Rhodesia: Christmas Postponed

“There will be no African rule in my lifetime,” said Rhodesia’s Prime Minister Ian Smith. “The white man is the master of Rhodesia, has built it and in tends to keep it.” In the huge African colony staked out by Cecil Rhodes, many white men agree with Smith —and with Rhodes’s 19th century goal of “a whole plan of British advance in South and Central Africa.” But times have changed — and so has Britain.

Backed by all the 19 Commonwealth governments, Whitehall has repeatedly refused to grant the self-governing col ony full independence until its 224,000 whites agree to a “peaceful transition to majority African rule” by its 3,700,000 blacks.

Unwilling even to consider such heresy, White Supremacist Ian Smith has been marching rowdily toward the point of no return: unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), the likes of which Britain has not faced since 1776. As Rhodesians prepared for the showdown, they got a crackdown instead. Tipped off by Smith’s brusque refusal to discuss the situation in London last week, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson sent his Rhodesian colleague a memorandum warning direly that UDI would be “treasonable,” an “open act of defiance and rebellion” that would bring swift reprisal by Britain.

Dogs & Hyenas. Actually, as onetime Finance Minister Smith knows well, Rhodesia’s whites have precious little to gain from any form of independence.

As a sovereign nation, Rhodesia might lose some $5,500,000 a year that Britain contributes toward balancing its budget. As a maverick state outside the Commonwealth, it would have to find new markets for more than half of its yearly exports, and would forfeit highly preferential Commonwealth tariff rates.

But reason alone is no match for emotionalism, and last month Smith announced that the date for his supremacist independence had finally been set for December. Salisbury cafe wags warbled merrily: ‘Tan’s Dreaming of a White Christmas.” But Ian was not just dreaming.

Ignoring repeated warnings from London, Smith last month called a special referendum of the colony’s 90,000 white and 10,000 African voters, to be held this week. Even more ominously, he arranged to “take the opinion” of the other 3,690,000 blacks by calling an indaba, a powwow of their 622 tribal chiefs and headmen—most of them grizzled old men whose primary loyalties are to their government paychecks.

For five solemn days the chiefs listened to official promises of increased pay, paid tribute to their importance, cursed Rhodesia’s suppressed black nationalist parties as “wild dogs and hyenas,” and occasionally inquired why the Queen hadn’t come down from London. At the end of it all they learned that they had just voted 622 to 0 “to cut the strings that tie us to Britain.” No Tea Party. That was enough for Harold Wilson. In a final ultimatum to Smith that was also released to the press to make sure that Rhodesians got the message, he warned: “The decision to grant independence rests entirely with the British government and Parliament and they have a solemn duty to be satisfied that before granting independence, it would be acceptable to the people of the country as a whole.” If Rhodesia proclaimed independence, Wilson pointed out, it would be excluded from the Commonwealth, and its people would be stripped of British citizenship.

Apart from the “disastrous” economic effects, he concluded, Rhodesia would be left “isolated and virtually friendless in a largely hostile continent.” It was, noted British papers, the sternest message of its kind since the Boston Tea Party, and for the time being at least, it was certainly more effective. Amid a flurry of warnings from politicians and business leaders, Smith backed down. He promised the Parliament in Salisbury that he would not declare sudden independence, and personally sponsored a motion declaring this week’s referendum would be purely academic. “The British government’s moves have upset everything,” he said plaintively on TV. Well, not quite everything. The white man is still master of Rhodesia.