Rhodesia: The White Rebels

Whereas in the course of human affairs, history has shown that it may become necessary for a people to resolve the political affiliations which have connected them with another people and to assume amongst other nations the separate and equal status to which they are entitled . . . —Rhodesian Proclamation of Independence, Nov. 11, 1965

Thus, in a pallid parody of the American Declaration of Independence, the white-supremacist regime of Rhodesia’s Ian Smith finally made good its threats of two years, broke its ties with Commonwealth and Crown, and assumed its “sovereign independence.”

Throughout the morning, the government radio network had been alerting the nation for a major announcement. Loudspeakers had been set up in offices, stores and restaurants, even around the bronze flagstaff of Salisbury’s Cecil Square; and at 1:15 on the afternoon of Armistice Day, when Smith came on the air, all of Rhodesia was listening. “In the lives of most nations, there comes a moment when a stand has to be made for principles,” said Smith, sniffling with a cold in the head. “We Rhodesians have rejected the philosophy of appeasement. I believe that we are a courageous people and history has cast us in a heroic role.”

Crimes Against Freedom. It was hardly that, for Rhodesia last week became the first nation in history to launch itself into a world all but unanimous in its hostility. Instead of the customary cheers at the birth of a new nation, the U.N. General Assembly voted 102 to 2 to condemn it. Amid cries from African nations for military intervention, the Security Council called for a diplomatic boycott against “this illegal racist minority regime.” In London, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson went before a tense House of Commons to brand the declaration as “unwarranted and unnecessary rebellion” and lay down sanctions against the Smith regime. “Heaven knows what crimes will be committed against the concept of the rule of law and of human freedom,” said Wilson gravely.

Wilson had tried everything short of surrender to head the Rhodesians off. He had invited Smith to London, gone himself to Salisbury, and kept up a steady barrage of proposals and notes in an effort to find some common ground. But always Smith had refused even to consider the one basic condition under which Britain would gladly have granted the independence he demanded: a guarantee of eventual African rule. He could hardly have done so, since his government is dedicated to one simple principle: the indefinite preservation of white rule.

Still, the British Prime Minister kept on. Fortnight ago, when Smith suddenly accused him of “finally closing the door,” he tried to open it again by suggesting that Smith meet him for the third time in five weeks, this time at a “halfway station” such as Malta. Smith, under such heavy strain that he often spoke in broken, half-finished sentences, refused, then called in his own Cabinet to await Wilson’s final reply.

Out the Windows. For ten hours, on a sweltering summer day, his Ministers sat in their shirtsleeves and waited, talking, doodling, wandering about, leaning out of the windows of their second-story meeting room in Salisbury’s Milton Building. To a man, they felt that Wilson had never intended to compromise, and had only been leading them on. His message was finally delivered by British High Commissioner John Baines Johnston, who spent 50 minutes alone with Smith and left grim-faced.

Shortly before midnight, Johnston telephoned Wilson to report that Smith had just taken the last step before independence: he had forced British Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs to sign over his powers to the Cabinet in case he could “no longer function.” Wilson decided that the only hope left was to phone Smith directly. He booked the call for 5 a.m., argued with the Rhodesian Prime Minister for 16 minutes, at one point politely told him he was being influenced by “thugs.” It was all to no avail. “I was speaking to a confused and unhappy man,” Wilson told the House of Commons. “He has been under intolerable pressures from some of his unreasoning extremists of the Rhodesian Front. I told him I thought they wanted their heads examined, or they must have a death wish on them.”

Punitive Purpose. Wilson quickly made it clear that Britain intended to grant their death wish, but as painlessly for the rest of Rhodesia as possible. Noting scornfully that their declaration had “borrowed, for the purpose of small and frightened men, words of one of the historic documents of human freedom,” he charged Smith and his cronies with treason, a crime that is punishable by death. He broke off all relations with the regime, kicked it out of the Commonwealth, and appealed to police, civil servants and soldiers to disobey their “illegal government.”

More to the point, Wilson asked for an embargo on Rhodesia’s vital tobacco exports and laid down economic sanctions designed to cut off most of its trade. But he rejected military intervention, unless a “legal government” asked for troops to restore order. “Our purpose is not punitive,” Wilson said. “Our purpose is to restore a free government acting in the interests of the people of Rhodesia as a whole.”

What Wilson had set out to do was to put just enough pressure on Rhodesia to topple the Smith regime but not enough to plunge the land into anarchy. It would not be an easy task. There was, for one thing, considerable doubt that Wilson’s sanctions—or the parallel trade ban imposed by the U.S.—were strong enough to make Rhodesia feel more than a mild pinch, especially since prosperous South Africa would help Rhodesia make up any trade losses. But there was good reason for Wilson’s stand. The blood ties between Britain and the white settlers of Rhodesia would make sterner measures highly unpopular.* And, as Wilson well knows, any recession in Rhodesia would hit the Africans harder than the whites. Smith has already threatened to deport 200,000workers back to Malawai, a measure that would cripple Rhodesia’s poverty-stricken neighbor, which depends heavily on their wages.

Usual TV. For a country that had just performed an act of rebellion, Rhodesia was remarkably calm. One big Salisbury liquor store sold out of champagne two hours after the proclamation, but the customary nighttime silence of Salisbury’s downtown streets was broken only by occasional drunken cries (“Rhodesia, Rhodesia”) and a few blasts of car horns. Most white Rhodesians performed their usual tasks, went home to their usual dinners and sat down to watch their usual TV programs. In the teeming African townships of Highfield and Harare, police doubled their nightly patrols, but all was quiet. The African beer halls, normally raucous with life, were gloomy and deserted.

The rebel government seemed happy enough. Before their first independence Cabinet meeting, Smith and his ministers met on the steps of the Milton Building, slapped each other merrily on the back, traded jokes and snapped pictures of each other. When someone handed Smith half a bottle of South African champagne, he accepted it gratefully. “Now we are launched,” he said.

Indeed they were. Smith quickly dismissed Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs as the Queen’s representative, took over the role himself. His government slapped a whole new series of controls on the newly free nation. Imports, exports and foreign travel were rigidly restricted. No foreign exchange could be bought or sold. The government empowered itself to call all white males of 55 or under into the territorial reserve.

Muzzling the Press. On local newspapers, the regime imposed strict censorship and gave itself the power to take over any newspaper it chose “in the interest of public safety.” Censors prevented the Rhodesia Herald, which opposed U.D.I., from putting out an independence extra; and when the paper finally appeared the next day, its pages were studded with gaping white blank spaces—one of them 20 in. long—where the censors’ scissors had been at work.

Since the country appeared completely calm, censorship seemed hardly necessary, but Smith did not stop there. To protect Rhodesia against an imagined invasion, convoys of troops were ordered to dig in along the Zambesi River border with Zambia, causing President Kenneth Kaunda nervously to declare a state of emergency and order his own small army to dig in on the other side “as a protective measure.” Although the chances of a clash seemed slight, it was just the sort of ugly situation that through some unexpected fluke might lead to violence—and a need for British troops.

Wilson’s carefully hedged assurance that there is no intention to use force against Rhodesia is well founded in hard military facts. Many military experts believe Britain would have to airlift in at least three full brigades to subdue Rhodesia’s small (12,000 regulars, 46,000 reserves) but well-trained army and police. But the loyalties of Rhodesia’s armed forces are in doubt. A good percentage of Rhodesian enlisted men were recruited in Britain, and more than half of the nation’s officers rose through the ranks of the British army. Whether they would obey orders actually to open fire against the Queen’s men was a question that Smith, for one, hoped would never have to be answered. But an answer of sorts did come last week: three new recruits from Britain deserted Smith’s national police, crossed into Mozambique, and were shipped back home as political exiles.

* As evidenced by the refusal of officials of Britain’s Miss World contest last week to disqualify Lesley Bunting, Miss Rhodesia.