Why Carter Is Wrong About Zimbabwe

...They want a smooth transition, so that Africans—who already comprise 85 per cent of the Army and 75 per cent of the police force—can acquire the skills they could not develop under white rule...

...We won't persecute the whites just because they persecuted us...

...This totally disregards the Front's violent assault upon the entire election process...

...But even our own government, under similar circumstances, might invoke the "clear and present danger" doctrine to restrict the First Amendment rights of groups that advocate the violent overthrow of the government...

...If the President had the slightest interest in seeing the Muzorewa government survive and gain international recognition, he could have taken a middle course and set specific conditions for lifting the sanctions...

...It even agreed to a five-point agenda that included arrangements for a cease-fire, a transitional administration, the formation of new armed forces, drafting a constitution, and holding free elections...

...Carter himself, in his June 7 statement, said the voting "appears to have been administered in a reasonably fair way under the circumstances...

...And virtually all of the international observers present concluded that the balloting was on the whole free and fair...

...A nine-member delegation from Freedom House, including Bayard Rustin and Allard K. Lowenstein, called it "a significant advance toward the establishment of a free society in Zimbabwe Rhodesia...

...And if that is not disconcerting enough, Carter asks us to believe that his policy represents "in international affairs what our nation stands for, what our people believe in...

...An encouraging word to Muzorewa might have convinced many of the guerrillas—including, perhaps, Nkomo and Mugabe—to give up the armed struggle and return peacefully to Zimbabwe Rhodesia...

...Almost 65 per cent of the black population voted, with the largest turnouts occurring in the cities where the level of political awareness is highest...

...Instead, they pledged to violently disrupt the election and to take reprisals against anyone who voted...

...The President was sanctimonous in charging that the Patriotic Front was not permitted to campaign freely against the election...

...He was wrong in charging that the "opposition" parties?Joshua Nkomo's Zambia-based Zimbabwe African People's Union and Robert Mugabe's Mozambique-based Zimbabwe African National Union?were "banned from the election...

...Toward the end of his statement, the President strongly emphasized the morality of his position...

...When we have power, we won't also be unjust...

...Muzorewa, in particular, has emphasized that many whites have been living in Zimbabwe for generations and have no other home...

...By seeming to base his decision not to lift the sanctions on Case-Javits, the President made a token gesture to Congress...

...But as events were to show, there was greater enthusiasm for the internal settlement among those who would be directly affected by it than the Administration's position allowed...

...215017 In this regard, the President made only two points—one wrong and the other sanaimonious...

...Although the President was technically correct on these points, he neglected to mention why the internal black parties negotiated such a constitution (the document was not, despite Carter's claim, drafted solely by the whites), and why the majority of blacks participated in the voting...

...Any lingering doubt about Carter's intentions, moreover, should have been eliminated by his blocking a move to have a congressional delegation monitor the voting...

...But it will do the very opposite...

...Long before the election there last April—won by Bishop Abel T. Muzore-wa's United African National Council (UANC)—Washington had made clear that it rejected the constitutional settlement between Ian Smith's government and the "internal" black leaders, and would thus consider the election illegitimate...

...The African nation's Constitution, he said, was unfair because it reserved a disproportionate number of parliamentary seats for the white minority, continued white control over the Army, police, judiciary, and civil service, and was never submitted to the black citizens for their approval...

...But from what he said before that about the need to "preserve our diplomatic and ties of trade with friendly African governments, " it seems clear his motive was to appease Nigeria and some of the other black African countries that support the Patriotic Front...

...Repudiating the new black government will not only strengthen the resolve of the guerrillas...

...In their opinion, black interests are best served by insuring the stability of the white role in an African-dominated government, for a white exodus would lead to the country's rapid economic decline...

...The black leaders stress, in addition, that they want the whites to stay for moral reasons...

...Indeed, one of the more depressing ironies of the President's decision to continue the sanctions against Zimbabwe Rhodesia is that it undermines a pro-Western, democratically elected, multiracial government in a situation where the sole realistic alternative is a pro-Soviet black dictatorship...

...We were never fighting the white skin," he has said...

...The President, incidentally, also did not mention the temporary nature of those provisions...

...The authorities in Zimbabwe Rhodesia have expressed their willingness to attend an all-parties meeting," the President said, "but they have not indicated they are prepared to negotiate seriously about 'all relevant issues.'" In fact, the Executive Council of the Transitional Rhodesian government agreed on October 20, 1978, to attend an all-parties conference with no preconditions...

...The conference was never convened because Nkomo would have nothing to do with it, and Mugabe said he would attend only on the conditions that "the entirety of the Salisbury regime must go and the enemy forces must be completely dismantled...

...Cari til rshman is ilw executive director of Social Democrats, l'..S"..-l...

...Carter further said his stand would limit the opportunity for Soviet intervention...

...Freedom House and the AFL-CIO, for instance, have urged that Zimbabwe Rhodesia take certain steps to insure a more rapid transition to full majority rule, with adequate guarantees for individual and minority rights...

...Carter claimed, too, that the government had not met the second requirement of the Case-Javits amendment...

...But leaving aside the black leaders' motives, Carter had no basis for raising the question of the Constitution in deciding whether the Case-Javits requirements had been satisfied...

...It means a lot to our country," hesaid, "todowhatis right, and what is decent, and what is fair, and what is principled...

...It could be argued that the Rhodesian government should have been more tolerant of nonviolent expression of opposition sentiment...

...We were fighting an unjust system...

...For the Amendment's first condition refers only to "freeelections in which all political and population groups have been allowed to participate freely, with observation by impartial, internationally-recognized observers...

...As is well known, these two groups that comprise the Patriotic Front were invited to participate on the same terms as all other parties, but refused...

...Unperturbed, however, the President then went on to list why he felt the election did not meet the Case-Javits Amendment's criteria for lifting the sanctions...

...Such expression was only allowed in restricted settings like the university in Salisbury...

...Muzorewa and other blacks have made a very strong case for the provisions protecting white interests over the next 10 years...

...The President's statement was especially hypocritical in failing to offer any criticism whatsoever of the Patriotic Front—which, along with threatening a " bloodbath" at the polls, has left little doubt that it would eliminate opposition rights entirely if it achieved power...

...it will provide the Russians with an opportunity to expand their military assistance to the Patriotic Front, and to commit their Cuban and East German proxies to the battle...

...In reality, though, be defied the spirit of the Amendment by adopting the stance of a judge who searches out every conceivable technical violation of the law to justify a judgment already made...