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 executive members and RF back-benchers.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

The purpose of the conference was to attempt to agree on a new constitution for Rhodesia and in doing so find a way to end the war of liberation that was raging between the government of the day and the guerrillas, under the leadership of Cdes Mugabe and 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  US Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger, earlier in 1976.

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