Word: rhodesian
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...India-born entrepreneur got his start. Emigrating from London to Salisbury in 1948, Rowland used a small fortune acquired from a local Mercedes-Benz dealership to buy up 30% of Lonrho in 1961; at that time it was a sleepy ranching and mining company known as London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Co. Ltd. He then embarked on a strategy of befriending black nationalist leaders on the way to furthering his business interests. It paid off: Lonrho's holdings now include an estimated 1 million acres of Rhodesian land and substantial concessions, sugar and tea plantations in Malawi, textile...
Ever since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Rhodesia in 1965, Lonrho's Rhodesian subsidiaries have operated -theoretically, at least-at arm's length from the parent firm. Rowland, who for years has known virtually all of the country's political leaders, black and white, seems to be obsessed with finding a workable solution to the political dilemma. Says one of his London business colleagues: "There is a messianic streak in Tiny's makeup that he, and he alone, can solve the Rhodesian problem...
...talks of 1976. Last September, Rowland flew Ian Smith in a Lonrho Learjet to a clandestine meeting with Zambia's Kaunda, one of the five front-line black leaders supporting the Patriotic Front. In February, Smith asked Rowland to arrange another meeting between Kaunda and a senior white Rhodesian Cabinet minister. Smith's goal: to get Kaunda's help in bringing Nkomo into the interim Executive Council that now rules Rhodesia. Since Rowland and Kaunda both objected to certain aspects of Smith's proposal, the initiative failed...
Meanwhile, Lonrho's Rhodesian subsidiaries were supplying easy credit to followers of the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, one of three moderate black leaders on the Executive Council. Sithole loyalists, once known to be virtually penniless, have bought expensive houses and farms, and ride around in Land Rovers and Mercedes automobiles that younger Africans describe sardonically as "Lonrhomobiles." Asked one black student leader at the University of Rhodesia: "What the hell is Rowland trying to do, swap Ian Smith for this crowd of bought blacks...
...Kaunda, whose country's ailing economy might collapse if Rowland abandoned his interests there, made it clear that he would not touch Lonrho. But even with the support of his friends, it looked as if Tiny Rowland's days as a behind-the-scenes matchmaker in Rhodesian politics might be coming...