Word: muzorewas
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...that had been borrowed for the occasion, Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and three moderate black leaders last week signed a document that was billed as the first formal step toward black majority rule for their country. Three months after he first sat down to negotiate with Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau, Smith had apparently achieved the "internal" settlement he had been seeking...
...constitution for an independent Zimbabwe, the African name for Rhodesia, and hold elections before the end of the year. Toughest of all, it is supposed to arrange a cease-fire with the Patriotic Front, the guerrilla organization that has waged war against the Smith regime for five years. Muzorewa and Sithole argue that most of the guerrillas would back the settlement, but that is not the message that the guerrillas themselves are sending. Since the Salisbury talks began in December, Patriotic Front Leaders Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo have intensified the fighting. Indeed, the day after the agreement was signed...
...three black leaders-Bishop Abel Muzorewa, 52; the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, 57; and Senator Jeremiah Chirau, 54-are generally conceded to command a broad following among Rhodesia's blacks. Muzorewa, an American-educated Methodist minister and leader of the United African National Council, was welcomed back by a crowd of 200,000 in Salisbury last year, when he decided to return from his self-imposed exile to help work out a settlement. Sithole (who was traveling and thus was represented at last week's talks by a colleague, Elliot Gabella) does not enjoy Muzorewa's popularity...
There may have been political motives for the raids as well. Perhaps Smith flexed his muscles to try to force concessions from Muzorewa and Sithole at the conference table. He may also have been attempting to convince black moderates inside Rhodesia that his armed forces would be able to defend a transition government from attacks by radicals outside the country. Another possibility is that the Mozambique raids were aimed at widening a rift between Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, who as head of ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) is co-leader of the so-called Patriotic Front. By devastating...
Smith offered no explanation of the timing of the raids. If their purpose was to bolster the bargaining position of Rhodesia's whites, the Prime Minister possibly miscalculated. Muzorewa, the popular moderate, was forced to rally to the defense of Mugabe, the hardliner. Said the bishop: "Rhodesian whites, and I include the Prime Minister, simply don't realize the depth of feeling aroused among the Africans by the two attacks." Fearing that any association with Smith would discredit them among Rhodesia's blacks, Muzorewa and Sithole might want to reconsider any transfer of power to which...