Tragic and Fateful Decision

"The deal is off!"

With that terse announcement, followed by a long sad sigh, British Negotiator Ivor Richard last week formally acknowledged what was already apparent. Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith had rejected a British proposal for achieving black majority rule within 14 months. That plan envisioned a 32-man interim government of blacks and whites, with a British "commissioner" at its head (TIME, Jan. 17). Since the commissioner would have a decisive vote and broad discretionary powers to alter the racial makeup of the group, Smith dismissed the idea as "political suicide." He insisted instead on Henry Kissinger's proposal of a balanced black-white council of state operating over a two-year period. The two schemes, Smith told a radio-TV audience last week, were "as different as chalk and cheese." Black African leaders, however, have viewed the Kissinger plan--or at least Smith's interpretation of it--as merely a starting point for negotiation.

Richard called Smith's decision "tragic and fateful." The Briton had reached cautious accord with leaders of the five black "frontline" countries surrounding Rhodesia--Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola. He had also talked with four black nationalist leaders, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo of the hard-line Patriotic Front, and the more moderate Bishop Abel Muzorewa and the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole. Only Smith, said Richard, had balked completely. "Smith wants to settle on his own terms. That's not settlement by negotiation. That's settlement by ultimatum."

Without negotiations of some sort, a guerrilla war that last year alone claimed 2,500 lives is likely to continue and broaden dangerously. Intelligence reports indicate that at least 500 Cuban and Soviet military advisers are already training Patriotic Front guerrillas in Mozambique. Some guerrillas have been taken to East bloc countries for advanced instruction. To ward off the Rhodesian air force, which has been effective against the guerrillas, surface-to-air missiles are being shipped in by the Soviets. White Rhodesians, too, appear to be gearing for war. More and more "boomers"--soldiers of fortune harking to the boom of guns--are turning up in Salisbury.

Schoolboy Terrorists. For the moment at least, Smith is still talking peace. Last week he declared that he would now seek an internal solution with moderate representatives of Zimbabwe, the black nationalists' name for Rhodesia. Argued Smith: "Why should a few thousand terrorists, the majority of them mere schoolboys, call the tune to 6 million basically peaceful and peace-loving Africans?" To demonstrate good faith, his government prepared to announce the repeal of discrimination laws, specifically the Land Tenure Act, which restricts the 6.2 million blacks and 271,000 whites to roughly equal halves of the land.

Smith also indicated that he would seek support from the U.S. He obviously feels that Washington will back him rather than permit Marxists to infiltrate yet another area of Africa. So as not to raise Smith's hopes, the State Department took the extraordinary step of "volunteering" a statement on the U.S. position. That view, succinctly put, was that Smith's internal solution "will not produce a peaceful settlement and therefore does not have the support of the U.S." U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, on the eve of a six-day trip to the area, said that "I think we've had more than our share of trying to get in and run other people's affairs." Ian Smith will no doubt understand that message.

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