Anxious for A New Start

"Cecil B. DeMille," cracked one Western visitor, "eat your heart out!" For five hours last week, 20,000 dancers, 5,000 camel drivers and 3,500 horsemen gathered in the city of Kaduna for one of the biggest celebrations in the history of northern Nigeria. On hand to watch it were eight visiting heads of state; their Nigerian host, Lieut. General Olusegun Obasanjo; and Andrew Young, Washington's new U.N. ambassador. Concluding his African odyssey, Young reached Nigeria in time to catch the finale of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture.

In Lagos, the Nigerian capital, Young caught one of the best shows of all, a dazzling performance by a collection of black dancers from all over the world (see color). More important, he managed to make the visit to Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation (estimated pop. 70 million), the most successful stop on his ten-day trip.

Ambiguous Talk. A fortnight earlier, Young had made several highly naive comments--about the "stabilizing" influence of the 13,000 Cuban troops still in Angola, for instance--that the State Department was busy "correcting" for some days thereafter. Following talks with several African heads of state who were attending a national celebration in Tanzania, Young spoke ambiguously at times about the role Britain should play in a Rhodesian settlement.

But in Nigeria, a country he had visited twice before, Young seemed to gain assurance. He was received with surprising warmth by General Obasanjo, who had refused to meet with Henry Kissinger last year, but promised Young his support "in his great task of bridging the wide gulf between the U.S. and Africa." Explaining the Nigerians' warmth toward him, Young said with a grin: "Nigeria is arrogant and Kissinger is arrogant, and so there was a clash. I may be just as arrogant, but I can control it better." Later he added, "They're anxious for a new start, and that's what I'm looking for too."

Unorthodox Encounter. At Obasanjo's urging, Young met with Angola's left-wing President Agostinho Neto, whose government the U.S. does not recognize. It was the first meeting between a high-level American official and the Angolan head of state since the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, headed by Neto, defeated the forces backed by the U.S. in the Angolan civil war. Given that background, Young seemed remarkably casual about the unorthodox encounter. The meeting itself was fairly cordial, but the two men disagreed on the subject that had preoccupied Young during most of his trip: whether majority rule could be achieved in Rhodesia by any means except armed struggle. Young said yes; Neto said no.

By last week's evidence alone, Neto would have to be declared the winner of the debate. While Nigerians staged the grandest celebrations since their independence in 1960, Rhodesia drifted ever further toward the outbreak of full-scale race war.

The mood was set by a shockingly savage act committed in the Rhodesian village of Musami, some 40 miles northeast of Salisbury. On Sunday evening, a dozen black guerrillas in battle dress descended on St. Paul's Mission School, hastily rounded up eight white priests and nuns and murdered seven of them in a nearby ditch with two automatic rifles and a light machine gun. The eighth missionary survived by allowing his body to fall alongside those of his dead and dying friends. "It was." said soft-spoken Father Dunstan Myerscough, 65. "a senseless, insane, brutal killing."

It was also, in many respects, a baffling one. The most prominent guerrilla group, the Patriotic Front headed by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, denied responsibility, though most white Rhodesians felt the Front--or some segment of it--was implicated. Blaming guerrillas whom he did not identify, the black Archbishop of Salisbury, the Most Rev. Patrick Chakaipa, called the mass murder "an evil act that makes a mockery of the ideals these people profess to serve." In Rhodesia, as in South Africa, the Catholics have often opposed the ruling white regime but nonetheless have been caught in the crossfire. Only two months ago, a retired bishop, a priest and a nun were slain on a remote Rhodesian road by a lone guerrilla.

If the latest murders were indeed the work of Patriotic Front guerrillas, the brutal act could hardly have been more ill-conceived. After months of indecision over which of the feuding Rhodesian nationalist groups to support, most African states have now endorsed the Patriotic Front. Both Britain and the U.S. are convinced that the Front must be directly involved in the formation of a transition government in order to end the armed struggle. But the massacre appeared to cast doubt on the Front as a responsible force, and strengthened Prime Minister Ian Smith's claim that it is composed of brutal, Communist-supported guerrillas with whom he cannot negotiate. Smith is proceeding with his plan for an "internal" solution--meaning that he is ready to negotiate with moderate black African groups to form some kind of multiracial transitional government. Last week he flew to Cape Town to discuss the plan with South African Prime Minister John Vorster. After three hours of "deep and frank" talks, Vorster, who was having troubles of his own over renewed student rioting in Soweto and several other black townships, reportedly gave Smith his tentative backing.

Chrome Boycott. At week's end, as Young headed back to Washington, the Carter Administration threw its full support behind a bill to repeal the Byrd Amendment. Under that act, sponsored by Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr., the U.S. has been importing Rhodesian chrome, in violation of a U.N. trade boycott, since 1971. Though many nations--including the Soviet Union and four other East European countries, according to allegations contained in a recent U.N. Sanctions Committee report --have been breaking the boycott on chrome clandestinely, the Byrd Amendment's open defiance of the U.N. sanctions has caused great resentment in black Africa. Repeal of that amendment would be Washington's strongest message to Ian Smith to date that the U.S. intends to take an active role in achieving a Rhodesian settlement.

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