Britain urged: convene talks

The Rhodesia Herald

September 13 1976

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT has been urged to call for a new multiracial Rhodesian constitutional conference which is properly represented, not just by the Rhodesian Front and one wing of the African National Council.

This was suggested by Professor Desmond Reader, Professor of Sociology at the University of Rhodesia, at a Press conference at the Moral Re-Armament office in London last week.

Professor Reader, who was on his way from the Moral Re-Armament World Assembly in Switzerland, believed that such a conference would succeed in reaching a negotiated settlement.

“It would be a magnificent opportunity for Britain to intervene in a most statesmanlike way for peace,” he said.

He expressed horror at the extent to which British opinion felt that Rhodesia was an insoluble problem and that “279 000 people were expendable”.

He added: “If we have reached this ethical view of mankind, when we become mere pawns in the face of events, it’s time to remind ourselves that it is people who count and who change events.”

Professor Reader said there was a substantial number of voiceless people in Rhodesia who wanted to work together and to reach across the colour line but were not being heard.

Public voices that shouted majority rule tomorrow, or majority rule never in a thousand years, did not reflect the private convictions of those who expressed them.

He told the conference that he and an ANC executive member on his staff organised a series of dinners for ANC еxеcutive members and RF back-benchers.

“From these dinners, I learnt for the first time the intense hurt black men feel when their dignity is affronted. I also found the degree of private latitude both sides have for negotiations,” he said.

Lessons for today

The purpose of the conference was an attempt to agree on a new constitution for Rhodesia, and in doing so, find a way to end the Bush War raging between the government and the guerrillas commanded by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo respectively.

The Geneva Conference had its origins in the South African “détente” policy instituted in late 1974, and more directly in the peace initiative headed by the United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, earlier in 1976.

This constitution would have to result in majority rule at the end of the two-year interim period. This plan was supported by Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere, the presidents of Zambia and Tanzania respectively, which South African Prime Minister B. J. Vorster said guaranteed its acceptance by the black nationalists.