No Time for Trembling Knees

It was one of those historic opportunities for high diplomacy that so often have been seized upon or lost in the marbled Council Chamber of Geneva's Palais des Nations. Once again, it seemed, peace or more war hung in the balance. Bitter political enemies in Rhodesia met face to face for the first time in what may be a last chance for a peaceful transfer of power from the ruling white minority to the black majority. Despite the mutual suspicion and distrust that permeated the chamber, the fact that the four leading black nationalists and Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, a white, were willing to meet at all was at least one encouraging sign. Said Conference Chairman Ivor Richard, Britain's United Nations ambassador: "The impossible has now become a matter of negotiation." From the beginning it was clear that the bargaining would be long and hard.

The common basis for the talks, as Richard emphasized, is that all sides now accept that Rhodesia is to become an independent country under majority rule within two years. But while the black delegations contend that all details for the transfer of power are up for negotiation, Smith insists that he came to Geneva solely to fill in the details of the so-called Kissinger plan, announced last September. According to Smith, Kissinger's scheme would set up a two-tier interim government in which whites would share power with blacks but would remain dominant during the changeover (TIME cover, Oct. 11).

Smith's claim that the Kissinger package is an inviolable whole promptly ran into vehement opposition from the black nationalists. With some of them coming directly from Rhodesian prisons or guerrilla bases in the bush, they were in no mood to approve a transition plan that would give Smith the opportunity to dominate events in Rhodesia for two more years. The African National Council's delegation, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, reflected much of the blacks' apprehension when it warned that Smith had come to Geneva merely to "carry out a gigantic fraud aimed at confusing world opinion."

At the conference, the four black delegations studiously ignored the white Rhodesians. Nonetheless, the first two sessions were remarkably free of either the histrionics or the rude scenes that were feared by some of the Western observers. Joshua Nkomo, a moderate and the elder statesman of Rhodesian black nationalism, spoke first. To emphasize his conviction that Smith must play no significant role in the transition period, Nkomo stated that the conference should be one "strictly between Zimbabweans [Zimbabwe is the black African name for Rhodesia] of whatever color ... and the United Kingdom," which still technically retains sovereignty over Rhodesia. He vowed that there would be no "racial revenge on the white settlers," for "it is not our intention to substitute one form of evil for another."

Even the militancy of Robert Mugabe, the black leader with the closest ties to the guerrillas, was tempered as he expressed "preparedness to pursue the method of peaceful negotiations." He quickly cautioned, though, that if the current talks failed there would be no choice but to continue "war in the pursuit of peace." The most conciliatory of the four blacks, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, credited the Rhodesians for having the good sense to accept the "new political reality" and the principle of majority rule.

Ringing Rhetoric. Understandably, there was also ringing African rhetoric. "We have come not in a spirit of give and take--only to take--take our country!" exclaimed the diminutive Bishop Muzorewa, perhaps Rhodesia's most popular black politician. Like the other black leaders, he demanded that the transition period be cut to one year and that in place of the appointive two-tier interim government there be a popularly elected Prime Minister and a Cabinet, with seats distributed according to the outcome of the election. Smith was extraordinarily brief, merely repeating his well-known views that he expected the conference to get on with the business of ratifying the Kissinger package.

Even as the delegates in Geneva were conferring, in Rhodesia the guerrilla war against the whites intensified, presumably to demonstrate black nationalist military strength as a bargaining lever. October was the bloodiest month in the nearly four years of fighting, with a death toll of 181 guerrillas, 20 security-force soldiers, twelve white and 88 black civilians. At a dozen points along the border, Mozambique-based guerrillas fired rockets and mortars at white settlements inside Rhodesia. From Zambian bases, other guerrillas attacked a motel in the tourist center of Victoria Falls, killing one white guest and wounding two others. In retaliation for the accelerated insurgency, Rhodesian security forces supported by helicopters, armored vehicles and aging bombers swept at least 50 miles into Mozambique to strike at guerrilla camps; it is believed that at least 500 blacks were killed.

Rhodesia's 274,000 whites well recognize that the guerrilla fighting will probably get worse if the conference fails. Their mood has grown more anxious in the past month. In Salisbury, a Baptist minister intoned on a radio service that "surely these are times not for pale faces or trembling knees." Rhodesian President John Wrathall called on all his countrymen to pray every day for the success of the conference.

For the conference to have a chance of success, however, its momentum must accelerate from the leisurely gait of the first two sessions, which together took less than two hours. Alluding to this pace, Ian Smith announced that he planned to return to Salisbury to tend to pressing Rhodesian affairs of state, noting that he could fly back to Geneva when needed. African delegates, too, complained that they were running out of time and money in costly Geneva. Kissinger, apparently afraid that the conference might become bogged down, dispatched Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs William Schaufele to Geneva to emphasize the strong U.S. desire for a peaceful settlement.

Shifting Focus. Meanwhile, convinced that plenary sessions at this stage would merely encourage the delegations to stick stubbornly to their proclaimed positions, Chairman Richard shifted his focus. He held a series of bilateral talks to identify grounds for possible compromises and then persuaded the heads of the five delegations to discuss with him a specific date for Rhodesian independence. Although nothing substantive was decided at the first of the informal sessions--and though fixing a date would not get to the heart of those issues blocking a transfer of power--Richard at least got the delegation heads to sit literally elbow to elbow around a circular table and address each other directly. With more informal meetings to follow, the Geneva Conference had been kept on track.

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