain its power to reverse African advancement. The H ome/Goodman attempt foundered because

haps the Africans refused to believe—Per

wrongly—that Mr Smith had ever abandoned that determination, and also because under these proposals majority rule seemed a long way off even if he had.

The Portuguese revolution of April 1974 was the decisive event for postU DI Rhodesia. On Rhodesia's east it resulted in a Marxist and fiercely anti-settler regime which cut off one of Rhodesia's life lines, the route to Lourenco Marques, and provided a formidable base for guerrilla operations. On the west the intervention of Russian-backed Cuban forces in Angola caught both South Africa and America on the wrong foot and established another Marxist regime in Luanda. Dr Kissinger suddenly—and for the first time—became interested in African affairs. He rightly decided that to back minority white rule as a bulwark against communism was a recipe for disaster, and that Rhodesia could easily become a second Angola.

Mr Vorster, however, remained the enigma. He alone could put the squeeze on Smith. In the end he did. Hence the capitulation. But why has he done it ?Certainly not from any belated conversion to 'liberalism'. Nor is it likely that he sees eye to eye with Dr Kissinger about minority white rule. He is in business to preserve, at all costs and by however tortuous, elaborate and complicated means, that extraordinary nation, that 'white tribe', the Afrikaners of whom he is the leader and the chief. Presumably his calculation is that a Kenya, rather than an Angola or a Mozambique north of the Limpopo will help his purpose.

It remains to be seen whether this is a correct assessment. We do not at present know enough about the bargain made with Dr Kissinger. There may well be understandings about armaments and trade which have not yet been revealed and which could have been crucial in determining South African policy. There is much else that is unknown. What are the financial terms on Which the white Rhodesians are to be bought out ? It is to the credit of Dr Kissinger—and Possibly of Mr Callaghan too—that the necessity for such a deal has at last been appreciated. In a letter to The Times on 25 March this year Dr Colin Matthew, the editor of the Gladstone Diaries, pointed out that 'Land purchase has been the historic and successful agent of British decolonisation in areas containing substantial minorities hostile to independence'. He went on to say that British negotiations 'have hitherto been based on the assumption that Rhodesian society can remain unchanged under majority rule ... This, of course, is absurd as both sides in Rhodesia know'.

There are other question marks. Will the rival factions among the black Rhodesians come together ?These factions are not mainly tribal, as white Rhodesians like to say, but Personal—the result of a long-standing feud between the large. genial, pleasure-loving Joshua Nkomo and the austere, fanatical clergyman, the Revd Ndabaningi Sithole. There is a third element which seems to be separate from either of them, the Zimbabwe People's Army (Z1PA ), and which refuses to accept the transitional constitution. And what of that constitution ? As outlined at the moment it looks worthy of the Abbe Sieyes at the top of his form. How can the role of Governor be carried out by a 'Council of State' with equal numbers of blacks and whites, and what exactly will its relationship be with a 'Council of Ministers' which has a majority of Africans, but not a two-thirds majority and yet requires a two-thirds majority for any decision ?

It is not a sign of excessive pessimism to see a great deal of trouble ahead, but it would be wrong not to welcome the breakthrough which has at last been achieved. The white Rhodesians could not have survived as a ruling caste indefinitely. Ironically they might have survived rather longer if UDI had never occurred, but the real question has always been not whether white rule would end, but how—peaceful surrender or bloody civil war? There is now at least a chance that civil war and a golden opportunity for Russian intervention have been averted just in time.