Word: muzorewas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zimbabwe Rhodesia, officially came into being last week, and 88 years of white rule ended. At midnight on May 31, power passed quietly and without fanfare from outgoing Prime Minister Ian Smith, who had guided Rhodesia's white minority regime for more than 15 years, to Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who will lead a black majority government in which whites have retained substantial powers...
There was little celebration, though, even among blacks. In his first official act, Muzorewa swore in his 16-member Cabinet, composed of eleven black and five white ministers, and offered the "hand of fellowship" to the guerrillas of the Patriotic Front, led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, asking them to lay down their arms under a government amnesty. It was an invitation not likely to be accepted...
Since the election, Muzorewa has been involved in some bitter internecine quarreling with his black colleagues. Last week, however, the bishop made a shrewd appeal for national unity: he let it be known that he had selected Josiah Gumede as the country's first black President and ceremonial head of state. Gumede, a civil servant in London during the days of the Central African Federation (1953-63), resigned from his government post after Prime Minister Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence for Rhodesia in 1965; a grateful British government promptly awarded Gumede an M.B.E. Bishop Muzorewa...
...Leader Robert Mugabe, meanwhile, spent most of the week with his soldiers in the Mozambican bush. Mugabe's colleagues in the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) have nothing but contempt for Muzorewa, whom they regard as inept, indecisive and thin-skinned. Scorning him as "Queen Abel," a mere figurehead, they believe he will be unable either to end the war or gain real power from the country's 212,000 whites, who retain a strong behind-scenes voice in the government and have had outright control over the army, police, civil service and judiciary for ten years. Says...
Some Patriotic Front leaders profess to be concerned that Western recognition of the Muzorewa regime could lead to a sharp increase in the fighting, with South African troops coming to the aid of the security forces and the guerrillas calling for increased Eastern bloc support. There are reports in Mozambique that ZANU has privately assured its backers among the so-called frontline African states that if the lifting of sanctions against Rhodesia can be avoided, ZANU will then be prepared to take part in internationally supervised elections and abide by the results, even if Bishop Muzorewa wins again...