ZIMBABWE RHODESIA: It Seems Like a Miracle

An agreement on a transition plan raises fresh hope for a final settlement

The breakthrough came at 10:15 last Thursday morning. Its import was discreetly disguised by the dry language that negotiators use. "In the light of the discussions we have had," said Robert Mugabe, co-leader of the Patriotic Front, "if you are prepared to include [our] forces in paragraph 13 of the British paper, we are able to agree to the interim proposals." Impassively, British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington said that a sentence would be added to the paragraph in question: "The Patriotic Front Forces will be required to comply with the directions of the Governor."

With that, Lord Carrington's face broke into a broad grin. After ten weeks of touch-and-go negotiations at London's Lancaster House, Mugabe and his fellow guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, had finally accepted a British-drafted plan for a transitional period leading to new elections and legal independence for the breakaway British colony. Endorsed two weeks ago by the biracial delegation of Salisbury's Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa, the plan will go into effect as soon as final agreement is reached on a cease-fire between the warring factions. At long last, an end to the seven-year-old civil war was definitely in sight. Said one senior British diplomat: "To those of us who have been trying to solve this problem for the past 14 years, it seems like a miracle."

The miracle was the result of weeks of brinkmanship bargaining. Faced with Carrington's tough demand that they take the plan or leave it, the Patriotic Front came under intense pressure from leaders of the front-line African states to give their assent. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, who flew to London last week to confer with the guerrillas and with the Thatcher government, was instrumental in persuading the Front to accept a compromise. Mugabe and Nkomo dropped their original demands for a share of political power and the integration of their military forces with Salisbury's army during the transition period. In exchange, Carrington satisfied their longstanding insistence on "equal status" with the Salisbury forces by including the sentence that the guerrillas would be subject to the orders of an interim British commander. Spokesmen for the Muzorewa delegation called the 15-word addendum a face-saving artifice to mask "a total capitulation by the Patriotic Front to the original British position." But the Front, according to a jubilant spokesman, took Carrington's statement to mean that "our forces now are lawful forces in the country. What more do we want?"

The new constitution eliminates most of the whites' entrenched privileges and reduces their guaranteed representation from 28 to 20 seats in Salisbury's 100-member Parliament. Moreover, Muzorewa's government is stepping down, and compensation for nationalized lands will be paid for out of an international fund. Partly at Kaunda's urging, Carrington last week even agreed to feed and house the guerrillas during the transition period.