Towards October
By ERSKINE B. CHILDERS
NORTHERN RHODESIA is racing towards crisis, with only weeks to go—and only Mr. Macleod can halt the race. The Colonial Secre- tary repeated recently that there would be no constitutional talks on the territory until after the Monckton Report and the Federal Review Con- ference. He may well believe that the situation can 'hold' this long : possibly this is the calm, self-assured advice reaching him from the Pro- tectorate Government at Lusaka. But to move among Northern Rhodesia's 2,300,000 Africans, talk with their leaders, sound out those Europeans most closely in touch, is to obtain a depressingly different picture. The Africans will not 'hold'— not beyond October.
This one word, 'October,' is on the lips of every articulate African, whether on the Copper- belt or in Lusaka. It is a deadline as worrying to their key leader, Kenneth Kaunda, as it ought to be to Mr. Macleod: Returning from his tour of America and Britain some months ago, Kaunda deliberately cut back the then ppen pledge of 'independence by October' to 'talks by October'—and persuaded his followers to accept this. Such was and is their mood of impatience, and their suspicion of Sir Roy Welensky's aims, cod :nee lent d--- y of and ea& Lich csia• har p to
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lea!' the itten j0115 Car; de' aced rbal that they would certainly have accepted not l less. Kaunda wanted to prove to Mr. Mac that he and his United National lndepend Party (UNIP) could command the non-vic discipline of. Africans; and he has succeed( but only towards 'October.' The whole polic non-violence, in which Kaunda genuinely deeply believes, is now committed to .that d line for talks. He, and all who are really in tc with the African mood in Northern Rhod are desperately worried about what may I pen if by then he still has nothing to hold u his people as the fruits of non-violence.
They know they are British Protected Subj like Nyasalanders: yet they have seen Macleod grant constitutional talks for Nyasa before the Monckton Report and before Federal Review. Aware that Norther- Rhod with its wealth and far larger (70,000i (it'l)!
minority, is vital to the very existence of Federation- -where Nyasaland might be `wr off'—Kaunda's Africans naturally are suspic of Mr. Macleod's refusal to allow talks this y they fear that they may be sacrificed to the mands of Welensky and the white-domin Federation of the Rhodegias. No mere vc assurances from Suspicion now.
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the cor Go tea, Co, Bin Pei `1J1 see her to Tr( In Juc hai ind las the Sir ev( det at( loi the to mically, UNIP is banned on the Copperbelt that, although Africans there are as = and expectant as elsewhere, Kaunda can- reach them directly with his theme of non- ice. Even in the other Provinces' the police e it hard for him to put over his message: f month of recent travelling through the them Provinces, he was allowed to address ' three meetings—to which thousands of rural cans came from distant places—in one place 00 of them, many waiting for him for seven ;, fed by local missionaries. On tour, as in Aka itself, he and his UNIP colleagues have 1Ppeal for non-violence to massed Africans ' .see him perforce accepting humiliating tray-police orders—`no meeting until all chil- 1 have been removed . . . you can't speak n the top of that van, our recording micro- ne won't reach that high,' and so on. In July, e were only the occasional—but significant- ats from the crowds that Kaunda was 'too By a fruitless October, it will be very event indeed. • Given these public humiliations, the popular fd, unemployment, and the almost daily lulus of African advance in neighbouring nodes, the wonder is that Kaunda's policy has I the day even this far. He is immensely filar and deeply respected for his ascetic be- lour : Harry Nkumbula of the older African tonal Congress is now far behind the tall, dsome, blazing-eyed Kaunda who toured is and learned further non-violent precepts 11 Martin Luther King's friends in Ghana. But fig to organise UNIP with Indian Congress erience in mind, Kaunda cannot get the best- cated, most responsible Africans because these often teachers, or in other jobs they will lose hey show their loyalties. The result : Govern- II in Lusaka has some eighty minor officials UNIP on violence charges—young and bitter Iemployed clerks who Kaunda knows are not best men to help run the party. The ironic Itrast with Nyasaland is significant. There, vernment has publicly announced that African ehers may join and help run Banda's Malawi egress; the obvious lesson has been digested. L in Northern Rhodesia, Government merely fits to the eighty charges as evidence that \IIP can't be trusted.'
The final irony in this impending crisis may be n in Kaunda's specific proposals for the °eta- ' talks he seeks from Mr. Macleod. In order reassure the European minority, he wants a insition Constitution—an African legislative lority, but with all key Ministries (Chief, 't'ee, Finance, Defence) left in non-African ids. In the Africa of 1960, this is moderation deed : in Northern Rhodesia, it is proby the African proposal of its kind, and iclunda last leader likely to make it. But among the Europeans, only liberals like John Moffat and the Central Africa Party are !fl aware of it. The rest, entrenched in grim emulation 'not to do what the Belgians did,' ' simply buying up every gun in the shops and 'ling new white home guard units. You find II You have to explain, even to politically active ropeans. what Kaunda's proposals are—and Whitehall will counter this even then, there is a kind of glazed indifference, as with eyes righting over rifles from a stockade. The metaphor is quite apt: but this fearful European armament inevitably increases African suspicion about Mr. Macleod's refusal to hold talks until after the Federal Review. If October comes (it may even be sooner) and Kaunda has nothing to show his people, their impatience and this European armament are virtually certain to ignite grave trouble. One isolated shot could be sufficient.
Just before I left Lusaka, I asked Kaunda what he felt he must have from Mr., Macleod to hold things in order. He said that if he could even tell his people that talks would take place, in October, on 'the principles that should govern the full talks,' there was, a good chance. He also needs official sanction to organise UNIP properly and get the ideas of non-violence across throughout the territory.
For Mr. Macleod, this involves not merely the gamble of 'unleashing' Kaunda and UNIP, but the tricky problem of placating Sir Roy Welensky, who knows that Kaunda and UNIP demand secession from the present Federation. But one cannot see what the sane alternative is. Sooner or later Mr. Macleod—and the European minority—will need a strong, highly disciplined African movement in Northern Rhodesia, like Banda's Malawi, to negotiate with. Looking be- yond October, and into African impatience, it seems folly to hope that better leadership and as moderate a movement will somehow be available `later' if Kaunda is overwhelmed. Mr. Macleod has only a matter of weeks—possibly days—to decide.
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