Now, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia

The blacks cast ballots at last, but that will not stop the shooting

"I do not want this new country to be a sham, a fraud, a hollow shell with the mere trappings of independence-a brand-new flag, sleek limousines, black faces in Parliament and the U.N. I do not want Zimbabwe ever to become another banana republic."

So declared Bishop Abel Muzorewa, one of the four members of Rhodesia's biracial "interim" government, in a stem-winding speech to a group of black and white voters at the close of the country's historic ten-week election campaign. His vision of his violence-racked land's future was important, for he is soon to become the first black Prime Minister of Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe-Rhodesia as it is henceforth to be known. Last week voting for the first time on the basis of a universal balloting, the country's black population elected 72 members of a new parliament; the other 28 seats had been filled by white balloting a week earlier. The elections were strong ly promoted by Muzorewa, outgoing Prime Minister Ian Smith, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and their other colleagues in the "interim regime." Their hope is that their version of majority-rule government will win international recognition and bring an end to the U.N. economic boycott imposed on Rhodesia after Smith made his Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain 13% years ago.

The elections were strongly opposed by the black guerrillas of the Patriotic Front, who have fought against the Smith regime from sanctuaries in Mozambique and Zambia for more than six years and were determined to upset the voting. Nonetheless, the Salisbury government claimed at week's end that about 60% of the 2.8 million eligible blacks had chosen to vote, and hailed this as an endorsement of the so-called internal settlement.

Although the final tally was not due to be announced until this week, it seemed almost certain that the largest number of seats would be won by the biggest of the black parties, the United African National Council (U.A.N.C.). As the party's chief, Muzorewa, 54, who is both an ordained Methodist clergyman and a leader of the majority Shona tribe, would be called on to form the new government.

Whether black majority rule will really have been achieved when that government takes office in June is a subject of heated debate. Muzorewa and Smith say yes. The black nationalists outside Rhodesia say no, and fight on. Certainly there is no doubt that under the new constitution the 212,000 whites will still have a special status. Though they account for only 4% of the population, they are guaranteed 28 of the 100 seats in the parliament, and for ten years will have control, through a complex veto provision, over such vital areas as the judiciary, the civil service and the security forces. The whites are also guaranteed at least five of the new cabinet posts, presumably including one for Ian Smith.

Conceivably, as Smith himself implied last week, some of the special protective clauses for whites may be dropped from the constitution after the new government takes hold. "Whether we like it or not," he told TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter, "minority governments are unacceptable to the rest of the world. I had always hoped we could avoid black majority rule in my lifetime. But you have to change your tactics in this game, and we came to the conclusion that if we didn't change, we couldn't survive."

His successor, Muzorewa, is a slight (5 ft.), mild-mannered man who is particularly popular with urban audiences. His garb can be flamboyant; at one campaign appearance he wore black trousers with yellow, red and green stripes and a coat of many colors. He is notoriously thin-skinned in dealing with rivals. Says a former colleague: "Muzorewa is at his best as a preacher and at his worst as a Cardinal." Though a reluctant politician at first, he waged a strenuous campaign, traveling around the country for an average of five or six appearances a day. At these he would hold forth on his ideas about building a new country "without friction" and pass out buttons bearing the U.A.N.C. Slogan WE'RE THE WINNERS.

The voting went surprisingly smoothly. To counter the threat by the Patriotic Front to disrupt the proceedings, the government mobilized 90,000 troops and in many cases transported voters to the polls. Muzorewa and other campaigners were accompanied by armed militiamen. Mobile voting units were trucked, under army escort, to about 1,500 of the country's 2,000 designated polling places.

The most important issue by far was peace. The candidates concentrated on the ways in which they would end the war, bring majority rule, open new schools and clinics, and help blacks find jobs. Muzorewa's top vote puller was a promise of free education for every child up to the seventh grade. Another important issue: ways to help enable blacks to buy their own farms. The average white in Rhodesia has 75 acres, while the average black has five. As Joshua Nkomo, one of the Patriotic Front leaders, has said, "This is the source of all our bitterness."

Particularly in rural areas, people sometimes seemed confused about what the election was all about. At the polling place in one town near the Mozambique border, a woman said: "We were told by the police that we had to come here, and we didn't argue. We just came." Others had a better understanding. Said Jonah Dangaremdizi, a villager: "This is the first time we have voted, so it is natural that some of us are nervous. Peace is really what we want." Solomon Mauura, a chiefs messenger, was more explicit about his expectations: "We have had the war because we had no African leader. Now that we are voting one in, we hope he will bring an end to the fighting."

Few outside observers give Muzorewa much chance of succeeding, however. Says a ranking Western diplomat in neighboring Zambia: "This next period is going to be violent, and the dimension of the violence is far greater than anybody has imagined." Joshua Nkomo's Zambia-based branch of the Patriotic Front currently has about 25,000 men under arms, including some 2,000 inside Rhodesia. The Mozambique-based branch, under Robert Mugabe, also has about 25,000 guerrillas, with 8,600 of them inside Rhodesia. The Rhodesian security forces' incursions into Mozambique and Zambia, where Nkomo's headquarters in Lusaka was raided two weeks ago, have made the guerrillas angrier than ever.

Zambia is particularly vulnerable to Rhodesian attack and President Kenneth Kaunda has approached the U.S. about buying defensive weapons, but was turned down. He is already getting missiles from the Soviet Union and artillery and air force training from China, and the chances are he will soon be asking them for more. With both sides in the Rhodesian dispute so jittery, the prospect is for an acceleration in the fighting.

For the Carter Administration, the election has posed a delicate question about U.S. policy in Africa. Until now, the Administration, as well as the British government of Prime Minister James Callaghan, has pretty much accepted the black African view that a new Rhodesian majority-rule government could effectively end the war only if it included representatives of the Patriotic Front. Accordingly, the U.S. and Britain have long advocated an all-parties conference on Rhodesia leading to a Salisbury government composed of both "internal" and "external" Rhodesian black leaders.

But the Anglo-American initiative has fallen apart. At present, nobody is pressing for an all-parties conference. Muzorewa and his colleagues do not want one because they expect to be running the show in Salisbury. The guerrillas do not want one because they expect to win everything through force. The result, as Mugabe once put it: "The real conference will be in the bush."

The U.S. Senate passed a resolution last year that if the Rhodesian election was judged to be "free and fair" and open to all factions and if the new government seemed ready to talk to the Patriotic Front, then the Administration should recognize it and try to lift the economic sanctions. President Carter has said that by the time the new government is installed, he will make a decision on recognition that will be based on "a moral dimension and not legislative politics."

In the meantime, the Callaghan government has fallen and if Margaret Thatcher and her Conservatives win Britain's May 3 election, they will undoubtedly alter British policy in the direction of support for Muzorewa and Smith. Some Tory advisers have pointed out that Britain's relations with its African allies, notably Nigeria, could be jeopardized by an abrupt change in policy on Rhodesia. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers are scheduled to meet in Zambia later this year. If the African members should still be angry with Mrs. Thatcher at that time, they could embarrass her greatly by deciding upon some kind of retaliation, such as an attempt to expel Britain from the British Commonwealth.

The Carter Administration has tried hard in the past two years to forge new ties with black Africa. What it fears now is a steady enlargement of the Rhodesian guerrilla war, with the U.S. caught in the position of reluctantly supporting the Muzorewa government and with the Soviet Union and Cuba looming ever larger in African eyes as the liberators of the oppressed Rhodesian majority. Some observers are dreaming of unexpected solutions, such as an alliance between Mugabe, himself a Shona, and Muzorewa. But this is probably wishful thinking. As one official of Nkomo's organization says, "This war will not stop. It is not possible at this stage to talk about a reconciliation between those who are inside the country and those who are outside." Despite last week's balloting, or indeed as a result of it, the sad outlook is for more months of bloodletting.

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