Word: rhodesians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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With those words Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith last week told his countrymen in a grave 20-minute television address that the Rhodesian "rebellion" was at an end. Nearly eleven years after his government had declared its independence from British rule and its determination to maintain white minority rule in the landlocked territory. Smith and his colleagues capitulated. On behalf of their 275,000 white countrymen, they agreed to a British-American plan to transfer power to Rhodesia's 6 million blacks within the next two years. The Western powers, Smith said calmly, "have made up their...
...event, Smith's decision marked one of the more impressive feats of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had laid the groundwork this summer during two meetings in Europe with South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster. Under the plan, the Rhodesian regime agreed to set up an interim government to pave the way for majority rule. It will include a council of state headed by a white, possibly Smith himself, and a council of ministers to be led by a black "First Minister." In return for accepting the plan, the Rhodesian whites were promised that steps...
...Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William Rogers then explained the proposal for a financial "safety net" under which the U.S., Britain and other Western countries would provide as much as $2 billion in compensation for Rhodesian whites. Civil servants would be assured of their pensions and protected against losses incurred through "Africanization" of their jobs; farmers and businessmen would be promised compensation if a black government were to decide to nationalize their property. If Smith were to refuse this proposal now, Kissinger warned, it would not be offered again...
...British government, as well as many black African states, remained openly skeptical about Kissinger's Rhodesian settlement. After all, Smith on at least two previous occasions had weaseled out on promises to yield to majority rule. This time, however, he obviously knew he had no choice...
After an inconclusive meeting of his Cabinet on the Kissinger proposal, Smith urged his colleagues to "sleep on it, and maybe dream about it." Next day they caved in. Then came a meeting of the Rhodesian Front's 50-member parliamentary caucus, which Smith characterized as "very pleasant, very constructive." Scarcely a week earlier, the party congress had voted resoundingly against majority rule. Now, in the wake of the Sunday-night massacre in Pretoria, as Smith's meeting with Kissinger was becoming known, they were asked to accept it-and they...