Agonizing over the Settlement

An Anglo-American split may result from Smith 's plan

From a hidden position on the southern shore of the Zambezi River, Rhodesian soldiers near the town of Kanyemba last week saw about 100 armed guerrillas in camouflage fatigues, paddling in rubber boats across the river--the border between Zambia and Rhodesia. The Rhodesians opened fire, and Canberra and Hawker Hunter jets soon joined the battle. So began Rhodesia's first admitted "external" (i.e., incursion) into Zambian territory--a two-day raid that destroyed an arms cache and a command camp of Joshua Nkomo's 8,000-man guerrilla army. Rhodesia announced that the "self-defense" raid--"It was a beautiful op, smooth as butter," said one officer in Salisbury--killed 38 guerrillas at the cost of one white Rhodesian trooper. Insisting that industrial targets had been hit as well, Zambia announced it would seek U.N. condemnation of the raid.

Critics of Prime Minister Ian Smith cited the bloody incident as proof that his announced plan to bring majority rule to Rhodesia by next year would lead to escalation, rather than cessation, of the five-year-old guerrilla war. Smith's "internal settlement," negotiated with three moderate black nationalists, excludes Patriotic Front Leaders Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, who flew to New York last week to address a session of the U.N. Security Council on Rhodesia that had been requested by 49 African nations. "We would do anything to block the Smith settlement here," said Tanzania's U.N. Ambassador Salim A. Salim, "because otherwise it would have to be blocked militarily on the scene." British intelligence analysts say that two Cuban regiments, as well as 200 Soviet tanks and 20 crated MiG-21 fighters, are now positioned in Mozambique, Mugabe's main base of operations. Nkomo last week denied that he had invited Cuban advisers to join his Zambian-based guerrillas. But his strong supporter, Zambia's moderately pro-Western President Kenneth Kaunda, has threatened that he might request Soviet and Cuban aid to defend his country from Rhodesian attacks. On the other hand, TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief David Wood reported, a Soviet diplomat in Lusaka, Zambia's capital, argues that a Cuban intervention is unlikely, since it would almost certainly provoke South African reinforcement of Smith's forces.

Smith's agreement with the country's moderate black leaders--Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Chief Jeremiah Chirau and the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole--envisions a transitional period of evolution toward majority rule during which whites (who number about 264,000 in Rhodesia's population of 7 million) would be guaranteed 28 of 100 parliamentary seats for at least ten years. The present Rhodesian Parliament, which is totally dominated by whites, would have to approve any new constitution. During an interim period, expected to begin within a matter of weeks, Smith will share executive authority with the three black leaders and will have veto power, in effect, since decisions made by the four must be unanimous.

Thanks largely to pressure from African states that reject the internal settlement, Muzorewa was refused permission to address the U.N. on a visit to New York last week. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs, the bishop conceded that the "socalled internal settlement" was imperfect, adding that "it was the best we could get, and the important thing is that we now have a basis for the transfer of power." Muzorewa firmly denied the familiar charges by Nkomo and Mugabe that he is, in their words, a puppet of Smith's. Said the bishop: "Nkomo negotiated with Smith for three months in 1976 and nobody called him a puppet. He failed, but we have succeeded. Now Nkomo is jealous." Muzorewa believes that once the joint executive council is set up and an amnesty declared for guerrillas, many if not most of the Patriotic Front supporters will desert.

Smith's settlement posed an awkward diplomatic problem for the U.S. and Britain, which had proposed an alternative plan that would include leaders of the Patriotic Front in negotiations. The main features of the Anglo-American proposal: 1) Smith's government would resign and be replaced by an interim regime headed by a British proconsul; 2) elections for a new multiracial government, on a one-man, one-vote basis, would be internationally supervised; 3) rebel and Rhodesian forces would be merged.

Neither Washington nor London wants the Communist-supported guerrillas to dictate the future of an independent Zimbabwe (the nationalists' name for Rhodesia). Nonetheless, British and U.S. policymakers see several flaws in Smith's settlement. Although Muzorewa is probably the country's most popular black leader, Western diplomats who know the bishop agree that he lacks the political savvy to serve effectively as President of Zimbabwe. Chirau is thought to be too closely identified with Smith, while Sithole, although a shrewd tactician, lacks a broad political base. The British believe that Nkomo can still be wooed away from his uneasy alliance with Marxist-inspired Mugabe, and would have the widest spectrum of support as Rhodesia's first post-Smith Prime Minister. Beyond that, there is the question of Smith's credibility. As one U.S. diplomat puts it: "How do Muzorewa and Sithole hope to get the guerrillas to stop if they only have Smith on good faith?"

In his first comment on Smith's arrangement, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was ambiguous. Said he: "We remain committed to working with all the parties to achieve a peaceful solution and majority rule in 1978." But a split may be developing between Washington and London. British officials said last week that they might be inclined to recognize Smith's settlement if he showed good faith by permitting international supervision of elections, promoting blacks to high officer rank in Rhodesia's armed forces, and appointing blacks to serve along with whites in the country's civil service. Declared British Foreign Secretary David Owen: "I am unrepentant in going for what I believe to be an ideal solution, which is a cease-fire and total involvement of the nationalist leaders. But I am a realist. It may be that that cannot be achieved."

Owen's statements distressed U.S. diplomats--notably Ambassador to the U.N. Andrew Young, who wondered aloud whether the British "are to run out on us the way they did in 1948 [by abdicating their mandate over Palestine] and leave us with 30 years of trouble." Owen, fresh from Washington talks with Vance and President Carter, noted wryly that his friend Young has a habit of "shooting from the hip."

At a press conference late in the week Carter said he hoped that a meeting could take place at which all the nationalist leaders would negotiate their differences. Britain and the U.S. were involved in backstage maneuvering at the U.N. to head off a Security Council resolution condemning Smith's settlement plan. Such a resolution could divide the Anglo-American alliance if Britain used its veto to block it and the U.S. abstained. Meanwhile, a number of black African diplomats were expressing renewed interest in the Anglo-American plan, which they had disdained earlier. "The British and Americans should resume driving and not take the back seat," insisted Mauritius' U.N. Ambassador, Radha Krishna Ramphul. Added a Western diplomat in Dar es Salaam: "Never has there been so much support for the Anglo-American plan as there is now. I just hope it isn't too late."

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