Word: smiths
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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RHODESIAN PRIME MINISTER Ian Smith's recent rejection of British proposals to establish black majority rule has all but precluded possibilities for the peaceful settlement of the country's racial power struggle. Smith's rejection of British mediation and last month's collapse of talks between Smith and Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the black African National Council's "internal faction" have brought Rhodesia to the brink of civil war. Moreover, the recent unification of the efforts of the presidents of Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Botswana to form a strategy to end white rule in Rhodesia represents a new solidification...
...Smith's vacillating policies, repudiation of agreements and stubborn reluctance to establish a definite date for enfranchisement of the black majority is consistent with both his present political position in the white community and his past history. As leader of the country's ruling Rhodesian Front party, Smith must obstinately forestall majority rule in order to prevent the dissolution of his political base which is composed of factory owners and large landholders. Faced with increasing pressure from the African majority to set a definite schedule for their enfranchisement, Smith has opposed the growth and solidification of black opposition...
...RENEGADE Prime Minister became prominent in Rhodesian politics through opposing British attempts to promote majority government in the early 1960s. He helped form the Rhodesian Front and led the country's secession from the British empire in 1966. Following independence, Smith sponsored the legislative reversal of the trend toward a majority rule in Rhodesia...
...Smith's most recent intransigence in the face of the unified opposition of the black African states surrounding Rhodesia and decreasing support from South Africa's prime minister, John Vorster, suggests that he expects economic and military aid from outside Africa. A likely cause for his bravado could be an interpretation of Henry Kissinger's recent vows--to oppose further armed Cuban and Soviet intervention in southern Africa--as a statement of American support. Kissinger has, however, recently endorsed the establishment of majority government in Rhodesia...
...further reason for the cornered tenacity of Smith's opposition to majority rule is his belief in the ultimate backing he enjoys from the white population of neighboring South Africa. Smith appears unmoved by recent nationalist successes in Mozambique and Angola and changes in South African policy which have combined to transform Rhodesia's status from that of a white buffer state firmly supported by Pretoria to a tenuous peninsula of white minority rule with uncertain South African support. Vorster has repeatedly stated that he would rather see a stable black government in Rhodesia than an unstable white...