U.D.I: The International Politics of the Rhodesian Rebellion 9781400869176

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U. D. I.

U. D. I. The International Politics of the Rhodesian Rebellion

ROBERT C. GOOD

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

First published in 1973 by Faber and Faber Limited 3 Queen Square London WCl Printed in Great Britain by Western Printing Services Ltd., Bristol and in the United States by Princeton University Press All rights reserved LCC 73-14082 ISBN 0-691-05647-1

© 1973, RobertC. Good

For Nancy, Steve Karen and Kathy who were there

Contents

Preface I 11 November 1965 Π Prelude to Rebellion Of Pioneers and Imperialists Collision Course Mr. Smith Goes to London Mr. Wilson Goes to Salisbury III Issues and Instruments The Matter of Force The Sanctions Arsenal Problems at the U.N. The Rebel Response IV Zambia and the 'Quick Kill' Dealing with 'Hypothetical Situations' The Crisis of Confidence Pressure from the O.A.U. Zambia at the Brink 'TheQuickKiU' FromLagostoLusaka 'The Long Haul' V Oil 'Spills' in Southern Africa Beit Bridge on the Limpopo Tankers Away! The Beira Resolution 'One Miserable Tanker...'

page 11 15 29 29 32 41 47 53 55 65 73 77 86 87 95 101 106 113 118 122 126 127 132 139 144

Contents Talks about Talks Talking about 'Talks' in Britain Listening to the News in Lusaka The Talks with Salisbury Begin Another Look at Zambian Sanctions The Commonwealth Affair 'NIBMAR' Confrontation at Marlborough House 'Negotiations about Negotiations' Preparations for the Summit H.M.S. Tiger The Collapse of Consensus

150 151 154 156

161 166

170 171 177 182

188 197

Over to the United Nations Selective Mandatory Sanctions Measuring the Sanctions Bite Rhodesia's Great Leap Backwards The Friendly Face across the Great Limpopo

203 203

The Crisis Deepens The Guns of August The Salisbury Hangings 'Who is the Government?' Comprehensive Mandatory Sanctions

232 233 242 248 251

The iFearless' Interlude Preparing for iFearlessi Variations on a Theme from Gibraltar 'H.M.S. Cheerless' Labour's Last Try 'Into Cold Storage'

257 258 269 275

The End - and the Beginning Wilson's Policy Assessed The Tory Settlement Settlement or Sell-out? The End ... . . . and the Beginning

292 293 297 303 310 317

Bibliographical Notes

328

Index

351

211 219 227

280 286

Illustrations

Map Zambian Transport Routes Cartoons 1. From the Christian Science Monitor, 16 October 1968 2. From the Daily Mail, 11 May 1969 3. From The Times, 27 July 1967 4. From the New York Times, 19 November 1967 5. From the Evening Standard, 18 November 1971 6. From the Guardian, 18 January 1972 7. From the Denver Post, 20 January 1972

page 91

51 120 222 281 307 318 323

Preface

I recall once standing on the kopje, or small hill, which commands a splendid panoramic view of Salisbury. My white escort from the Rhodesian Ministry of Information called my attention to the sensible way the city was laid out. 'We have a prevailing wind towards the west,' he explained, 'so the industrial area was put on the western side of town and all the residential areas were put upwind on the eastern side.' I asked him mischievously where Highfield was located, the largest African township housing at least 60,000 people. It was of course far removed from the white neighbourhoods - and directly downwind from the industrial area. This maddening obliviousness is of course a symptom and a substantial part of the problem of Southern Africa. It is also true that, because the white Southern African frequently perceives the black African to be an all-encompassing and ultimately threatening presence, he contrives, often unconsciously, to put the African's existence out of mind. Much the same may be said of white Western perceptions of the coloured world. Certainly our obliviousness to events in Southern Africa is notorious. During an extensive speaking tour of the United States in 1967 while on leave from our African post, my family and I found ourselves constantly explaining that our country of assign­ ment, Zambia, was not the same as Gambia or Zanzibar, and if our audiences responded at all to the illegal seizure of independence in neighbouring Rhodesia or to the person of Mr. Ian Smith, it was generally favourably because they knew nothing of the circumstances except that Rhodesians had had a rebellion of sorts (as had we) against the British. So the concern to write this book emerged. It is directed at many audiences, most importantly in Britain as the book more than anything else is an account of and a statement about a British foreign policy problem. But the implications of the story touch many areas, not least the United States. Though Rhodesia

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Preface

in no sense was or is an 'American problem', developments in that country as in other parts of Southern Africa will one day come to preoccupy us. I say this with such certainty because I believe that in this age of immediate communication and instant involvement, it is inconceivable that two great racial revolutions (in America and in Southern Africa) can climax at roughly the same point in history without finally each affecting, exciting, and probably aggravating the other. Exactly how this interaction will work itself out is I think unpredictable. But that there will be a significant interaction I would consider inevitable. The genre of the book is not easily defined. Since I served in Zambia as American Ambassador from March 1965 through December 1968 and since both my position and location afforded a fascinating vantage point which subsequently would prove useful in reconstructing parts of the story, the book in an odd way is a memoir. (My own role in these events, however, was tangential largely that of an observer-commentator rather than an actor - so the use of the first person singular normally associated with memoir materials would have been both misleading and in poor taste.) Even more important, the study is based on an extensive reading of public sources, the press of the major countries involved, the records of Parliamentary debates and United Nations documentation, and some 300 private interviews arranged in the course of two visits to South Africa, Zambia and Rhodesia and four to London, as well as stops in Lisbon, Lourengo Marques, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa. As an exercise in contemporary history, the book inevitably is journalism of a sort. Based upon these sources, my intention was to probe a sequence of events as fascinating and instructive as they were complex and underreported, and then to write an interpretative account which might command some interest beyond that limited circle to which political studies of this kind are normally confined. I have therefore reduced to a minimum the conceptual baggage usually associated with scholarly ventures, while at the same time introducing enough analytical material to make the narrative elucidate the most critical issues and lessons arising from the Rhodesian rebellion and the endless array of responses to it. Iflabels have to be used, the resulting study may be called, I suppose, a scholarly memoir or analytical journalism. A word must also be said about procedure. Since materials deriving from anonymous sources (unattributable interviews supplemented here and there by diplomatic insights) do not lend themselves to footnotes, and because in any event I have indicated in the text itself the sources from which much of the public material was derived,

Preface

13

I have decided not to festoon the story with the usual display of citational footnotes. Rather I have included at the end of the book bibliographical notes arranged by chapter and section and citing not only the principal materials used, but in some cases supplemental material as well which the student of these matters might wish to consult. In so proceeding, I am necessarily straining at the fastidious reader's scholarly sensibilities and cannot do otherwise at various undocumented points in the story than to ask that he 'take my word for it'. My way of work in short was this: facts and interpretations garnered from public and private sources were amassed, ordered, then repeatedly checked and cross-checked. Various sections of the resulting manuscript were subsequently read by some forty knowledgeable observers of and participants in the affairs described, whose anonymous assistance and unusual patience I acknowledge with deep gratitude. I am also in debt to a number of individuals whose assistance (and forbearance) can be acknowledged more explicitly. The research and much of the writing was financed by a grant from the Ford Founda­ tion awarded upon my departure from Zambia. My particular thanks go to J. Wayne Fredericks who has been obliged to wait much too long for the results. The grant was managed by the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University which also provided me with an academic home, for which I am most grateful to Dean Francis Wilcox and to Professors Robert Osgood and Charles Burton Marshall of the Washington Centre of Foreign Policy Research. I must express gratitude too to colleagues at the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Denver who were obliged from time to time to put up with a rather distant Dean while this task was being completed. For research assistance I am particularly indebted to Mr. Gerald Williams. For secretarial assistance, often way beyond the call of duty, I am indebted to Mrs. Marilyn Perkins of Washington and to my secretary, Mrs. Lavonne Delahunty. Responsibility for the final result of this prolonged imposition on the patience of so many individuals is solely (in the customary disclaimer) my own. Denver, Colorado October 1972

ROBERT C. GOOD

'We cannot undo the past, but we are bound to pass it in review in order to draw from it such lessons as may be applicable to the future, and surely the conclusion from this story is that we should not intervene in these matters unless we are in earnest and prepared to carry out intervention to all necessary lengths.' Sir Winston Churchill during the Abyssinian Debate in the House of Commons, 6 April 1936 As quoted by Harold Wilson during the Rhodesian Debate in the House of Commons, 12 November 1965

I 11 November 1965

It was an insignificant beginning, considering the furore that would follow. Ian Douglas Smith, Prime Minister of the British selfgoverning colony of Rhodesia,* spoke into the microphone: 'Your Government has issued the following proclamation which I will read to you.' Outside, a scattered crowd stood under the African sun in Salis­ bury's Cecil Square listening to loud speakers. The clock on the bell tower of the AngUcan Cathedral read 1.15 p.m. It was Armistice Day, 1965. 'Whereas in the course of human affairs,' the flat voice con­ tinued in that vowel-pinched accent characteristic of many European settlers in Southern Africa, 'history has shown that it may become necessary for a people to resolve the political affiliations which have connected them with another people and to assume amongst other nations the separate and equal status to which they are entitled. And whereas in such event,' the purloined phrases droned on, 'a respect for the opinions of mankind requires them to declare to other nations the causes which impel them to assume full responsibility for their own affairs....' A bill of particulars followed. It noted that Rhodesia had enjoyed self-government since 1923. It asserted that Rhodesians had demon­ strated their loyalty through two World Wars both to the Crown and to 'their kith and kin' (Mr. Smith was referring to Rhodesia's 210,000 whites who controlled the country), and that they 'now see all they have cherished about to be shattered on the rocks of * The country is still technically 'Southern Rhodesia' according to the British Government, though Rhodesian authorities dropped the adjective after the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland when the northern territories, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, assumed independence as Zambia and Malawi. For convenience (having nothing to do with political preference) the simple term, Rhodesia, is used throughout this book.

16

11 November 1965

expediency' (Mr. Smith had in mind the danger of rule by Rhodesia's 4.2 million blacks who presently controlled nothing). Moreover Britain had consistently refused to accede to Rhodesia's entreaties for full independence (under a constitution which would have perpetuated for an undetermined number of years rule by the white minority). Now this day by proclamation Rhodesia assumed her independence unilaterally. In so doing, the rebel Prime Minister concluded: 'We have struck a blow for the preservation of justice, civilization and Christianity.' Government censorship had just been imposed and the already existing state of emergency was now further embellished by eight additional arbitrary regulations. Some two hours before, Smith had gone to Government House to advise Rhodesia's Governor, Humphrey Gibbs, of the imminent broadcast and the rupture with Britain. Gibbs, utterly loyal to the Queen who had appointed him Governor of the British colony of Rhodesia, told Smith he was making a great mistake. From a nearby table he picked up a copy of the October 1965 issue of the Rhodesian journal, Property and Finance. Leafing through its record of the country's economic progress, the Governor warned him that all this would be sacrificed if Smith were to promulgate a U.D.I. The abbreviation for a 'unilateral declaration of independence' had become a household word in Rhodesia in prolonged anticipation of the event. The Governor had been forewarned of the illegal act, which in prospect he had both feared and condemned, eight days before when Smith had paid him an earlier visit. It was the evening of 3 November. Smith had brought for the Governor's signature an order declaring a state of emergency throughout Rhodesia. It was a peculiar matter because Rhodesia for some weeks had been extremely quiet. The crime statistics hardly justified exceptional measures. Accordingly, the reason for the emergency order, as disclosed in an affidavit drawn up by Police Commissioner F. E. ('Slash') Barfoot, was not domestic unrest at all, but the alleged assemblage of Rhodesian African guerrillas in Zambia to the north. The Governor signed the order but failed to date it or to keep a copy. Strangely the following day the order was not gazetted. Angry inquiries from the Governor's office revealed that the document had been placed under lock and key by Smith. The manoeuvre was now becoming transparent. If there had been need for a state of emergency, the order would have been promul­ gated immediately and regulations issued under it. Clearly it was part of a larger plan in the service of which the Governor's signature on a state of emergency order would be highly useful when the right time came. The Attorney General now advised that if not promulgated

11 November 1965

17

right away the order would lose efficacy. By this time two days had elapsed since Gibbs had signed the document. Smith and his col­ leagues, noting the Attorney General's judgement, dated the order 'November 5' and it came into effect forthwith. It was under this order that censorship was imposed just prior to Smith's U.D.I, proclamation. A counter-proclamation made immediately by the Governor was caught by the censor and received almost no notice in Rhodesia. Prepared weeks before and held for just this contingency, Gibbs's message, 'in command from Her Majesty the Queen', dismissed the members of the Rhodesian Government and called upon Rhodesian citizens to refrain from any acts that would help the illegal Government in pursuing its illegal objectives, but otherwise to maintain law and order. The balance of the day passed without event. The vast African townships west of Salisbury seemed numb. Representatives of the United Peoples Party, the small all-African opposition in Rhodesia's Parliament, had presented a memorandum that afternoon to the British High Commissioner in Salisbury expressing opposition to U.D.I, and allegiance to the Queen. It was an undemonstrative gesture. (Leaders of the mainstream African nationalist movements of Rhodesia were under Government restriction or in exile.) That evening Salisbury was quiet, more empty than usual. British High Commissioner Jack Johnston and American Consul General Ross McClelland, who together had listened to Smith's broadcast in Johnston's office, were at home finishing their packing. Each had been recalled. O

O

O

The Salisbury sun contrasted with London's chill grey sky. So too was Salisbury's introspective almost torpid mood at variance with the dramatic tension in Whitehall and Westminster when at 11.15 a.m. G.M.T. (two hours behind Salisbury) the B.B.C. broke into its morning broadcast. It was Ian Smith's voice announcing U.D.I. Parliament sat at 2.30 p.m. The customary prayers were said. From the packed visitors' gallery a number of intent African faces fixed upon the figure at the dispatch box. Prime Minister Harold Wilson began: 'Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I should like to make a statement on Rhodesia. The House will have heard with deep sadness of the illegal declaration of independence by the men who until that declaration constituted the Government of Rhodesia.' Wilson recalled the interminable year-in and year-out negotiations to break the Rhodesian impasse, seeking a workable balance between Britain's responsibility for effecting ultimate majority rule and white Rhodesia's fear of it - negotiations which had persisted to the last

18

11 November 1965

possible moment. The Prime Minister described an incredible telephone exchange he had had with Smith at six o'clock that morn­ ing: a final effort to demonstrate that there were no procedural differences between the two sides and culminating in an offer to fly one of his Ministers to Salisbury for further clarification. Smith said he would take Wilson's message to his Cabinet but added, 'It looks as though this thing has gone too far.' Wilson dismissed, as he had often before, the use of military coercion against the rebellious white Government of Rhodesia, then turned to a staccato account of the economic penalties to which these 'lawbreaking men' were immediately to be subjected: trade was to be restricted including a ban on tobacco and sugar purchases which constituted 70 per cent of Rhodesia's exports to the United Kingdom; arms exports were to cease; all aid was to be terminated; Rhodesia was to be removed from the sterling area, exchange controls applied, export of British capital and access to the British capital market disallowed; credit guarantees were no longer to be available; and Rhodesia was to be suspended from the Commonwealth preference area. Moreover, Wilson continued, Britain had asked the United Nations Security Council to meet the following day in support of British action. (Within hours, in fact, the United Nations General Assembly would interrupt its general debate to adopt a resolution condemning U.D.I., urging the United Kingdom to take the necessary steps to end the rebellion and recommending that the Security Council consider the issue as a matter of urgency.) Britain's Foreign Minister was already en route to New York. Across the aisle, speaking for the Conservative Opposition, Edward Heath noted 'how deeply we on this side of the House also deplore the unilateral declaration of independence by the former Government of Rhodesia today'. He emphasized 'the importance at this time, in every action which is taken and every word which is spoken, of maintaining our own national unity and thus helping to maintain the unity of the Commonwealth, to which we hope that at some future date an independent Rhodesia will be able to return'. Nevertheless, many Tories seemed restive as Wilson revealed his arsenal of sanctions, and some openly protested against his initiative at the United Nations. There were rustlings of discontent also from those who wanted more action, not less. Liberal Party Leader Jo Grimond raised the question of curtailing oil supplies to Rhodesia and was told swiftly, 'We have no proposals to make on this subject.' And when the follow­ ing day a Member of Parliament inquired what steps Her Majesty's Government was taking to protect loyal Rhodesians, the Attorney

11 November 1965

19

General Sir Elwyn Jones replied grandly that the protecting arm was that of Governor Gibbs - the Queen's arm and voice. Back at Rhodesia's Government House, Gibbs, lonely and power­ less, was about to begin a frustrating tour of duty which would run for forty-four months, while in London H.M. Government assumed the uncertain mandate of Rhodesia's 'government-in-exile'. But for the moment drama conjured its own reality. The Rhodesians, as Harold Wilson explained to a national television audience on the evening of 11 November, had put themselves 'beyond the pale of world society'. It was a ponderous peroration faintly reminiscent (as Wilson no doubt hoped it would be) of Churchill's style. 'At this anxious time I hope that no one in Rhodesia will feel that Britain has forgotten them or that we are prepared to yield up the trusteeship which is ours - trusteeship for the welfare of all the peoples of Rhodesia. Whatever the cost to us, we shall honour that trusteeship until we can bring the people of Rhodesia, under God, once again, back to their true allegiance, back to the rule of law, and forward to their true destiny in the family of nations.' During these events, Sir Richard Luyt found himself in the Colonial OfiSce in London and, by chance, in conversation with Britain's Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley. Before his appointment as Britain's last Governor in Guyana (negotiations for whose new constitution had brought Luyt back to London from Georgetown), he had served as Chief Secretary and on occasion Acting Governor in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. Luyt knew Central Africa inti­ mately, both black and white, and had won the lasting friendship of Zambia's first President, Kenneth David Kaunda. Luyt and Bottomley talked of the disturbing news from Salisbury. 'But the real tragedy of U.D.I.', Luyt said, 'will be Zambia.' There was reason for apprehension concerning the newly in­ dependent country located on Rhodesia's northern boundary. Zambia's African-controlled Government relied upon a substantial community of more than 70,000 whites for technical skills both in the Government and in the huge copper industry. According to the 1961 census, 63 per cent of the whites living on the Copperbelt (Zambia's Ruhr) were natives of Southern or Central Africa. It was inevitable that many would be sympathetic to Smith - and hardly enthusiastic when Kaunda, the passionate advocate of majority rule and nonracialism throughout Southern Africa, declared in a nationwide broadcast on 11 November that Zambia was determined that treason should not be permitted to prosper and that the rebellion be brought to an end.

20

11 November 1965

In the white communities on the Copperbelt, sentiments were running strong. At Chingola, white locomotive engineers working the still unified rail system that linked Zambia and Rhodesia celebrated the announcement of U.D.I, by prolonged blasts on their whistles. A white labour union meeting at Mufilira mine turned into a 'bloody independence celebration' according to a union leader who was present. A more provocative situation was difficult to imagine in a sensitive African state still aching from the discriminatory practices of the recent colonial past. No one could predict the flow of African emotion. At the offices of the British High Commission in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, workmen were labouring to install a heavy wroughtiron security grill. Zambia's plight arose even more from its continuing reliance on the rebellious colony with which it shared a long border at the Zambezi River. Transport links, communications networks, power supplies and trading patterns joined the Zambian and Rhodesian economies as inextricably as Siamese twins. Britain had announced that it would respond to Rhodesia's rebellion with economic sanc­ tions. The implications for Zambia were obvious and ominous: to punish Rhodesia was automatically to penalize Zambia. So, on 11 November 1965, Kaunda appealed for calm - and declared a state of emergency. Carriers were made ready to transport some three companies of Zambian troops to the border in answer to Rhodesia's deployment made in preparation for U.D.I. More than two battalions of Ian Smith's troops were positioned along the southern bank of the Zambezi River. O