by Guy Arnold
1 The principle and intention of unimpeded progress to majority rule, already enshrined in the 1961 constitution, would have to be maintained and guaranteed.
2 There would also have to be guarantees against retrogressive amendments to the constitution.
3 There would have to be immediate improvements in the political status of the African population.
4 There would have to be progress towards ending racial discrimination.
5 The British Government would need to be satisfied that any basis for independence was acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole.
6 It would be necessary to ensure that, regardless of race, there was no oppression of majority by minority or of minority by majority.
These proposals would clearly leave the white settlers in full control of the country into the foreseeable future. It was calculated that Africans under these conditions might achieve majority power over 50 years.
The question of the use of force by Britain now moved to the centre of the debate. No minority in history possessing economic, political and social power and prestige ever willingly surrenders these advantages to the majority; it has to be coerced. There was always only one method open to Britain to do this: to place armed forces in Rhodesia and take back political control. The year preceding UDI witnessed growing African anger that Britain was clearly not ready to use force against the Rhodesian minority on behalf of the four million strong African population of the colony, although in November 1964 the Americans and Belgians had used force to rescue a handful of whites in the Congo. On 24 October 1964 Britain’s new Commonwealth Secretary, Arthur Bottomley, attended the Zambian independence celebrations where he had every opportunity to sound out African opinion although on his return to London he said that the use of force against the Rhodesians was not being considered ‘at the moment’. He also said of the Rhodesian nationalists, ‘like all people who are struggling to get their rights, if you are not allowed to do it by lawful means sometimes other methods have to be employed’. At least Bottomley kept Britain’s options open. But Africans argued that Britain had used force in Kenya, Aden, British Guyana, so why not in Rhodesia? The demand for the use of force became steadily more insistent.
THE UNILATERAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (UDI)
On 11 November 1965 Rhodesia’s white minority government made its unilateral declaration of independence. In a radio broadcast Ian Smith said: ‘We Rhodesians have rejected the doctrinaire philosophy of appeasement and surrender. The decision which we have taken today is a refusal by Rhodesians to sell their birthright. And, even if we were to surrender, does anyone believe that Rhodesia would be the last target of the Communists in the Afro-Asian bloc? We have struck a blow for the preservation of justice, civilization and Christianity; and in the spirit of this belief we have this day assumed our sovereign independence. God bless you all.’
In Britain there was to be much pretence of tough action but none of it was going to alter what was happening on the ground in Central Africa. The despatch of a squadron of RAF Javelins to Zambia in December 1965 for defensive purposes only gave heart to opponents of Smith and angered pro-Smith Tories. But in the House of Commons, when pressed by the Tory leader Edward Heath, Wilson gave the real explanation: ‘It is a fact that if we have to maintain the position that we have asserted, that Rhodesia is our responsibility, we should do everything in our power to prevent the stationing of other forces in Zambia, wherever they may come from, as a means of providing air cover for President Kaunda.’9 As Kaunda soon realized, their purpose was to pre-empt alternatives and not to threaten Smith.
On 3 December 1965 a meeting of the OAU was called in Addis Ababa to consider the Rhodesia crisis; unfortunately, it did more to demonstrate African disunity than to put pressure upon the illegal Rhodesian regime. Some African leaders wanted to send an OAU force to the Zambezi but the British Javelins were already in place to forestall such a move, to the relief of many OAU delegates. In its communiqué the OAU claimed that UDI had been proclaimed ‘with the connivance of the government of Britain’ and asserted that the OAU had determined to bring an end to the Smith regime though it did not explain how this would be done. The one precise commitment made by the OAU was a call for all the 35 states represented at Addis Ababa to break diplomatic relations with Britain on 15 December if it had not by then ended the Rhodesian rebellion. In the event only 11 African states broke diplomatic relations with Britain. Nigeria refused to do so on the grounds that it would not achieve anything; Somalia borrowed a guide to diplomatic practice from the British embassy in Mogadishu to ascertain how to break relations with Britain; President Nyerere of Tanzania did break relations with Britain and lost £7 million aid then in the pipeline for his pains.
The next development on the diplomatic front came on 11 January 1966 when 19 Commonwealth countries met in Lagos for a special summit to consider Rhodesia. Wilson initially was reluctant to go and said off-handedly that he ‘might drop in’ but he went and scored a tactical triumph. He presented the meeting with forecasts of the Department of Economic Affairs on the likely impact of sanctions. In their final communiqué the Commonwealth leaders said: ‘The Prime Ministers noted the statement by the British Prime Minister that on the expert advice available to him, the cumulative effects of the economic and financial sanctions might well bring the rebellion to an end within a matter of weeks rather than months.’ A number of those present clearly did not believe this assessment. However, despite British threats of financial action and sanctions, the key lay with South Africa. Two days after UDI South Africa’s Prime Minister, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, said: ‘We will continue to deal with one another in economic and other matters as before.’ Once it had become plain that UDI would take place, Verwoerd knew that from South Africa’s point of view sanctions must not be allowed to take effect for if they could be made to work against Rhodesia they might later also be applied successfully against apartheid South Africa. Meanwhile, the imposition of a naval blockade by Wilson on the Mozambique port of Beira from which an oil pipeline ran to Umtali (Mutare) in Rhodesia was seen almost at once to be a farce since Rhodesia was obtaining all the oil it needed through Lourenco Marques (Maputo) or South Africa. Moreover, half the oil delivered at Lourenco Marques arrived in British tankers, whose owners were defying sanctions and claiming the oil was destined for the Portuguese in Mozambique.
On 15 October 1964 the British Labour party had won a narrow electoral majority and formed the new government and through to March 1966 Wilson had often used the excuse of this tiny majority to explain away his cautious actions over Rhodesia, especially as it was a topic on which the Tory opposition was especially pressing and hostile. However, on the last day of March 1966 Wilson had won a second election, which gave him a majority of 100. Kaunda, who to that point had been fooled by Wilson, told his cabinet colleagues: ‘Now you will see. Harold will do the right thing.’ What Wilson did in April was initiate a series of secret visits to Salisbury by high-ranking civil servants to conduct what became known as ‘talks about talks’. Arthur Bottomley, the Commonwealth Secretary who had not been consulted, was amazed at Wilson’s action and warned him that there would be a furious African reaction, which there was. The talks represented a major retreat by Wilson from the apparently strong stand he had taken to that date. Bottomley was not intellectually brilliant but he was honest. Wilson moved him from the Commonwealth Office shortly afterwards and then dropped him altogether in 1967. When it became clear in Lusaka that Wilson was no longer treating Smith as a traitor but talking with him in order to work out a face-saving deal for the British government, Kaunda was appalled and from that time lost his faith and trust in Wilson. Kaunda had first heard the news of the ‘talks about talks’ on a BBC broadcast, which had increased his anger, but in any case, once Wilson had his majority of 100 he no longer felt the need to appease Kaunda and treated him with indifference if not contempt. Kaunda reacted by describing Britain’s handling of the Rhodesian crisis as ‘shifty an
d evasive’ – he meant Wilson.
It had been agreed at Lagos that a full Commonwealth Conference would be held in July 1966 but Wilson now tried to delay this to September and in May despatched Malcolm Macdonald, Britain’s ‘special representative’, to persuade African leaders to allow the delay to September. In Lusaka, however, he was met by an angry and distrusting Kaunda and failed to mollify him. Kaunda threatened that Zambia would leave the Commonwealth but this only earned him the retort from Wilson that British assistance in implementing sanctions might be withdrawn. Another dimension was added to the London–Lusaka row when in 1967 Ali Simbule, an old-style Zambian nationalist, was appointed High Commissioner to London from his post in Dar es Salaam. Asked in Tanzania what he thought of UDI, he said Britain was shirking her moral and constitutional responsibilities and then added, in a memorable phrase, ‘Britain is a humbled, toothless bulldog, wagging its tail in front of Rhodesia Premier Ian Smith and fearing him like hell.’ The British Government reacted furiously and demanded an apology but none was forthcoming and at the end of May Simbule went to London anyway, thus making his point.10
During the years 1964–67 both Zambia and the Rhodesian Africans had hoped for outside action – by Britain, the United Nations or the OAU – but by 1967 such hopes had evaporated and a ZAPU representative could say: ‘At no time in history has a police state peacefully given up the reins of control… One way remains – the African people must use force to achieve majority rule. Force by the African people will be promptly replied to by the regime’s security forces. The conflict can thus not be limited and will inevitably escalate into civil war. This is the tragedy of the Rhodesian crisis.’11
SANCTIONS, TALKS AND GUERRILLAS
The first British response to UDI was to impose limited sanctions in November 1965 and further sanctions in December 1966, which were endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. At the same time the ‘kith and kin’ argument, always somewhat spurious, was used as one of the reasons why Britain could not use force in Rhodesia, though it was never explained why, if white British troops who were sent to Rhodesia would not fire on their white Rhodesian kith and kin why the latter would fire on their British kith and kin. Nonetheless, there were many Britons at the time who were pro-Smith and the white minority. Meanwhile, despite Wilson’s statement at Lagos that sanctions would work in a matter of weeks rather than months, other appraisals suggested at the very least it would be a long haul. ‘The United Nations mandatory sanctions on Rhodesian exports effectively applied, even only to those selected items – asbestos, iron ore, chrome, copper, meat and meat products, hides, skins and leather – might eventually be another matter. But even these could only be effective if South Africa’s links with Rhodesia were broken and the Zambian market completely closed. In 1967 neither seemed particularly likely…’12 By 1969 the most obvious result of sanctions had been the diversification of the Rhodesian economy. Moreover, the apparent lack of forward planning by Britain gave the impression that the government was not serious in its attempts to bring down the illegal regime. This British attitude probably influenced the attitudes of UN member states and other nations outside the UN, such as Switzerland, West Germany and Japan, to the imposition of UN mandatory sanctions, introduced as they were in two stages more than 12 months and 30 months respectively after UDI.13 On the other hand, the Rhodesian regime had taken many anticipatory actions prior to the imposition of sanctions. These had included moving foreign reserves out of London and Switzerland in anticipation of Britain blocking them, while stocks of vital goods had been built up inside Rhodesia. However, South Africa became Rhodesia’s lifeline and, for example, held Rhodesia’s foreign reserves. At the same time the regime benefited from Zambia’s dependence on imports coming through it and the need to export copper via Rhodesia. Even so, Zambia managed to reduce its imports through Rhodesia from £35.5 million in 1965 to £23.2 million in 1966 and down to £12 million by 1968. Although arguments about the impact and effectiveness, or non-effectiveness, of sanctions and the extent to which sanctions busting was carried out became part of the ongoing Rhodesia story, the difficulties of exporting encountered by the regime were enormous. In the end it was South Africa, which in its own terms could not allow sanctions to work, that ensured the regime’s survival. South Africa was Rhodesia’s main source of petroleum.
The most revealing aspect of the talks about talks and the two set-piece meetings between Wilson and Smith on HMS Tiger and HMS Fearless was that the Labour party hierarchy in Britain was prepared, and in some quarters anxious, to support what was very clearly a political surrender to the hard-line white racists in Salisbury. No one in the British Cabinet resigned or, as far as is known, even contemplated doing so as a protest at policies that in theory if not in practice went against Labour principles. In December 1966 Wilson met Smith on board HMS Tiger and put forward proposals under which Smith could return to legality. The key points of the ‘Tiger’ settlement were a new Independence Constitution which would establish an open road, which could not be blocked or impeded, for African political advancement to majority rule within a reasonable period of years; the essential parts of the Constitution to be protected by the most effective possible safeguards to prevent changes which could stop or impede this advancement; and that any Independence Constitution on these lines must be demonstrated by appropriate democratic means to be acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. This in fact would have given Smith the legality to do what he was doing anyway without the burden of sanctions. From an African viewpoint it represented a total sell-out. Smith rejected it. Despite this, two years later, in November 1968, Wilson arranged the meeting on HMS Fearless and proposed even more shameful terms that included dropping the Six Principles. As his political colleague Richard Crossman was to observe, Wilson was thrilled at the prospect of the ‘Fearless’ meeting, ‘longing to be off, loving having the press all round him, loving being the centre of world attention, feeling that at last he must win when he faces Smith eyeball to eyeball’. It was a maliciously accurate picture of the Prime Minister.14 This second attempt to achieve a settlement would have given Smith legal independence on a series of promises that the Six Principles would be met, which they would not. Smith again said no.
At the time of the Fearless talks Wilson tried to obtain African support and three ZANU leaders – Sithole, Leopold Takawira and Robert Mugabe – were brought from detention to the Officers’ Mess at New Sarum Air Force Base for a meeting with the Commonwealth Secretary George Thomson and the Minister of State Maurice Foley to secure ZANU approval for the Fearless offer. After the meeting Sithole smuggled out of prison to London a document denouncing the Fearless proposals as ‘an attempt to sell the inalienable right to self-determination of the 5,000,000 Africans of the country to the 220,000 white settlers. The proposals are unacceptable as a basis for any constitution’. At the meeting Takawira ridiculed the Labour government’s sensitivity to the use of force and Thomson replied, weakly: ‘The reason for not using force is that it would be an invasion. It would have to be done from Zambia if it were decided to use it. We have no near base. We had one in Aden, but we no longer have it. The reason is that the whole of Southern Africa would be plunged in a war. There would be lots of bloodshed. It is easy to start a war. But a war is like a bushfire, which once it has started flares up and spreads. You don’t know where it will end.’15 In a devastating editorial, the Observer castigated the Fearless proposals as follows: ‘Though the immediate effects of an agreement with the Smith regime might be only the loss of all the non-white members of the Commonwealth, a handful of British embassies and libraries burnt by angry African crowds and perhaps some British firms expropriated by African governments – the long-term impact would be likely to be infinitely more damaging. It could be the single act of policy which began an alienation of all African and most Asian countries from both Europe and America…’16 The editorial continued that if the proposals were accepted Africa would assume that all the West
was on the side of the white racists. In January 1969 Commonwealth leaders met in London at their delayed biennial summit and declared that the Fearless proposals were unacceptable. The British government accepted this position since Smith had in any case refused the proposals and saved Britain from the onus of having carried through a total sell-out.
Wilson’s performance over Rhodesia infuriated many of his supporters and delighted the Rhodesians who must have been amazed at their easy victory. Despite his own proclaimed anti-racism views Wilson always put political advantage at home first and was fearful of upsetting the ‘kith and kin’ lobby which was certainly vocal at the time. Moreover, the 1964 elections had seen the surprise victory of Peter Griffiths at Smethwick who had overturned a Labour majority of more than 7,000 to defeat the former Labour Commonwealth Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker with the slogan ‘If you want a nigger neighbour vote Labour’. Race issues clearly carried votes. Drama without objective appeared to be the hallmark of Wilson’s approach to Smith. In October 1965 Smith went to London at Wilson’s request more for form’s sake than anything else and at the end of the second day’s talks said the Rhodesians ‘had no option now but to take their independence’. Wilson’s reaction was to make an appeal on television: ‘I know I speak for everyone in these islands, all parties, all our people, when I say to Mr Smith, “Prime Minister, think again.”’17 It would be hard to think up a more fatuous way of responding to Smith. Ben Pimlott, Wilson’s biographer, paints an unsavoury picture of Wilson’s desperate scrabbling to obtain an agreement at almost any cost, making plain that the only principle motivating the Prime Minister was to show how clever he could be, but Smith proved his nemesis because he was uninterested in an agreement and knew he could obtain what he wanted by calling Wilson’s bluff which he did in no uncertain manner. On 19 October 1965 the Rhodesian Security Council secretly decided to declare independence ‘at the first opportunity’.18 Then, ‘On 30 October Wilson finally and irrevocably threw away “what little advantage he had”… in a fateful broadcast to the British nation and the world. In this he clearly announced: “If there are those in this country who are thinking in terms of a thunderbolt, hurtling through the sky and destroying their enemy, a thunderbolt in the shape of the Royal Air Force, let me say that this thunderbolt will not be coming.’ At this time, according to Smith’s Security Chief Ken Flower, ‘Smith was holding fewer cards at this stage, knowing that neither his Army nor his Air Force would oppose force with force.’19 So Wilson let pass one of the best ever opportunities for Britain to take the right action in Africa, in both moral and political terms, and gain the goodwill of its newly independent states to Britain’s long-term advantage. Instead, there followed 15 years of crisis, deep suspicion of Britain’s motives and accusations of racism, and a guerrilla war in which 30,000 people lost their lives.