The sacking of Mr Hove
Judith Acton
Byron Hove comes from a large and iesPected family in the Belingwe district of Rhodesia. He was the first African President of the Student Union at Rhodesia's University and, like many other young and promising Africans was later detained by the Smith regime without charge or trial and held in Gonakudzingwa ('where the banished ones sleep') where he taught, amongst others, some of today's top soldiers of the Patriotic Front. Released from detention he went into exile in London, became a barrister and worked for a time With the Organisation of African Unity.
On 11 April Rhodesia's new four-man (Smith, Muzorewa, Sithole, Chirau) Executive Council announced that the new black Minister of Justice, Law and Order (who would work jointly with a white counterpart, Mr Hilary Squires) was to be Mr Byron Hove. On 14 April Mr Hove was sworn in. On 28 April Mr Hove was sacked. To understand the rise and fall of Mr Hove it is necessary to understand the implications of the Salisbury agreement (also known as the internal settlement) Signed by Mr Smith and his three fellow African politicians last March. It is not a profound document but it is written in such a way that it can, as.it has, give hope to some blacks, give assurance to some whites and gain the support of one country South Africa and a number of prominent individuals such as ex-President Ford, Lord Home, Senator Barry Goldwater and Lord Goodman. Like its predecessor, the Home-Smith settlement proposals engineered by Lord Goodman in 1971, it is, alas, proving to be nothing more than a cunning design to perpetuate the power of Mr Smith's Rhodesian Front after 31 December 1978 when Mr Smith's Rhodesia iS intended to become Mr Smith's Zimbabwe.
Positive aspects of the agreement have been reported. Some of the negative aspects are that the state of emergency and strict censorship continues. The conduct of the war remains in white hands. The new constitution now being devised will be put to the whites for approval, but not to the blacks. The present day judges who legal ised Smith's UDI and sentenced scores of his opponents to death remain in office. The Present distribution of property and land is Protected. In other words the machinery used to maintain white power will continue running although some of its operators may now be black.
It seems as though Mr Hove was not aware of the cynicism of the document When he accepted office. On 16 April he announced that he wanted harassment of people by police to end. He attacked the indemnity law which protects the security forces from legal action by civilians they have injured and said he would waive it wherever necessary. 'I have personally experienced this harassment and police brutality. I know how painful it feels when it happens to someone.' The structure of the police force and the Civil Service needed urgent and complete overhaul, he said; in respect of promotion and salary black members were at a great disadvantage. 'No sensible person can expect a black man to tolerate this.'
All quite rational and reasonable, one would think, if, on 31 December, Rhodesia was really intended to become a democratic, non-racial state. Three days later, on 19 April, behind closed doors at Chisipite High School in Salisbury Mr P. K. van der Byl, the white Minister of Foreign Affairs, told his audience of invited whites that they need have no fears for the future. A major benefit of the internal settlement was, he said, that whereas in the past the whites had been alone 'we now have the advantage of authentic black nationalists defending our political position ... what we have achieved is a masterpiece as a politico-diplomatic exercise. No one could ever have believed that we could get internal leaders to agree to so much.' But, he admitted, there was a fly in the ointment. 'Of course there is Hove, that malefactory influence. He has been taken to task powerfully by the Executive Council and told to change his ways ... or ...'
The same day Hove's colleague Hilary Squires publicly attacked him. 'There is, it is
true, a movement towards a new political' order in this country in response to the., circumstances presently dominant in the world in which we live. But the outline for the blueprint for that new order is the agreement signed in Salisbury on 3 March this year. That agreement ... provides quite explicitly that there will be no political' interference with the disciplined forces of the State ... I wish to make it as unmistakably plain as possible that any new government structure will be implemented in, terms of that agreement or not at all ... any, talk of restructuring the police or fun-. damentally altering its present make-up by means of political .directives .., is such a gross departure from what was accepted. that it should be countenanced from what was accepted that it should not be counte-, nanced for a moment. Indeed such state-. ments should be positively dismissed for. what they are, at best a complete mis-s understanding of what the agreement set. out to achieve, at worst an irresponsible. attempt to query its terms. Such attempts; on the contrary, merely sharpen the resolve, if it needed any sharpening to see that such departures cannot happen.'
In the only independent survey there has ever been of Rhodesian attitudes Lord Pearce's team, in remarkably difficult circumstances, found in 1972 that Africans 'thought that as soon as Independence was recognised and sanctions revoked, a government which had torn up previous constitutions could do so again, and even if the government kept faith, the white electorate would turn them out and replace them by representatives and parties not committed to the present terms.' Indeed. That is still eminently possible under the Salisbury agreement which, like all Smith schemes, no black is allowed democratically to oppose. Talking about the release of detainees Mr Squires said on 21 April: 'If they do not constitute a threat to public safety any longer they will be released. The guiding factor so far has been that they support the internal settlement. People who are obviously inimical to that will just stay where they are.'
Reports from journalists, missionaries and African sources indicate widespread. black opposition to the internal settlement throughout the rural areas where an estimated 84.2 per cent of the black population live. Byron Hove, during his brief tenure of office was not able to visit his home in Belingwe for fear of reprisals. And first reports on those urban blacks who are pre pated to give the whites the umpteenth chance to show that they have at last come to terms with the fact that they live in a black country indicate that they are mis erable about Mr Hove's dismissal. It remains to be seen whether his sacking will have as profound an effect upon those who support the internal setttlement as did the sacking of Elliot Richardson and Archibald Cox on those who, before the 'Saturday Night Massacre', supported President Nixon.
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