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RHODESIA

(HE Country takes its name from Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) on whose initiative it was opened up for European settlement and development. Since

24th October 1964 it has become the generally accepted practice to refer to the country as 'Rhodesia' and this title is therefore employed here, except where the use of Southern Rhodesia is appropriate in referring to past constitutional development. The legal name remains Southern Rhodesia.

Rhodesia extends from the Zambesi River (latitude 15° 50' S.) to the Limpopo River (latitude 22° 25′ S.) and from Botswana in longitude 25° 14′ E. to Mozambique in longitude 33° 4' E. Entirely land-locked, its neighbours are Zambia on the north and north-west, Botswana on the south-west, the Republic of South Africa on the south, and Mozambique on the east and north-east. Part of the boundary to the north with Zambia runs through Lake Kariba which was formed by the damming of the Zambesi in the Kariba Gorge. This was completed in 1959. The Lake is 175 miles long, up to 20 miles wide, and covers 2,000 square miles.

The area of Rhodesia is 150,820 square miles, which is about three times the size of England. Although Rhodesia lies within the tropics the climate is not typically tropical owing to the elevation of much of the country particularly in the High Veld areas where the majority of the population live. Of the total area 21 per cent lies over 4,000 feet above sea-level. Temperatures range from a mean minimum of 40°F to a mean maximum of 85°F on the central plateau. The central plateau, known as the High Veld, traverses the country in a northeasterly direction until it links up with a narrow belt of mountainous country striking north and south along the eastern border. There are two important offshoots from the main plateau to the north-west and north of Salisbury. On either side of the main plateau is the Middle Veld which lies between 4,000 and 2,000 feet above sea-level. The Low Veld region, below 2,000 feet, is found along a narrow strip in the Zambesi valley and in a broader tract in the basin of the Limpopo and Sabi Rivers. The lowest point is 660 feet above sea-level where the Limpopo River leaves the country. The greatest rainfall occurs in the mountainous country along the eastern border where considerable areas have an annual mean of over 48 inches. In the centre of the country annual rainfall varies from a mean of 33 inches in the Salisbury area to a mean of 24 inches in the Bulawayo area.

The highlands are in two main portions. The northern portion is generally about 6,000 feet high, rising at the highest point to 8,517 feet above sea-level. The southern portion forms the Vumba Mountains, the Chimanimani Range, which has peaks rising to a height of over 8,000 feet, and the Melsetter Uplands. Between them is the Umtali gap through which run the road and railway to Beira, the nearest outlet to the sea.

In August 1969 the total population was estimated to be 5,070,370, comprising 4,817,950 Africans, 228,590 Europeans, 15,020 persons of mixed race and 8,940 Asians. The African population is composed mainly of the Mashona and Matabele and their related tribes. No reliable figures are available of the breakdown into tribes but there is no doubt that in the country as a whole the Mashona and their related tribes are in the majority. The official language is English but Shona and Sindebele are important vernaculars. Numerous

Christian missions of various denominations including Anglican, Roman Catholic and non-Conformist are active throughout the country, but the majority of Africans are still non-Christian, adhering to tribal, animistic and other beliefs. There are small Muslim, Hindu and Jewish communities.

The capital of Rhodesia is the city of Salisbury. Since its foundation in 1890, the city has become the centre of a large urban complex which now extends over an area of 184 square miles and had an estimated population in August 1969 of 444,440, of whom 99,340 were Europeans. Salisbury and Bulawayo, the second largest city and the railway centre, possess the two largest concentrations of secondary industry in Rhodesia.

The other areas of greatest industrial development are situated in the Midlands (Gwelo, Que Que and Gatooma) and at Umtali, near the border with Mozambique.

Salisbury Airport is the centre of Rhodesia's internal and external civil air communications. It is 8 miles by road from the city and has a runway 8,612 feet in length. The other principal civil airport in Rhodesia, Woodvale Airport, is 10 miles from the city of Bulawayo and has a runway 6,600 feet in length.

The total mileage of roads open to traffic at the end of 1964, excluding those falling under the responsibility of local authorities, was 43,382 of which 2,517 were of bitumen standard. All the main centres of population are also served by Rhodesia Railways, which are connected with, and operate in conjunction with, the South African, Mozambique and Angola railways. Rhodesia has 2,159 miles of 3ft 6 in. gauge railway line.

The Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts from Salisbury and Bulawayo using short and medium wave transmitters which, with the help of booster and satellite stations, provide country-wide coverage. Television is at present available in the Salisbury and Bulawayo areas only.

The last published complete trade statistics referred to the year ending December 1965. In that year the Rhodesian Gross Domestic Product was £353.6 million of which agriculture made up £66·7m. (19.2 per cent) and the manufacturing industry £66·6 m.

In agriculture, the most valuable single crop was tobacco, worth £32.7m. (52 per cent of agricultural production) but important contributions were made by sugar at £9.6m. (15 per cent), cattle slaughterings £9.4m. (15 per cent), grains £7.3m. (12.5 per cent), dairy products £2.5m. (4 per cent), and pig slaughterings at £1.3m.

Rhodesia also produces a wide variety of minerals, notably asbestos, gold, chrome and copper. Total mineral production in 1965 was valued at nearly £32m. and mineral exports were worth over £30m. Exports of asbestos were £10.8m., those of gold £6.8m., copper £6.1m. and chrome £3.8m. Other minerals produced in Rhodesia include coal, lithium and iron ore.

On 12th November 1965, immediately following the illegal declaration of independence, the Security Council passed a Resolution (No. 216) condemning the unilateral declaration of independence and calling upon all States not to recognise the illegal regime and to refrain from rendering any assistance to it. On 20th November 1965 the Security Council passed Resolution No. 217, which, inter alia, called on all States to do their utmost to break all economic relations with Southern Rhodesia, and included an embargo on oil and petroleum products. A large number of countries thereupon severed all trading links with Rhodesia and others placed a partial embargo on trade with Rhodesia. The

United Kingdom applied a wide variety of economic and other sanctions to Rhodesia and by February 1966 had cut off virtually all trade with Rhodesia. The effect of these international sanctions (which were still voluntary) was to reduce Rhodesia's exports from £142-5m. in 1965 to an annual rate of around £80m., thereby causing a reduction in Rhodesia's imports of about one third.

On 9th April 1966, following an attempt to supply petroleum to Rhodesia in defiance of Resolution No. 217, the Security Council passed another Resolution (No. 221) which called upon the United Kingdom to prevent, by the use of force if necessary, the arrival at Beira of vessels reasonably believed to be carrying oil destined for Rhodesia. The Resolution and the subsequent patrolling of the Mozambique Channel have effectively prevented the illegal regime from obtaining supplies of crude oil to operate their refineries.

On 16th December 1966, the Security Council adopted a resolution (No. 232) on selective mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia.

The Security Council adopted a further resolution (No. 253) on 29th May 1968, which, inter alia, imposed comprehensive mandatory economic sanctions against Rhodesia covering virtually all trade.

HISTORY

It is thought that Rhodesia was first settled by peoples of Bantu stock (a linguistic classification) between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago, during a great southward migration which also led to the Bantu colonisation of Natal. These immigrants, who are believed to have been the ancestors of the tribes now collectively known as the Mashona, found the country inhabited by the so-called Bushmen, the last representatives of a succession of Stone Age cultures of which remains have been discovered 500,000 years old. The Bushmen, hunting peoples who possessed a highly developed artistic sense, were gradually displaced by the Bantu agriculturalists and have now almost disappeared from Rhodesia.

The second great movement of Bantu peoples into Rhodesia occurred in 1830, when off-shoots of the Bantu who had reached Natal, and who had by then combined to form the Zulu nation, moved northwards. The most important of these were the Matabele, under Mzilikazi, who eventually settled in the south-west of the country, in the area now known as Matabeleland.

As a result of their attempts in the sixteenth century to open up south central Africa from the east coast of Africa, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore what is now Rhodesia. In 1514 Antonio Fernandez reached the region of Que Que, and nearly half a century later the Jesuit priest Gonzalo da Silveira reached Mount Fura, where he was murdered after visiting and baptising the socalled Emperor Monomatapa (actually paramount chief of the Makaranga). In 1569 Francesco Barreto led a large military expedition into the interior with the primary object of exploiting the reputed goldfields. The expedition failed and Barreto died at Sena on the Zambesi River.

For some three hundred years there was no further European contact with the hinterland until the coming of the great missionary-explorers, the hunters, traders and gold-seekers, who between them opened up much of Africa to European influence. David Livingstone first sighted the Zambesi river in 1851 and reached the Victoria Falls in 1855. In 1857 the missionary, Robert Moffat, visited Mzilikazi in Matabeleland, and this led to the establishment in 1861 of the first mission to the Matabele by the London Missionary Society. A second mission was established in 1875 at Hope Fountain.

In 1887 Cecil Rhodes was instrumental in the despatch of J. S. Moffat to Matabeleland to safeguard British interests. On 11th February 1888 Lobengula, son and successor to Mzilikazi, signed a treaty pledging not to cede territory without leave of the British High Commissioner at the Cape. Later in the same year, on 30th October, Lobengula granted the Rudd Concession over the minerals in his kingdom. This led to the formation of the British South Africa Company which was granted a Royal Charter on 29th October 1889 for the purpose of promoting trade, commerce, civilisation and good government in the region of Southern Africa lying immediately to the north of British Bechuanaland, and to the north and west of the then South African Republic, and to the west of the Portuguese Dominions. The Pioneer Column and its escort of police set out from Bechuanaland in 1890 and after skirting Matabeleland reached the present site of Salisbury on 12th September 1890, without bloodshed or incident. The Anglo-Portuguese Agreement of 1891, which was finally confirmed by Signor Vigliani's award in 1897, settled the boundary disputes with the Portuguese on the eastern border.

The Mashona at first accepted the arrival of the Europeans but the Matabele resented the restrictions which this placed on their use of Mashona territory. In 1893 a Matabele raid led to the Matabele War which terminated the next year in the destruction of the Matabele power and the flight of Lobengula from Bulawayo. Matabeleland then came under the Chartered Company's civil administration.

Originally, the territories under the Company's administration were known as Zambesia, but on the 3rd May 1895 they were formally named 'Rhodesia' by proclamation.

The second Matabele War broke out in 1896, due partly to the effects of drought and cattle disease and partly to resentment at the defeat in 1893. The War ended in August 1896 when Cecil Rhodes and a small party met the Matabele leaders in the Matopos Hills near Bulawayo and arranged a settlement. A series of wars with the Mashona dragged on until 1897 when peace was finally restored.

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The territory was administered by the British South Africa Company from the commencement of European colonisation in 1890 until the grant of responsible government in 1923. The Charter granted to the Company provided that it was subject to review, and possible termination, after twenty-five years from the date of the grant, and every period of ten years thereafter. From the early years of the occupation the settlers had consistently criticised the Administration and at various times had demanded self-government. Their demands for increased representation on the Legislative Council, which consisted of elected members (settlers) and official members (heads of departments), resulted in concessions being made from time to time, so that in 1903 there were seven of each, and four years later the number of official members was reduced by two to give the settlers a majority. When the first period of twenty-five years of Charter rule expired in 1914, the Council, on which the settlers had a majority, requested that the Charter be continued for a further ten years, but in 1920 the Council passed a resolution requesting the establishment of responsible government 'forthwith'. The issue was put to the electorate as one of two choices, responsible government or entry

into the Union of South Africa as the fifth province, and at a referendum in 1922 8,744 votes were cast for self-government and 5,989 for the alternative.

After the 1922 referendum Southern Rhodesia was formally annexed to His Majesty's dominions as a Colony on 12th September 1923; under the Southern Rhodesia Constitution Letters Patent, 1923, issued on the 1st October 1923, the Colony was granted full self-government with the exception that legislation affecting African interests, the Rhodesia Railways and certain other matters were reserved to the Secretary of State. Except for those concerning differential legislation affecting the African population, these reservations fell away in time so far as internal affairs were concerned. The British Government conducted formal international relations on behalf of Southern Rhodesia: Commonwealth relations, trade relations, and relations with Colonial territories in Africa were mainly conducted by the Southern Rhodesian Government direct. As a result of a series of conferences held in 1951, 1952 and 1953 on the closer association with Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, a draft Federal Scheme was prepared setting out the details of the Constitution of a Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. This was the subject of a referendum in Southern Rhodesia in April 1953, when it was approved by 25,570 votes to 14,729. In the same month the proposals were approved in the Legislative Councils of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Federation subsequently came into existence on the 3rd September 1953 when certain powers hitherto exercised by the Southern Rhodesian Government were transferred to the Federal Government, though the actual process of transfer took some months to complete. The most important powers transferred in this way were defence, the regulation of commerce and industry, immigration, health, European education and European agriculture. The main functions which continued to be exercised by the Territorial Government were African administration, education and agriculture, local government and housing, police and internal security, industrial relations, land, roads, mining and irrigation.

In 1959 the Southern Rhodesian Government proposed to the British Government that the Constitution of Southern Rhodesia should be revised, with a view to transferring to Southern Rhodesia the exercise of the powers vested in the British Government. After consultations between the two Governments a Constitutional Conference was convened in London in December 1960, under the Chairmanship of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. The conference adjourned after procedural meetings and resumed in Salisbury from 30th January 1961 to 7th February 1961.

Proposals for a new Constitution, based on the conclusions of the Constitutional Conference, were published in June 1961 in two White Papers (Cmnd. 1399 and 1400). At a referendum of the Southern Rhodesia electorate held in July 1961, the proposals were approved by 42,004 votes in favour to 21,846 votes against. In November 1961 Parliament at Westminster passed the Southern Rhodesia (Constitution) Act, which authorised Her Majesty to grant a new Constitution to Southern Rhodesia by Order in Council. The new Constitution was brought into force by the Southern Rhodesia Government in November 1962. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved on the 31st December 1963. The Southern Rhodesian Government on 1st January 1964 resumed the powers which had been transferred to the Federal Government in

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