"It Seems Like a Miracle"

An agreement on a transition plan raises fresh hope for a final settlement

The breakthrough came at 10:15 last Thursday morning. Its import was discreetly disguised by the dry language that negotiators use. "In the light of the discussions we have had," said Robert Mugabe, co-leader of the Patriotic Front, "if you are prepared to include [our] forces in paragraph 13 of the British paper, we are able to agree to the interim proposals." Impassively, British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington said that a sentence would be added to the paragraph in question: "The Patriotic Front Forces will be required to comply with the directions of the Governor."

With that, Lord Carrington's face broke into a broad grin. After ten weeks of touch-and-go negotiations at London's Lancaster House, Mugabe and his fellow guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, had finally accepted a British-drafted plan for a transitional period leading to new elections and legal independence for the breakaway British colony. Endorsed two weeks ago by the biracial delegation of Salisbury's Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa, the plan will go into effect as soon as final agreement is reached on a cease-fire between the warring factions. At long last, an end to the seven-year-old civil war was definitely in sight. Said one senior British diplomat: "To those of us who have been trying to solve this problem for the past 14 years, it seems like a miracle."

The miracle was the result of weeks of brinkmanship bargaining. Faced with Carrington's tough demand that they take the plan or leave it, the Patriotic Front came under intense pressure from leaders of the front-line African states to give their assent. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, who flew to London last week to confer with the guerrillas and with the Thatcher government, was instrumental in persuading the Front to accept a compromise. Mugabe and Nkomo dropped their original demands for a share of political power and the integration of their military forces with Salisbury's army during the transition period. In exchange, Carrington satisfied their longstanding insistence on "equal status" with the Salisbury forces by including the sentence that the guerrillas would be subject to the orders of an interim British commander. Spokesmen for the Muzorewa delegation called the 15-word addendum a face-saving artifice to mask "a total capitulation by the Patriotic Front to the original British position." But the Front, according to a jubilant spokesman, took Carrington's statement to mean that "our forces now are lawful forces in the country. What more do we want?"

The new constitution eliminates most of the whites' entrenched privileges and reduces their guaranteed representation from 28 to 20 seats in Salisbury's 100-member Parliament. Moreover, Muzorewa's government is stepping down, and compensation for nationalized lands will be paid for out of an international fund. Partly at Kaunda's urging, Carrington last week even agreed to feed and house the guerrillas during the transition period.

But the cease-fire talks, which began last Friday, raised some divisive issues that could still spoil the conference. Carrington put forth a proposal that could stop the fighting in seven to ten days. It calls for the strict separation of the rival armies and the confining of the Patriotic Front forces to designated assembly points within the country. But the question of the guerrillas' exact legal standing during the cease-fire and election campaign, left ambiguous in the Carrington proposal, sparked a bitter verbal exchange between members of the rival delegations. Following the formal negotiating session, Salisbury's military commander, Lieut. General Peter Walls, branded as "nonsense" the guerrillas' claim to equal status with his troops. "If anybody shoots at us," he warned ominously, "we will stop them from shooting any more." Front Spokesman Eddison Zvogbo angrily replied that "we are legal forces, we have equal status," and promised "severe retribution" against those who moved to deny that status.

Another source of friction concerns the time required to establish the ceasefire. Carrington feels it can be carried out in less than two weeks. But the Patriotic Front leaders insist they will need several months to get their supporters back into the country from their bases in Mozambique, Angola and Zambia. The guerrillas are rapidly infiltrating the country to improve their positions before the cease-fire takes effect. The Front now has an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters within Zimbabwe Rhodesia's borders. Though British negotiators expect tough bargaining on this and other sticky points, they remain confident that a cease-fire agreement could be reached this week.

Once this is accomplished, a British Governor will fly to Salisbury to hoist the Union Jack and officially return the country to colonial status. The most likely candidate for that job appears to be Lord Soames, 59, a son-in-law of Winston Churchill's and a Minister Without Portfolio in the Thatcher government. The Governor will be accompanied by a staff of British civil servants, a small number of soldiers and a British police official, Sir James Haughton, who will oversee the Rhodesian police. A British election commissioner will organize the voting. Carrington also intends to establish a cease-fire commission on which the military commanders of both factions would be represented under the chairmanship of a British general. Elections will be held two months after the cease-fire takes effect, possibly as early as February.

News of last week's stunning breakthrough won near unanimous accolades for the man most responsible for pulling it off: Lord Carrington (see box). Paradoxically, no one greeted his accomplishment with more enthusiasm than the Rhodesian whites, whose privileges have been whittled away since the beginning of the Lancaster House talks. The prospect of peace, international recognition and an end to economic sanctions has turned all but a handful of Rhodesia's diehards into fans of Carrington's and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's. The Salisbury Parliament is scheduled to meet this week to vote the British-drafted constitution into law. Even Ian Smith's Rhodesia Front declared its support of the agreements.

The irony of the white about-face was reflected most strikingly, perhaps, in Smith's new conciliatory attitude. Speaking in Salisbury last week on the 14th anniversary of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence, Smith astounded many observers by stating, "You can't exclude [the Patriotic Front]. They're going to be part of the country." In an interview with TIME's Trevor Grundy, Smith expressed confidence that whites would survive and prosper under a new black regime, despite the militant, quasi-Marxist statements of the Patriotic Front. Said Smith: "The last thing [black politicians] want to do is to drive out the white farmer or the white man who wants to contribute to the economy."

The sudden shift is less a change of heart or mind in many cases than an anticipation of the economic boom it is hoped will come with peace and legality. There was a glimpse of the future when the Thatcher government last week allowed some of the sanctions to lapse; the remainder will almost certainly be lifted after the British Governor arrives in Salisbury. President Carter, meanwhile, declined to end U.S. sanctions immediately but broadly hinted that he would do so as soon as the Lancaster House Conference reaches a successful conclusion.

Some Rhodesian economists estimate that about $2 billion could flow into the country within 13 months after the final lifting of sanctions. Local whites are now talking less of emigrating and more of enjoying the benefits of the anticipated economic boom. They are raising the prices of their elegant colonial houses once again after a prolonged slump. One example: a $50,000 house in the Salisbury suburb of Highlands, whose value had dropped to $30,000 within the past year, is now selling for $60,000. But some whites take a dimmer view of the future. Says a Salisbury businessman: "The whites are living in a cuckoo land if they think nothing is going to change. The Patriotic Front has already held meetings with the East Germans on how the economy should be run."

Much of Rhodesia's economic future will depend on the political regime that emerges from the elections. With the whites assured of 20 seats, the crucial struggle will take place among the seven or so black factions vying for the remaining 80 seats. These parties are so deeply divided by tribal and personal differences that many observers fear no national leader will emerge and a shaky coalition is inevitable. "God help us if that happens," says a white trade unionist in Salisbury. "Can you imagine Nkomo, Mugabe and the bishop [Muzorewa] in the same Cabinet?"

In fact, that particular coalition is unlikely. Charges of nepotism and influence peddling by his government have tarnished the reputation of the bishop, who is thoroughly detested by the guerrilla leaders. But unless those leaders are willing to join with some moderate blacks in forming a new government, the result could be a mass exodus of panicked whites--or a brutal new civil war among tribal factions.

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