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The Rhodesia Herald
November 12, 1965
NEW YORK. — The 36 African nations will ask the United Nations Security Council to declare “as soon as possible” that the UDI by Rhodesia has created a threat to international peace and security requiring the application of sanctions, the Secretary-General of the Organisation for African Unity Mr D. Telli, said today.
The African group decided to counter Britain’s request for a Security Council meeting with their own appeal.
Meanwhile, an emergency resolution was tabled by African sponsors to have the General Assembly formally condemn the UDI.
Both moves would invite Britain to “apply without delay” the provisions of pertinent previous resolutions of the Assembly and of the Security Council.
These include two appeals within the past month for the use of force, if necessary, and for economic and diplomatic sanctions.
The draft was expected to be considered at an afternoon meeting of the Assembly’s Trusteeship Committee. If adopted, as seems certain, the Assembly might be called into plenary session tonight.
Word of the impending move was relayed to the Security Council by Mr A Usher (Cote d’ Ivoire), its only African member.
Mr FO Sanz, of Bolivia, the president, said the Council would meet tomorrow at 5.30 pm (Rhodesian time) at Britain’s initiative, “unless unforeseen circumstances warrant a session earlier”.
Lord Caradon, Britain’s chief delegate, formally asked the council to defer debate until tomorrow for the Foreign Secretary, Mr Stewart, to arrive. Lord Caradon said: “The statement my Foreign Secretary wished to make in this Council will be a factor in the situation of great importance.”
Informed sources said Mr Stewart would ask for the Council’s support and endorsement of the measures announced in Parliament today by Mr Wilson.
Sanctions could only be effective if they were enforced on a world-wide basis and the attitude of Portugal and South Africa is considered to be crucial, they said.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
- The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was a statement announced and adopted by the Rhodesian Cabinet on November 11, 1965.
- Economic challenges in Zimbabwe today are a result of illegal economic sanctions that were imposed on her by the United States and the United Kingdom, and it must be applauded that SADC and the AU have denounced the embargoes.
- Ian Douglas Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia’s independence from Britain on November 11, 1965 and went on to serve as a rebel prime minister of Rhodesia from 1965 to 1979, in his attempts to preserve white minority rule.
- Smith is on record as having declared that there would never be majority rule in his life-time, but ironically, he lived almost a third of his life under a majority-rule elected Government before he died in a South African hospital on November 20, 2007.
- It must be noted that when it was in the British and American interests, they wanted the punitive measures they imposed on the Smith regime to be supported by the United Nations, which is not the case with their illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe. They are illegal because they are not backed by the UN.
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