Word: rowland
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Last week Tiny Rowland came a cropper at one of his favorite vocations:meddling in the politics of black majority rule in Rhodesia. Not only does Lonrho have vast investments in the breakaway British colony but Rowland has friends-favored ones-both among the leaders involved in Smith's "internal settlement" and among the Patriotic Front leaders who are fighting them. The industrialist's immediate problem, however, lay in nearby Tanzania, where the socialist government of President Julius Nyerere announced plans to nationalize Lonrho's 18 local affiliates...
Ostensibly, the reason for the takeover was that Lonrho had been evading the United Nations' economic sanctions against Rhodesia (which black African leaders refer to as Zimbabwe). In fact, the move was an irritated response by Nyerere, a prominent backer of the Patriotic Front, to Rowland's ambiguous dealings with both sides in the delicate Rhodesian situation...
Rhodesia has a special meaning for Rowland: it is where the 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...
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...
...some time Rowland has been funneling money to Joshua Nkomo, co-leader of the guerrilla armies of the Patriotic Front.* Among other things, he footed a $65,000 hotel bill for Nkomo and his entourage at the unsuccessful Geneva peace 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...