RHODESIA: Blueprint for Black Power-Maybe

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Under increasing pressure, Smith decides to strike a deal

" It is a victory for moderation," beamed Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith last week. Standing on the sunny lawn of a red brick civil service building in Salisbury, Smith announced that he and three black nationalist leaders had reached agreement on a formula for black majority rule in Rhodesia. The proposal, which came after 2½ months of almost daily negotiations, would bring to an end 90 years of white rule in the breakaway British colony, something Smith himself only a few years ago vowed would never happen "in a thousand years."

Many details, particularly on the makeup of a transition government, remain to be worked out. Moreover, the plan must be ratified in a referendum by Rhodesia's white voters. The proposal does, however, lay out the basic blueprint for a constitution, offering both new voting rights to the country's 6.4 million blacks and strong guarantees to its 268,000 whites. Chief among the stipulations is a new 100-seat Parliament, in which 28 seats would be reserved for whites for ten years, most to be elected under a formula that ensures domination by Smith's own Rhodesian Front Party.

The three black leaders—Bishop Abel Muzorewa, 52; the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, 57; and Senator Jeremiah Chirau, 54—are generally conceded to command a broad following among Rhodesia's blacks. Muzorewa, an American-educated Methodist minister and leader of the United African National Council, was welcomed back by a crowd of 200,000 in Salisbury last year, when he decided to return from his self-imposed exile to help work out a settlement. Sithole (who was traveling and thus was represented at last week's talks by a colleague, Elliot Gabella) does not enjoy Muzorewa's popularity, but he is considered to be a skillful political tactician. He also commands considerable financial resources from big London-based donors. Senator Chirau has the firmest political base among the conservative tribal chiefs, who still influence millions of the country's blacks.

A major difficulty, however, is the fact that the proposed settlement does not include representatives of the Patriotic Front, which has some 17,000 guerrillas in neighboring Mozambique and Zambia engaged in a war of attrition with the Smith government. As expected, Front Leaders Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe castigated the internal settlement plan and vowed to step up the fighting. "We are going to hit each other hard," Nkomo said ominously after the announcement last week. "We intend to finish [Smith] up."

The settlement may pose a sticky dilemma for the U.S. and Britain, which have been trying to negotiate a transfer of power in Rhodesia that would include Nkomo and Mugabe. British Foreign Secretary David Owen, for example, has been sharply critical of the talks between Salisbury and the moderate black nationalists. But last week he responded to a barrage of Tory questions in the House of Commons by conceding that the agreement is "a significant step toward majority rule."