The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Rhodesia Breakdown

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. For months it has looked as though the quarter of a million beleaguered whites in Rhodesia might reach a peaceful accommodation with black nationalists. Today, after ten days of rapidly changing events, intensified fighting seems in prospect. Nine days ago nationalist guerrillas shot down a Rhodesian airliner, killing thirty-eight people. Ten survivors were later executed by guerrillas on the ground. In response, white premier Ian Smith declared martial law in parts of the country and threatened reprisal raids against neighboring black countries that support the guerrillas. Yesterday the chief guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, vowed continued fighting, saying his forces would defeat Smith in seven months. He also said political talks between all the parties were dead and buried. Smith himself is reportedly losing white support in Rhodesia for not responding more forcefully to the airliner incident. There have been numerous calls for his resignation. Tonight: what future for Rhodesia? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, here`s what`s happened politically to bring the Rhodesia situation to where it is now. Back in March Ian Smith agreed to form a transitional government with three moderate black leaders in Rho desia. The plan calls for writing a new constitution, holding elections and turning the government over to black majority rule by December 31st. The Smith decision followed years of pressure from the British, the United States and others to bring the black majority into Rhodesian society and government. But the Smith plan did not include the two guerrilla leaders in the government, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. They have been waging war against the Smith government from sanctuaries in the bordering nations of Zambia and Mozambique. The British and the Americans said there could never be peace in Rhodesia without participation by Mugabe and Nkomo.

The transitional government responded by inviting the two leaders to return to Rhodesia and participate in the new electoral process, but only if they surrendered their arms. That was rejected by Nkomo and Mugabe. There was a secret meeting between Nkomo and Smith recently, but that apparently was fruitless; then came the shooting down of the airliner, the massacre of the survivors, Smith`s Sunday response and then Nkomo`s response to the response yesterday.

The United States does not have diplomatic relations with the Rhodesian government, but Rhodesia does have an official information office here, and the director is Kenneth Towsey, a Rhodesian foreign service officer. First, Mr. Towsey, have the events of the last several days endangered the transition government and its chances of being a success?

KENNETH TOWSEY: I don`t think they`ve done any damage to the transitional government as such, but I think they`ve put immense difficulties in the way of broadening the base of the transitional government by bringing in any of the outside forces. There is a very deep sense of outrage, particularly amongst white Rhodesians, about the aircraft atrocity.

LEHRER: So even if Smith and the transitional government wanted to bring in Mugabe and Nkomo at this point there would be difficulty settling that with the whites in Rhodesia, is that what you`re saying?

TOWSEY: Well, yes, I think so. I think the response to Mr. Smith`s rather low-key and restrained broadcast on Sunday has indicated that he would be in immense political difficulties if he were to resume any contacts with Nkomo.

LEHRER: Let`s talk about that particular thing a moment, the Smith response. The words have been used that it was relatively mild. Why was it so mild? Why did he not take stronger action?

TOWSEY: I think because Mr. Smith is very anxious to broaden the base of the agreement if it`s possible to do so -- broaden the base of the transitional government. There is no doubt that the Matabele segment of the Rhodesian people, some fifteen to twenty percent of the population as a whole, hold Mr. Nkomo in high esteem as a political leader, and I think if it were possible to bring Mr. Nkomo within the ambit of the agreement without yielding to his terms that he should have a predominant role in the transitional government and then whatever successive government eventuates in Rhodesia, that would have been a very statesmanlike thing to have done; and I think that is the reason why Mr. Smith was willing to go and meet with Mr. Nkomo in the middle of last month in Lusaka.

LEHRER: Did nothing at all come out of that meeting?

TOWSEY: Apparently not; no. It would seem that Mr. Nkomo demanded a complete transfer of power into the hands of the Patriotic Front, a condition which is totally unacceptable to all the veterans of the transitional government.

LEHRER: There was a report in the Washington Post this morning which I`m sure you saw, which says that Ian Smith is now losing his white support because they consider his actions announced Sunday as being too lax or too mild. Do you agree with that -- is that .a serious prospect at this point?

TOWSEY: Yes, I think Mr. Smith is now in danger from the right. I think unless he is given some more support by the West in his endeavor to see this internal settlement through to a successful conclusion, I think the position is going to be very difficult for him. As a senator in Rhodesian parliament said the other day, we give and give and give, and receive nothing. And Mr. Smith is now in the position of being asked, Why do you goon giving when you don`t get any kind of support from the West?

LEHRER: You know, Nkomo said yesterday that Smith was now a broken man, and there have been other reports that he might just throw up his hands and walk away from it all. Is that likely?

TOWSEY: I don`t believe that, no. No, I believe Mr. Smith is a much tougher man than that. In a number of recent interviews with newsmen, when he`s been asked the question of whether he might lay down political office before the end of the year or before the internal solution is worked out, he`s said no, he intends to stay with it until it`s worked out. He will then retire to the farm.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: The guerrillas led by Nkomo and Mugabe are known as the Patriotic Front. Nkomo`s faction of that front is represented at the United Nations here in New York by Callistus Ndlovu. Mr. Ndlovu is al so Director of African Studies and an associate professor at Hofstra University. Mr. Ndlovu, do you agree with the opinion we`ve just heard, that all these recent events have not endangered the transition government?

CALLISTUS NDLOVU: Well, it really depends on what one means by endangering the transitional government. You don`t endanger a species that is already dead. As far as we are concerned, the transitional government died even before it came into power, and its liquidation has been coming in stages. And we have seen in fact that it is not functioning. When Mr. Smith is issuing his partial martial law, the people who were supposed to be in his executive council are outside the country -- that is, Bishop Muzorewa and Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole -- which means, in fact, that there is no such thing called the transitional government in Zimbabwe.

MacNEIL: So you do not think that by the deadline of December 31st there will have been elections and a transfer to black rule in Rhodesia.

NDLOVU: They cannot have elections, because they won`t be able to hold them; they won`t have a place to stand to vote. So that even Mr. Irvine, who`s one of the ministers of Smith, I think made it clear that they could not hold the elections in December. They were going to talk about postponing them for four months, but we know that in fact they are going to postpone them forever; and then there will develop a situation where probably Smith will be removed or some changes will take place within the white power structure, and then Muzorewa and company will just be removed and jettisoned. If they don`t understand that, they`ll probably end up in jail; that`s how I see it myself.

MaCNEIL: Mr. Towsey just said that Mr. Smith would still like to broaden the base of that transitional government by including Nkomo and Mugabe. Is there any possibility of that meeting taking place which is called by Britain and the United States the all party meeting, or is that, as Mr. Nkomo says, dead and buried?

NDLOVU: Well, I think Mr. Towsey`s own perception of the situation is obviously distorted, as the perception of all Rhodesian whites is always distorted. He talks, for instance of the Ndebele having a great deal of esteem for Mr. Nkomo; we don`t look upon Nkomo as a leader of the Ndebeles, and as long as these people keep on talking about ethnic equations in order to solve this problem, then that means they`re not solving the problem at all. So as far as we`re concerned the thing doesn`t fail because the Ndebeles are not represented. Even the Shonas are not represented there. You don`t pretend that Muzorewa is a representative of the Shonas just because he`s Shona-speaking.

MacNEIL: I see. Your claim would be that Mr. Nkomo`s support in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe would be wider than merely his tribal affiliation.

NDLOVU: Yes, he`s a national leader. So if you want to bring about a solution you don`t also use the framework of the internal settlement. So you see, Smith is not going to be broadening anything if he tries to bring into the internal settlement Nkomo or Mugabe. Now what is wanted is a completely new set-up where a complete transfer of power takes place; otherwise I don`t see how the war can be ended.

MacNEIL: I see. Today in Lusaka a top aide to Mr. Mugabe, Edgar Takere, said that the Patriotic Front still wanted this all party conference and that Mr. Nkomo could not kill it unilaterally. What is your response to that?

NDLOVU: I don`t think Mr. Nkomo ever claimed that he would kill the all party conference...

MacNEIL: Well, he said yesterday it was dead and buried; that`s kind of killing it ...

NDLOVU: Mr. Nkomo actually said, speaking for myself at least and speaking for my group the all party conference is dead and buried. Now, let me put it this way: I don`t think that if one wing of the Patriotic Front refuses to attend the conference the conference can take place. Now, if the people who call the conference decide to call it despite the absence of the other wing of the Patriotic Front they`ll be wasting their time, just as Mr. Smith has been wasting his time each time he has tried to exclude other people. So you see, Mr. Takere of course is speaking for his own group. And as far as we`re concerned, I think we`ve given Smith ample opportunity to transfer power and he has proved all the time that he behaves like a bull in a china shop. So there`s really no point wasting time with a person like that. He has problems, of course, from the right wing, as Mr. Towsey says, but that`s not our problem. The problem in the country today is that there must be a genuine transfer of power, there must be a negotiated settlement if it can be found; but you see, the circumstances must be such as actually make it possible for a settlement to be made. Now, when Mr. Smith declares martial law he arrests leading members of our organization and talks about liquidating spokesmen of that organization, or whatever they are, he can`t be talking about peace, he`s talking about war. So Mr. Nkomo would be, actually, derelict in his duties if he talked optimistically about such a meeting when in fact the party`s being destroyed.

MacNEIL: Well, let`s look at the other side of it. The incident that of course led to the partial martial law was the shooting down of the airliner, which has inflamed, understandably, white opinion in Rhodesia. Mr. Nkomo acknowledges that his forces shot down the plane but denies that his forces executed the ten passengers who were survivors on the ground.. If his forces did not do it, who did it?

NDLOVU: We don`t know. As far as we know...

MacNEIL: Who could have done it, if his forces didn`t do it?

NDLOVU: You see, first of all, we`ve never been shown the bodies of the people that are supposed to have been executed. What we know is that our forces shot down the plane because that plane has been ferrying Rhodesian troops into the Victoria Falls and Kariba Lake area. We believe that we control that area, the rural part of that area. And if the Rhodesians want to behave like Alice in Wonderland and keep sending tourists to an area which they are not really in control of, then they are sacrificing these people and these people must be told that it is not safe to go into that area unless, of course, they go with the understanding that the guerrillas are going to take action against them. So we reject completely any chance that we executed those people, and I know that some news media here ran a story that I had admitted this, which was an absurdity because I didn`t even remember making a statement like that.

MacNEIL: Well, the plane incident has obviously changed the situation quite a lot. Let`s ask Mr. Towsey. Does the Rhodesian government, Mr. Towsey, have any evidence as to who might have performed the execution?

TOWSEY: There is an eyewitness account of the shooting of the survivors of the aircraft accident. One man and his wife and another single man who managed to escape the massacre witnessed the whole scene: the arrival of nine terrorists armed with automatic rifles; an indication at first that they were ready to be helpful to the survivors; then a statement that "You have stolen our land, we`re going to kill you;" they were herded together, shot down -- mostly women, two children, one aged four, one eleven, one woman bayoneted in the process -- a very horrifying spectacle for the survivors.

MacNEIL: But does the information your government has indicate the identity of those guerrillas?

TOWSEY: Not precisely, but it is territory in which Mr. Nkomo`s forces are known to be operative.

MacNEIL: But you deny that Mr. Nkomo`s forces performed this.

NDLOVU: We deny it completely. And I don`t want to get into this, but we don`t put anything beyond the Rhodesian regime when it comes to trying to discredit the guerrillas. And they`ve been using an outfit which is called the Selous Scouts; I`m not saying they`re the ones who did it, but some of the savage acts of atrocity actually committed by the Selous Scouts far exceed in barbarity what we are talking about just now. So I would say I don`t think that unless these people can produce incontestable evidence that we did it and they have the names of the people or the group, we`re going to be accepting such type of speculation.

MacNEIL: Do you and Mr. Nkomo now believe that shooting down the plane was a grave political mistake?

NDLOVU: No, it was not.We don`t believe it was a mistake. It was unfortunate to the extent that many innocent civilians were killed; but to the extent that these civilians knew that that area is part of a frozen zone, it is not our fault. In other words, in a war situation like this, people must understand that if they fly over an area which is under the sway of the enemy they probably are risking their lives. So that we don`t take pride in the death of anybody, even including our enemies; but I think it is absolutely necessary that Mr. Smith and his people must actually stop behaving like Alice in Wonderland and realize that they`re fighting a war. You see, there`s a sense in which racism here comes into play. You see, the Smith people have never believed that Africans are capable of shooting down a plane, nor are they even capable of recognizing that there`s a war. This is why our people who are captured are executed; they are not even given the prisoner of war status. Now, that is worse, actually, than the killing of these people and the continued execution of people that are at war with Smith. So you see, as long as Smith doesn`t recognize that we are at war with him and that we are actually combatants at war who must be given the prisoner of war status, he can expect that this war is going to be bloody and nasty.

MacNEIL: What`s your comment on that, Mr. Towsey?

TOWSEY: Well, I`d like to go back to an earlier remark that Mr. Ndlovu made about attributing atrocities to the Selous Scouts. That`s quite absurd. There are a great many newsmen in Rhodesia who`ve seen the facts, who`ve seen the evidence as a result of atrocities of this kind. Ballistics tests have frequently proved that the bullets fired have come from the rifles of terrorists who`ve been subsequently captured. I don`t think anybody believes the story about Selous Scout atrocities. I`d just like to make one other point, though. Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Ndlovu do seem to be saying that it will be a deliberate act of policy on the part of their forces to attack civilian aircraft.

MacNEIL: Yes; Mr. Nkomo said that yesterday. He warned that other Air Rhodesia planes could be shot down.

NDLOVU: No, we are saying that any plane that is going to fly over the territory that we control, without any clearance and without any proper identification, is likely to be shot down.

MacNEIL: Any plane of any kind, or just the Air Rhodesia?

NDLOVU: We`re talking about Air Rhodesia. You see, if Air Rhodesia, which ferries troops, is going to be using these planes into the area that we control -- and this is a fact, we do control that area, the rural part of it -- they can expect that it will be shot. And that`s why Mr. Nkomo issued a warning to all civilians to stay away from those planes. But you see, if they use their planes in areas they control, that`s not our business. We have nothing to do with it. We`re not going to allow the Rhodesian regime to be, as I say, pretending that there`s no war, when in fact they`re killing twenty Africans per day. And as I`ve told you, they don`t recognize prisoners of war in their treatment of blacks that they capture in the war. And if this is a civilized standard, then I don`t know what civilization is.

MacNEIL: All right. Well, let`s move on; thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Now for the perspective of a non-participant, a former American diplomat and expert on African affairs, Dr. Michael Samuels, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the African nation of Sierra Leone. He`s now the Executive Director for the Third World Studies at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. Mr. Samuels, you talked to some folks over at the State Department today. Are they still hopeful that the all parties conference can still come off?

MICHAEL SAMUELS: The State Department still does have the hope that they can bring about an all parties conference. They feel very strongly this is the only way of the present impasse. They`re hopeful; they`re sitting quietly, though, for the next couple of weeks to wait and see how the air`s going to clear, but they have indications that they should continue along this way when they get around to returning actively to diplomacy.

LEHRER: But don`t all the indications point the other way at this point?

SAMUELS: Not necessarily. It`s reasonably clear that all parties realize that some outside intervention is necessary. The parties are still willing to talk to the British and American diplomats when they visit the capitals, when they talk with the leaders; the Front Line states realize the importance of the Anglo-American initiative as the intermediary between groups that aren`t necessarily talking to one an another, so there is at- least that much hope. That`s officially, at least. There is an awful lot of disappointment and discouragement among those who`ve been working very hard to try to bring about some kind of solution to this problem.

LEHRER: Do they see the alternative to an all parties conference as all-out war and bloodshed?

SAMUELS: Yes; pretty much so. Otherwise there`s nothing on the agenda.

LEHRER: But it`s very unlikely that the forces of Smith and the forces of Nkomo, as has been indicated just from what we`ve heard tonight, are going to be able to work it out among themselves without somebody from the outside.

SAMUELS: It`s hard to believe now that Nkomo could enter a settlement on his own. One of the hopes had been that Nkomo could possibly break from his colleagues in the Patriotic Front and perhaps even be brought in with the ditching of Sithole and Muzorewa. I think that is no longer viewed as a possibility, and so they`ve got to go back to the idea of the Patriotic Front being more unified than it was before and viewing an all parties conference as the only approach.

LEHRER: Is the U.S. still adamant in its position that Mugabe and Nkomo must be included in the government if it`s going to work?

SAMUELS: The U.S. position really is that the internal settlement has been a failure and that any kind. of final agreement must come about as a result of all the parties talking to one another.

LEHRER: A failure on what grounds, in what way? SAMUELS: I think they believe that both the whites and the blacks agree that the internal settlement has not worked. Smith himself has gone to see Nkomo in Lusaka. There`s a lot of indication that Muzorewa is unhappy with the situation; Sitole was the person who first brought out into the public the fact that Smith went to talk to Nkomo. There`s a lot of unhappiness. The whites feel that they`ve been let down because the black partners of the internal settlement have not been able to stop the war. The blacks themselves realize that they have not been able to stop the war and that the Patriotic Front has been much more successful in maintaining the allegiance of the guerrillas than they had originally thought. So there`s a reasonable realization that -- both in terms of the warfare and especially, perhaps, in terms of the hopes for elections; now it seems very unlikely that elections could be held this year -- that the transitional government has not really worked.

LEHRER: Mr. Towsey, I take it you would disagree with that assessment.

TOWSEY: Yes, I would. I think it`s premature to write off the internal settlement as a failure; I don`t think it`s proved itself either a failure or a success at this time, it`s still an ongoing venture. It`s been extremely disappointing that there hasn`t been a greater response to the appeal for cease-fire and amnesty. I think the reasons for that are not far to seek; I think they lie in the failure of the West to give greater support to the internal settlement. I think the reason why the men with the guns have not come in in as large numbers as we might have hoped they would was (a) that amnesty doesn`t enter into their scheme of thinking, they`re very suspicious that if they put down their arms and come in they will suffer an unfortunate fate; secondly, they perceive that the West is continuing to give hostility to the Salisbury government. This talk of neutrality is ridiculous; the West is waging war -- economic warfare -- against the government in Salisbury. The men with the guns can perceive that, they can perceive that the Patriotic Front is receiving unrestrained support from the Soviets. In those circumstances a prudent man might think twice about burning his boats.

LEHRER: Mr. Ndlovu, let me ask you, do you perceive the situation right now that you`re being supported both by the West, as Mr. Towsey says, and by the Russians, too?

NDLOVU: No. I mean, I don`t know where he gets his information from. As far as we are concerned, we have not received any support from the West. In fact...

LEHRER: I don`t think he`s referring to support in terms of supplies and that sort of thing -- he means diplomatic-public support.

NDLOVU: We don`t have any diplomatic support. What the West has been trying to do all this time is to bring about a solution that would actually protect the interests of the West but also protect the interests of Ian Smith. The trouble is that while Ian Smith actually represents the West, there`s a sense in which he has some degree of autonomy; and when he exercises that autonomy like a bull in a china shop, he from time to time destroys what the West is trying to do for him, so we don`t see the West trying to help us.

LEHRER: You don`t see them as trying to help you, insisting on Mugabe and Nkomo being involved in the government and not supporting the internal settlement?

NDLOVU: Even if the West recognized Smith today, they couldn`t change the character and the costs of war. There`s no way they could, because first of all they never supported us before, and it is only now that they`ve developed a more sophisticated approach, which says that in order to protect your interests you don`t necessarily demonstrate against your enemy. And it doesn`t necessarily mean that they`re supporting us. So we don`t concede that that`s support in any form.

LEHRER: Ambassador Samuels, how do you explain this? Both sides see the West, and particularly the United States, as an enemy rather than as a helper in this situation, and you say yet they must help resolve it.

SAMUELS: I think the United States sees itself in a real bind. If there is no all parties agreement, if there`s no peaceful solution, then a war will continue. And in a war situation it`s reasonably clear that the Soviet Union and her allies will successfully provide military support on the side of the Patriotic Front. For various reasons the United States is very unlikely to provide military support to either side. Therefore we find a situation where one side is likely to be supported by an adversary of the United States and we sit by with our hands tied. There`s not much we can do about it; therefore, we`ve got to go all out to try to bring about something short of a protracted guerrilla warfare, or else our interests lose out.

LEHRER: What does the Smith government want the United States to do now, Mr. Towsey?

TOWSEY: I would think it should use its leverage with the leaders of the Patriotic Front -- and I have in mind particularly Mr. Nkomo -to join in the internal solution, to take their chances at the ballot box along with the other members of the transitional government. Mr. Ndlovu was saying earlier that he maintains that Mr. Nkomo has a great deal of support outside the Matabele group; in that case, why not test it at the ballot box?

LEHRER: Why not, Mr. Ndlovu?

NDLOVU: Well, I mean, you see, elections are not just an end in themselves; elections are a means to an end. We don`t accept the structure that was agreed upon between Smith and his blacksmiths. As far as we`re concerned, that agreement is completely unacceptable. If Mr. Smith wants Mr. Nkomo to test his popularity, he`ll have to accept an arrangement which we believe authentically transfers power to the majority. It`s not a question of just going for elections under any circumstances; we have to look at the institutions that control Rhodesia today, which have not been changed by the so-called March 3rd agreement.

LEHRER: We have to leave it there. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thank you very much, Mr. Towsey and Dr. Samuels; and thank you, Mr. Ndlovu. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight; we`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.