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The plain fact is that the internal settlement, which was ratified three months ago by former Prime Minister Ian Smith and three black moderates, is not working, and for the reason widely forecast: it left the Patriotic Front guerrillas on the outside looking in. Says an adviser to Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the most popular of the black politicians in the interim government: "The root cause of the problem today is that the country has no leader. For 13 years the whites had Smith, and before that there was a succession of strong white leaders. In earlier times, before the Europeans arrived, the blacks had strong chiefs. We don't have four leaders today; we have none. Smith has given up the strings of power but no one has taken his place."
On a range of matters, the interim government has worked reasonably well. A dispute flared briefly over the firing of a black Justice Minister who complained publicly that there were so few blacks holding senior positions in the civil service and police. Since then, according to veteran civil servants, the level of cooperation between black and white ministers sharing the same portfolio has been generally high. But the real test is whether the blacks on Rhodesia's governing Executive Council—Bishop Muzorewa, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau—can pull off a ceasefire; the evidence so far strongly suggests they cannot. They still routinely invite Patriotic Front Leaders Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo to return home and participate in free elections, but with little result. Nkomo replied recently that he would turn the ballot boxes into military targets. Free elections were supposed to be held before the end of the year, but with the military situation getting worse by the day, the voting seems more remote than ever.
What happens next? Presumably, Ian Smith now recognizes that his principal black partners in the interim government, Muzorewa and Sithole, are of no practical use to him in ending the war. There is pressure on the government to participate in a round of all-party talks, as proposed months ago by the British and American governments. The first priority of such a meeting would be to bring about a ceasefire. Presumably, neither Mugabe nor Nkomo would accept one unless they thought they had a very good chance of dominating a new government. Smith has consistently expressed skepticism about the value of further talks with the black nationalists, despite his private conviction that Nkomo would be the best black Prime Minister of a new government.
Under the terms of the Salisbury Agreement, the white electorate must vote in a referendum whether to accept that settlement. As a last-ditch maneuver, Smith could conceivably use this provision as an excuse to declare the March 3 agreement null and void and to restore himself as Rhodesia's Prime Minister. The risk of that course, obviously, is that it might well drive the black moderate leaders and their supporters over to the guerrillas' side. -