Word: rhodesia
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Sometime this week, a new multiracial government headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa will take office in Rhodesia. Since the bishop was the victor in seemingly free elections in which at least 60% of the country's blacks went to the polls, Washington and London face the agonizing dilemma of whether or not to recognize the new regime and lift economic sanctions against Rhodesia. After three days of talks in London between U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the new British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, the two governments last week reached a practical conclusion: for the moment, do nothing...
...develop "the closest possible contacts with Bishop Muzorewa and his colleagues." This fact-finding mission will probably last until after the opening of the Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in early August, thereby relieving the Thatcher government of the need to take any kind of action on Rhodesia in the meantime. After declaring ambiguously that the U.S. and Britain must recognize that there is "a new reality" in Rhodesia, Secretary Vance heartily endorsed the British plan to send an envoy to Salisbury. Conceivably that plan may give the Carter Administration, as well as the Thatcher government, a little extra time...
...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 has been accused of playing favorites by appointing too many of his fellow Shona tribesmen to office; since Gumede is a Matabele, the second largest ethnic grouping in the country after the Shonas, his nomination as chief...
...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...
...Similarly, President Carter is being urged by some oi his advisers to welcome the Rhodesian elections as a step in the right direction. After that, these advisers believe, the Administration should wait three or four months before taking any action to see how things go in the new Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, both in terms of the war and majority rule...