Word: nkomo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Still, the chances that political change could come in Rhodesia without bloodshed grew more remote. After three months of testy negotiations, Smith and Joshua Nkomo, leader of the divided African National Council, ended their efforts to draw up a timetable for a shift to majority rule. Nkomo demanded black rule in a year or two; Smith proposed a complex plan that would effectively postpone black rule for ten to 15 years, if not indefinitely. Said Nkomo angrily: "Smith has opted for war." Smith's defiant reply: "I do not believe in black majority rule in Rhodesia...
...most Smith has offered in talks currently under way between his government and the moderate African nationalist Joshua Nkomo is political parity at some definite future date through equal representation in Parliament, which now contains 50 whites and 16 blacks. The fear is that if the talks fail, Nkomo, in the words of one observer, will become "irrelevant." Then the militant black nationalists, who broke away from Nkomo's group last August, would almost certainly launch an all-out guerrilla invasion by the self-styled Zimbabwe Liberation Army. That army now has an estimated 10,000 guerrillas in Mozambique...
...next move will be to try to hold a conference of black leaders inside Rhodesia, thereby excluding such militants as the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, James Chikerema and other A.N.C. representatives who cannot enter the country without being arrested. Smith may also try to reach an agreement with Joshua Nkomo, who is known as the most moderate A.N.C. faction leader and the one with the widest political support within Rhodesia. If Smith could work out even a token power-sharing scheme with Nkomo, he just might be able to split the A.N.C. and ease the pressure from Vorster and Kaunda...