The Target Is Moderation

Tim Peech, a 31-year-old farmer from the Macheke district, east of Salisbury, was a third-generation Rhodesian and as such a colonial aristocrat. Nonetheless, he believed that white farmers like himself could stay, survive and flourish in a black-ruled Zimbabwe. A longtime critic of Prime Minister Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front party, Peech had organized several meetings with Macheke's tribesmen and informally had tried to work out a cease-fire with black national guerrillas in the district. Last week Tim Peech had become another grim statistic in Rhodesia's bloody civil war. While working the bush on one of his peace missions, he was ambushed and clubbed to death by the guerrillas with whom he had sought dialogue. Peech, who is survived by his American wife, Michela, a son and daughter, was the 204th white and the 2,191st civilian to die in Rhodesia since the armed racial struggle began six years ago.

The internal settlement that Prime Minister Smith worked out last March with three moderate black leaders--Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau--had not been expected to provide an easy transition to black majority rule in Rhodesia. Last week it was clear that Smith's settlement plan had not only faltered, but might be close to failure.

Smith had relied on the promises of his three black colleagues in Rhodesia's interim government that they could persuade large numbers of guerrillas to defect, thereby taking the sting out of the debilitating bush war. Instead, guerrilla attacks have increased in strength and boldness. Today, Rhodesia's main highways, and not just back-country roads, are perilous for convoys. A few months ago, isolated farms, missions and villages were the main targets for guerrillas belonging to the Patriotic Front. Salisbury's outskirts are checkered with new shanty towns, as blacks flee tribal lands for the safety of the city at the rate of 400 people a day. Two weeks ago, for the first time, a dramatic gun battle between guerrillas and security forces erupted in Highfield Township, a suburb of the capital.

Ominously, the raids by guerrillas loyal to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), headed by Joshua Nkomo, appear to be aimed at new targets. Both black and white moderates have become priority victims--a tactic apparently intended to shatter the country's already sagging morale. In one of the most gruesome of such recent terrorist incidents, 39 black moderates of Sithole's faction who had been sent into the bush to convince dissidents that the transition was working were captured and executed; their bodies were then laid out by the guerrillas in a grisly line at the side of the road as a warning to local tribespeople. Two months ago, four other Sithole peace envoys were shot dead in the same area.

Tensions between blacks and whites have grown as a result of a threat by Smith to "rethink" the March agreement, under which white voters are supposed to ratify by Oct. 20 a new constitution leading to black power. If that is approved, whites and blacks are scheduled to vote for a new government in early December.

Christmas Eve has been set as the deadline for Rhodesia's Parliament to elect the first head of state of an independent, majority-ruled Zimbabwe. Many whites believe that any election carried out under the present wartime conditions would be a farce. Although the black leaders in the interim government appear powerless to influence the guerrillas, they are still determined to keep to the transition schedule. Warned Muzorewa Aide George Nyandoro last week: "If the whites make any attempt to reverse the move toward independence, there will be a racial bloodbath."

That crisis could occur sooner than Nyandoro anticipates. British intelligence recently advised Prime Minister James Callaghan that the breakaway colony is on the verge of collapse. The most optimistic forecast was that even if the voting and negotiations toward majority rule were stalled, Smith and his black colleagues could still survive attacks by the Patriotic Front until spring. The most pessimistic view: massacre and mob rule by September.

White Rhodesians appear to share some of the worst-case pessimism. At least 500 now flee the country every month. Seats on all flights leaving Salisbury at year's end, when the transition is scheduled to take effect, are already heavily booked. Some parents of white youths conscripted for the army's security operations are refusing to let their sons serve. Among whites who remain, observed M.P. Ronald Goddard in a speech to Rhodesia's House of Assembly, "morale has never been lower."

The government did not help improve the white mood by announcing last week that the country, thanks to the war costs and the continuing economic sanctions, faced a whopping deficit of $425 million in the next fiscal year. As a result, Rhodesia's 80,000 taxpayers--almost all of them whites--will be required to contribute an extra 12 1/2% of their incomes to the government in the form of war loans that are theoretically repayable in three years--well after the date of independence.

Awkwardly for Smith's government, the belt tightening took place just as the Salisbury government was trying to hush up an embarrassing financial scandal. Although Rhodesia's heavily censored newspapers gave few details, South African dailies printed the names of several Rhodesian officials who along with government businessmen diverted $1 million in arms-purchase funds into numbered Swiss bank accounts. qed

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