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Indeed, there was plenty of evidence that Nkomo and his colleagues were preparing for a long war. Last week TIME's John Borrell became one of the first Western journalists to visit one of Nkomo's camps in Zambia. Besides an estimated 10,000 fully trained guerrillas in Nkomo's army, hundreds more are arriving weekly by way of neighboring Botswana. The newcomers are screened and given some rudimentary training at a major transit camp in Zambia before being sent on to Angola or Eastern Europe for further instruction. Nkomo heatedly denies Rhodesian charges that the young blacks are forced to join his organization at gunpoint. "That's just nonsense," he says. "We have more people than we need or can cope with efficiently."
And so it seemed. "As Nkomo arrived at the spartan camp," reported Borrell, "thousands of young men in tattered clothing stood stiffly at attention, shouldering wooden staves as substitutes for the Soviet Kalashnikov rifles they will later carry. We watched as company-size units jogged in formation to the center of a parade ground, then formed a huge square around Nkomo. 'Z!' he shouted to the group, by way of greeting. 'Zimbabwe!' came the response from perhaps 6,000 voices."
The growing military threat was reason enough for both London and Washington to continue pressing the Salisbury government and the Patriotic Front to agree to attend an all-parties conference before the end of the year. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and the other front-line Presidents, who have been working jointly for a Rhodesian settlement, still favor such a conference. So does Robert Mugabe, Nkomo's somewhat estranged partner in the Patriotic Front. Mugabe is not nearly as popular a political figure as Nkomo, but because he controls at least two-thirds of the guerrillas who are fighting inside Rhodesia, he must obviously be a party to any successful settlement.
Whether that conference will ever take place was still the central question last week as white Rhodesians paused to celebrate the 88th anniversary of the founding of Fort Salisbury on the site of the modern capital. When Ian Smith arrived for the celebration at Cecil Square, one man shouted "Good old Smithy! Some of us are still behind you!" No doubt that was true, though it was hard to tell from the tepid applause.
During the service a few wept, but the majority stood in stoic silence. They were convinced that, whatever happens, this celebration would be the last of its kind; there is not likely to be a white Pioneer Day next year in black Zimbabwe. ∎