NORTHERN RHODESIA: Another Kenya?

For weeks, murder and arson have terrorized the African settlements in the countryside around modern Lusaka (pop. 70,000). One native woman died in agony after thugs sprinkled her with gasoline and set her afire. Gangs roamed the countryside burning 23 huts in six weeks and leaving five more Africans dead. It began after the fledgling United National Independence Party tested its strength with a call to all Africans to boycott the municipal beer halls. When this failed, the arson wave began against African families who refused to support the beer-hall ban.

The U.N.I.P. is an extremist party that has sprung up since the British governor banned the militant Zambia Congress and jailed its leader, 35-year-old Kenneth Kaunda. An ascetic who once lived for weeks on roots and berries on a wild hillside, Kaunda says, "Africans are treated like dogs, and it is time they showed their teeth." He and his first lieutenant, Munukayumbwa Sipalo, are heroes to nationalists, who share their antiwhite views ("A two-legged thing whose color is white must be hated," Sipalo told a meeting before he too was jailed).

A model prisoner, Kaunda finishes his jail term in January, and at that point, Northern Rhodesia's governor, Sir Evelyn Hone, expects trouble to begin. Last week he prepared to have enacted a new "public security" bill that will give him more drastic powers than any colonial governor has ever had in a British territory not in a state of war or emergency. The governor would be able to control the territory's press, prohibit meetings, conscript labor and supplies, and detain troublemakers without trial. "It is with no enthusiasm that we who have been nurtured in the tradition of English law are compelled to introduce such measures," said Sir Evelyn, but the British strongly fear that Northern Rhodesia may yet become another Kenya.