Southern Rhodesia's Final Choice

...Fifteen per cent of the office space in Salisbury is now vacant, the result of certain major corporations moving their entire operations to Lusaka, the capital of Northern Rhodesia...

...What is more, unemployment is beginning to rise...

...The Civil Service is no longer racially exclusive...

...Bombs and incendiaries would go off in an untraceable manner...

...Now, seven months after the election, the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union, in the classic tradition of its predecessors, has been banned,(although its principal leaders were recently released from detention and promised suspended sentences...

...At the same time, various groups in the United Nations are pressuring Britain to assert its sovereignty to facilitate the transfer of power to the Africans, and also to guarantee their democratic rights and privileges against the attacks of the government now in power...

...The death of the Federation has left Southern Rhodesia with the prospect of a severe economic recession, since its entire economy has over the years become dangerously dependent on the northern region for markets and development capital...

...But these will be far from what will be required to rejuvenate the country's economy, and the conditions for mutual cooperation do not begin to exist...

...This, however, would bring thousands of additional British voters into the Union, which would be enough to upset the rather slim electoral majority presently enjoyed by Dr...

...Post offices, buses, stores, some of the better hotels, the railways, the University College and the municipal swimming pool have been desegregated...

...The fifth dragon, and of course the most durable and potentially dangerous, is represented by the growing organization, power and political enlightenment of the Southern Rhodesian Africans...

...The idea would be to bring the white giant to its collective knees by a progressive hamstringing of its economy...

...The pass system has been discontinued...

...The relatively "moderate" United Federal party (UFP), before being defeated in the 1962 election, had taken considerable strides to accelerate integration on several levels...

...It is personified in Kenneth Kaunda, President-elect of Northern Rhodesia...

...The only question remaining open to either side is how many lives will be lost before the inevitable transfer of power takes place...

...Their families, in many cases, have lived in the country for over 100 years...

...This enabled Sir Edgar to persuade his party to adopt its unusually radical platform in the campaign, including the 15year timetable, African leaders, however, refused to wait 15 years...

...Today constituting fourteen-fifteenths of the total population, they are newly organized, newly militant, newly disenchanted with white moderation...

...In contrast to the Africans, the whites form something less than a monolithic bloc...

...Moreover, the addition of over three million thoroughly rebellious Africans could hardly be considered a contribution to the nation's physical and spiritual wealth...

...On one side, the newly independent African governments, as well as the Southern Rhodesian Africans themselves, have pressed the British to withhold independence at any cost until a Constitution is drafted granting the Africans an adequate and protected share in the process of Government...

...The second dragon facing Prime Minister Field is represented by the British Colonial Office...

...There are five principal dragons that this new St...

...With sufficient application of pressure, it is felt that entire sections of the white population would be induced to flee the country, leaving only the hard-core fanatics to deal with...

...In addition, there is life imprisonment awaiting arsonists and a 20-year sentence for unlawful possession of offensive weapons...

...But the new promise of a wider African voting franchise was something else again...

...In the event of Southern Rhodesia's total break with Britain, which would more or less mean a formal declaration of independence, the Africans can be expected to set up a government-in-exile (most likely in Tanganyika...

...And it neglects the most fundamental problem of all: Shall a majority or a minority rule...

...It does not touch on the problem of 92 per cent of the population having to make do on 31 per cent of the land...

...Field himself has a small stock of personal good will among certain African leaders who, though they dislike his politics, consider him more approachable than his predecessor...

...The group now in power, the Rhodesian Front party, led by large-scale tobacco planter Winston Field, is a good deal less ready to consider compromise...

...More vigorous efforts resulted in an African Industrial and Commercial Workers Union in 1919 and, two years later, in a Bantu Voters Association whose membership was restricted to less than 50...

...To the distaste of many UFP members, the party's leader, Sir Edgar Whitehead, even went so far as to present a timetable whereby in 15 years there would be an African majority in Parliament...

...Field's "program" for the solution of his African troubles indicates how little he is aware of his opponents' aspirations...

...In the (expected) event of African resistance to these policies, the Front will be nothing short of ruthless...

...Their Army of 24,000 welltrained troops has the most modern equipment available, and their potential allies stretch from official Johannesburg to some of the highest circles in London...

...The new Prime Minister has the fourth dragon in his own backyard, in the form of the more intransigeant section of his own party...

...The Africans' attempts at organization in Southern Rhodesia go back as far as 1915, when a small group of "advanced natives" formed the Rhodesian Native Association, which contented itself with mild defenses of long-recognized rights...

...In all cases where extreme penalties do not apply, flogging is mandatory...

...The flow of foreign capital has begun to dry up...

...Every farm in every corner of the colony is connected by radio to the local police station...

...Southern Rhodesia's only lever on the north is the railway that runs from the northern copper belt across its territory on the way to the Portuguese port to the south...

...On the other hand, the Rhodesian Front program was precisely what would be needed to generate sympathy and aid from almost every nation in the world that claimed to stand for justice...

...Its leaders have by and large been moderate, well-educated and relatively disinclined to violence...

...This seems most unlikely, though, because many of Southern Rhodesia's whites are less than a generation removed from England, and London would in effect be unleashing military force against its own countrymen...

...One of its first acts when it came to power was to propose what has since come to be known as the "Hanging Bill," a piece of legislation which provides mandatory death sentence for any person convicted of throwing a gasoline bomb—regardless of whether it is aimed at persons or property...

...Economic repercussions in Southern Rhodesia are already evident...

...These young men have lost confidence in the "legal machinery" of democratic government as practiced in Southern Rhodesia, and are perfectly prepared to attempt to seize power through a protracted guerilla struggle of the Algerian variety...

...Today, ZAPU is prepared to jump in whatever direction circumstances may dictate...

...This, of course, would also require the use of available capital to finance development at home...

...Were such a situation to occur, the question arises as to whether the power of the third dragon, the Union of South Africa, might be brought into play on the side of European white supremacy...

...During the last election campaign, the UFP promised to go still further...

...Southern Rhodesia's whites are a minority group that plans to stay put...

...The small number of Asians in Southern Rhodesia supported the Africans in their boycott...

...Consequently, there was a considerable strengthening of the party's rural base and an increasing effectiveness in its discipline and organization...

...It was immediately replaced by the National Democratic party, a group even more militant than its precursor...

...The local police stations, in turn, have groundto-air connections with military helicopters on permanent patrol—and this in an open, rolling countryside where opponents of any number could scarcely hope to hide...

...Local industries, such as jeep assembly plants, are planning to locate branches in the north instead of expanding, and even government finances have come under increasing strain...

...Ideally, this would be a fight directed less against people than against property...

...The intent was to isolate the movement through progressive rustication, but the effect was to give nationalist leaders access to the very reserves to which they had heretofore been denied...

...On the one hand, the disillusion of the moderates in their ranks—those who had always hoped for partnership with the whites— was complete...

...This deprived the UFP of just enough of their expected majority on the lower electoral rolls to cost them the election...

...to have one African in the next Cabinet, three or four in the one that follows, and a majority in the one that follows that...

...When, in the wake of several petrol bombings before the 1962 election, the government decided to ban the Zimbabwe National African Union, the restriction orders confined some 200 party officials to within three to 12 miles of their place of birth...

...The nationalists thus achieved their objective...

...He calls for the Africans to turn from their present "unsound" leaders (who will be duly rounded up and jailed if they cause trouble) to the more wholesome task of community development under the guidance of their traditional chiefs —whose power, of course, will be substantially enlarged through the benevolence of the government...

...Yet Kaunda has no particular reason to continue brotherly trade relations with his southern neighbors, even if they were to adopt an entirely African-directed government...

...they are simply withdrawing from politics...

...Thus far the best South Africa has been able to do is to contribute some $20 million to the upkeep of Southern Rhodesia's Army...

...Kaunda has voiced concern about the railway's being placed solely under Southern Rhodesia's control, and may be prepared to grant minimal concessions to keep it open...

...Within its borders, grouped on one side of an ever-widening racial crevasse, stands a community of some 240,000 whites...

...It does nothing to relieve extreme dislocation in urban areas where economic, social and cultural segregation have been legally enforced since 1934...

...Added to this is the fact that its economy has not been able to keep step with its expanding population, making Southern Rhodesia's need for northern capital greater than ever...

...Jeff A. Fadiman is a freelance writer now traveling in Africa...

...and key segments of the African (and Eurafrican) economic community, such as truckdrivers, would be cajoled or threatened or simply terrorized into leaving their work for the sake of the cause...

...While it is true that a "black takeover" directly to the north would be considered a decided threat to South Africa's security, it is nonetheless improbable that it would be able to meet the threat through any means other than the provision of funds and perhaps a certain limited number of "volunteers...

...Publicly rejecting the UFP'S offer, they ordered an election boycott among their eligible voters which turned out to be 90 per cent effective...

...After surviving World War II, the Bantu Congress became the African National Congress, and as such it lasted until one night in 1959 when 500 of its leaders were arrested within three hours and the organization disappeared...

...On the other side of the crevasse stand the Africans...

...And the UFP, rejected in its attempt at genuine multiracialism, is on the sidelines...

...Liquor may be purchased in any quantity by members of any race...

...The answer, most likely, is No...

...to legislate actively against urban discrimination...

...All that has been lacking is the decisiveness to use this collected power to its maximum extent, and this too may soon be coming...

...Those who make up the liberal faction of white opinion— represented primarily by the disbanding Central Africa party, a splinter group, and the far left wing of the UFP—no longer have an active role to play in a situation which seems to offer no alternative to violence...

...A merger of the colony's historic dissidents— from the old Dominion parties to the Southern Rhodesia Association —the Front, while not formally committed to apartheid, has vowed to keep the machinery of government "permanently in responsible hands...

...The only sure protection open to South Africa is to be had through the device of political annexation...

...Not until 1938 did these and other small societies merge into the first Bantu Congress of Southern Rhodesia...

...This, ultimately, is Southern Rhodesia's final choice...

...It won office on a platform that opposed the repeal of the Land Apportionment Act, promised not to legislate against discrimination, and proposed to cut back the already extremely limited African vote (92 per cent of the eligible voters are white...

...They have become convinced that the only rights they will ever enjoy under the present system of government will be those that they themselves are able to enforce...

...George must face...

...Moderate African leaders who showed signs of willingness to compromise would be eliminated...

...Standing over the entire scene like some toowise biblical Job, the Colonial Office is beset on all sides by conflicting temptations and demands...

...He is, however, the head of a party which has changed leaders four times within the past few years, a party heavily financed by large-scale agricultural interests who are perfectly willing to run the risk of racial war in their desire to found a "realistic system" modeled on South African apartheid...

...It promised, in fact, to abolish the Land Apportionment Act, which since 1931 has reserved 51 per cent of all available land for white use only...

...or, if South Africa does enter into the struggle, it would probably do so in too slight a way to have a decisive effect...

...power lines would be cut...

...Communities have been urged by the Ministry of Local Government to admit Africans to their Councils...

...indeed, it has reached the point where unions are demanding that job preference be given Southern Rhodesians over the traditional labor inflow from Nyasaland...

...Among other things, 30 per cent of the country's machineshop production and 40 per cent of its textile mills are normally sold in the north...

...crops would be burned...

...From this point on, whatever direction it may take, it must take alone...

...Their next move would not be hard to predict: hit-and-run guerilla war that would end all hope for any kind of compromise solution...

...The Africans believe that, while they can be delayed, they cannot be defeated...

...Publication of these laws hardly dismayed African leaders, for it made their strategy very much simpler...

...Their standard of living is as high as any in the world...

...Verwoerd's ruling Nationalists...

...The spotlight thus centers on Winston Field, leader of the Rhodesian Front...

...Immediately before last December's territorial election, the UFP found itself in the abnormal position of needing the African vote...

...The first, which has arisen specter-like from the coffin of the recently deceased Central African Federation, is economic dislocation...

...On the contrary, a solid wall of tariffs constructed on his southern border would permit him not only to redirect his nation's trade northward but to protect its infant textile and machine-shop industries, thus lending diversification to what is still a heavily one-product economy...

...Under the old "liberal" government the Africans had hard lives, but not quite hard enough to goad them into unified action...

...On the other, the country's whites, backed by influential circles in London and reinforced by Britain's desire to disentangle itself entirely from the situation, want the British to grant unconditional independence —within or outside of the Commonwealth—and to leave them alone to manage their own African affairs...

...But in late 1961 this, too, was banned, and the present Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) rose in its place...

...The recent progress—desegregation of swimming pools and the like—was viewed by nationalists as nothing more than cheap expediency on the part of the whites: reform followed riot, and then only along with more stringent laws against future rioting...

...This concept either deliberately ignores, or is ignorant of, the real substance of the African's grievances...

...Arms, financial support and, most important of all, a base of action outside the colony itself could be counted on from a dozen different independent African nations...

...But its younger members, many still in their teens, are far more radical and exert an influence on the organization far out of proportion to their years...