We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2012
In 1972 a British commission arrived in Rhodesia to test how acceptable the latest and most comprehensive proposals to end Rhodesia's rebellion were to its entire people. Africans rejected the proposals in overwhelming numbers. Such powerful opposition was attributed to the African National Council, said to be a new and spontaneous organization, but in fact the creation of the banned political parties. This article examines the political agitation during the Pearce Commission's visit to show how commonplace the layers of political affiliation, substitution, and deception were in the groups that both supported and opposed the proposals in 1970s Rhodesia.
1 Smith, Ian, The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith (London, 1997), 106Google Scholar; Megahey, Alan, Humphrey Gibbs, Beleagured Governor: Southern Rhodesia-sa 1929–69 (New York, 1998)Google Scholar; Facchini, Manuele, ‘The “Evil Genius”: Sir Hugh Beadle and the Rhodesian Crisis, 1965–1972’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 33:3 (2007), 673–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wood, J. R. T., A Matter of Weeks Rather than Months: The Impasse between Harold Wilson and Ian Smith, Sanctions, Aborted Settlement, and War 1965–69 (Victoria, BC, 2008), 32–43Google Scholar.
2 Moorcraft, Paul L., A Short Thousand Years: The End of Rhodesia's Rebellion (Salisbury, 1979), 27Google Scholar; Auret, Diana, Reaching for Justice: The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (Gweru, Zimbabwe, 1992), 23Google Scholar; Todd, Judith, The Right to Say No (London, 1972)Google Scholar.
3 This was the consensus of journalists. See Niesewand, Peter, ‘Settlement brings about a nationalist rebirth’, Africa Report, 17:2 (1972), 8–10Google Scholar; Meredith, Martin, The Past is Another Country: Rhodesia UDI to Zimbabwe (London, 1980), 98–103Google Scholar; Caute, David, Under the Skin: The Death of White Rhodesia (Harmondsworth, 1983), 198Google Scholar. The political scientist Larry Bowman thought it ‘too early to tell’ if the African successes of the Pearce Commission would impact African politics in Rhodesia and the guerrilla armies outside the country. Politics in Rhodesia: White Power in an African State (Cambridge, 1973), 128–9Google Scholar.
4 Martin, David and Johnson, Phyllis, The Struggle for Zimbabwe (London, 1981), 98–9Google Scholar.
5 Report of the Commission on Rhodesian Opinion under the Chairmanship of the Right Honourable Lord Pearce [hereafter Report], Cmd. 4964 (London, 1972), 32, 37Google Scholar.
6 There are paraphrases of these principles in many texts. This wording was developed by Harold Wilson and Arthur Bottomley, secretary of state for Commonwealth Relations, in Feb. 1965 and sent to Smith in Sept. Bottomley to Smith, 21 Sept. 1965, in Southern Rhodesia. Documents relating to the negotiations between the United Kingdom and Rhodesian Governments, November 1963–November 1965 (London, 1965), 66Google Scholar. In the late 1960s a sixth principle was added, that there had to be guarantees of no future repression of the majority by the minority or the minority by the majority. Cory Library, Rhodes University, Grahamstown (CL) Ian Smith Deposit (Smith) 23, White Paper: Anglo-Rhodesian Negotiations since December 1966, Cabinet Memoranda, Part 2.
7 Record of a meeting held at 10 Downing Street, 7 Oct. 1965, and 19 Oct. 1965, in Southern Rhodesia, 77–9, 120; Wood, J. R. T., So Far and No Further! Rhodesia's Bid for Independence during the Retreat from Empire, 1959–1965 (Victoria, BC, 2005), 375–6Google Scholar.
8 National Archives of Zimbabwe, Harare (NAZ) MS807, The Forum, ‘Sanctions: an Appreciation’, n. d., but filed in Mar. or Apr. 1969. The idea that Rhodesians should struggle to differentiate themselves from white South Africans pre-dated UDI, see Holderness, Hardwicke, Lost Chance: Southern Rhodesia 1945–58 (Harare, 1958), 227Google Scholar. The fact of isolationism and calcified attitudes was a constant theme in visitors' writings after UDI, see Hills, Denis, Rebel People (London, 1978), 199Google Scholar.
9 Goldin, Ian, The Judge, the Prince, and the Usurper – From UDI to Zimbabwe (New York, 1990), 92Google Scholar. Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee, argued that Rhodesia should be allowed to compete, but Rhodesian coaches blamed the UN, see Cheffers, John, A Wilderness of Spite (New York, 1972)Google Scholar.
10 Eekelaar, J. M., ‘Rhodesia: The abdication of constitutionalism’, The Modern Law Review, 32:1 (1969), 28–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wood, Matter of Weeks, 414–18; NAZ MS807, N. R. Bertram, The Forum, ‘The Blocking Mechanism’, Confidential Memo, Oct. 1968.
11 Wood, A Matter of Weeks, 489–90; NAZ MS807, The Forum, Untitled Memo, 9 May 1969; NAZ MS809, ‘Political and Economic Survey: Rhodesia and the Referendum’, Confidential Memo, June 1969.
12 Martin and Johnson, Struggle for Zimbabwe, 93–5; Wood, Matter of Weeks, 489–93; CL Smith 4/003(M), United Kingdom Committee, The Parity Principle and its Relevance to any Reconciliation Negotiations with the British, mimeo., 22 Feb. 1971.
13 Bowman, Larry W., ‘Strains in the Rhodesian Front’, Africa Report, 13:9 (1968), 16–22Google Scholar; Harris, P. B., ‘The failure of a “constitution”: The Whaley Report, Rhodesia, 1968’, International Affairs, 45:2 (1969), 234–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This in turn changed the dynamics within the RF: as the extreme right-wing left the party over the 1969 constitution, two moderates – by Rhodesian standards – replaced them in the cabinet. See ‘Rhodesia’, Africa Report, 13:5 (1968), 34–6; NAZ MS807, N. S. Bertram, The Forum, Confidential Memorandum, Oct. 1968.
14 Desmond Lardner-Burke, Rhodesia's long serving minister for law and order, had to remind the cabinet that Rhodesia still had no credibility in world affairs. Defiance of the Crown ‘will not affect overseas opinion one iota; our enemies will still base their attacks on us on the principle that as an ‘illegal regime’ …’. CL Smith 24, D. Lardner-Burke, ‘Death Sentences’, Cabinet Minutes, 19 June 1970.
15 Douglas-Home, Alec, The Way the Wind Blows (New York, 1976), 251–3Google Scholar.
16 After the White Paper was published, one of the British negotiators was asked if it did not undermine African aspirations. He replied, ‘The African has been sold out long before.’ Lord Goodman quoted in Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia, 124.
17 Dr.Hirsch, I. M., The Constitution and Independence: An Analysis (Bulawayo, 1964)Google Scholar; Day, John, ‘Southern Rhodesian nationalists and the 1961 constitution’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 2:2 (1969), 221–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Years later Claire Palley calculated that the earliest majority rule could be achieved under the 1961 constitution was 2015; 2023 was more likely. See ‘Rhodesia: The time-scale for majority rule’, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 2:2 (1972), 52–64Google Scholar.
18 Government of Rhodesia, Proposals for a Settlement cmd. R. R. 46–1971, 25 Nov. 1971 (Salisbury, 1971)Google Scholar.
19 Nevertheless, the same committee that claimed compromise was necessary produced memoranda after memoranda explaining the fallacy of demands for majority rule: because so few people were actually qualified to lead, all rule was minority rule. CL Smith 4/003(M), United Kingdom Committee, The Parity Principle and its Relevance to any Reconciliation Negotiations with the British, mimeo., 22 Feb. 1971.
20 Abel Muzorewa, Bishop, Rise Up and Walk: An Autobiography (Johannesburg, 1978), 92Google Scholar.
21 Martin and Johnson, Struggle for Zimbabwe, 217; Meredith, Another Country, 85–7; Caute, Skin, 184, 269–70.
22 See, for example, Todd, Say No, 54.
23 Mittlebeeler, Emmet V., ‘The settlement’, Africa Report, 17:2 (1972), 11–13Google Scholar. Years later, supporters of the settlement admitted that the goal was not majority rule soon, or even in the near future, but to prevent Rhodesia from moving closer to South Africa and ‘apartheid’. Brivati, Brian, Lord Goodman (London, 1999), 203–4Google Scholar.
24 House of Assembly, Parliamentary Debates, 24 Nov. 1971, 2nd session, 12th parliament, vol. 80 (Salisbury, 1972), cols. 1034, 1038–9, 1042–3Google Scholar; Hancock, Ian, White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia 1953–1980 (London, 1984), 152–4Google Scholar.
25 Report, 121.
26 Martin and Johnson, Struggle for Zimbabwe, 98; Muzorewa, Rise Up, 94–5; see also Alexander, Jocelyn, McGregor, JoAnn, and Ranger, Terrence, Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the ‘Dark Forests’ of Matabeleland (Oxford, 2000), 126–7Google Scholar; Sibanda, Eliakim M., The Zimbabwe African Peoples's Union (Trenton, NJ, 2005), 205–6Google Scholar.
27 Nkomo, Joshua, Nkomo: The Story of My Life (London, 1984), 141Google Scholar. A biography of Garfield Todd claimed the ANC was created on the instructions of detained ZANU leadership; Todd's connection to the new party was through its vice president, the Rev. Canaan Banana, see Weiss, Ruth with Parpart, Jane, Sir Garfield Todd and the Making of Zimbabwe (London, 1999), 174Google Scholar.
28 Borthwick Historical Institute, University of York, UK (BHI) Centre Party Papers (CPP) CE/1, T. H. P. Bashford, ‘The African National Council and Settlement’, Confidential, 17 Feb. 1972.
29 Douglas-Home, Wind Blows, 302–4.
30 Muzorewa, Rise Up, 106; Kirk, Tony, ‘Rhodesia's “Pro-settlement groups” and the Anglo-Rhodesian constitutional dispute’, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 3:1 (1973), 2–5Google Scholar; Rhodesia Settlement Forum, ‘Why Settlement is vital for Rhodesia’, Salisbury, 21 Nov. 1971, in Christopher Nyangoni and Gideon Nyandoro (eds.), Zimbabwe Independence Movements: Selected Documents (New York, 1979), 187–201.
31 Ministry of Information, Immigration, and Tourism, Rhodesia Settlement Proposals: Courage and Faith Needed (Salisbury 1972)Google Scholar.
32 Ruben Jamela, former leader of the Trade Union Congress, refused to be associated with PARD. See Kirk, ‘Pro-settlement groups’, 4–5; Fothergill, Rowland, Laboratory for Peace: The Story of Ken and Lillian Mew and of Ranche House College, Salisbury (Bulawayo, 1984), 136–48Google Scholar; Mitchell, Diana, ‘PARD on me – “COSS I'm non-political” ’, Centre Point, 2:5 (March 1972), 4Google Scholar; Hancock, White Liberals, 156–8. Lonrho also gave funds to Joshua Nkomo, see Nkomo, 182–4.
33 NAZ ORAL BE2, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh Beadle, Bulawayo, Feb. 1972; NAZ ORAL QU2, Hon. H. J. Quinton Salisbury, May 1977 and May 1978. The sympathies of the former colonial governors is a minor trope in Pearce Commission writings, see Judith Todd's account of her meeting with Sir Glyn Jones, Say No, 115–16.
34 Report, 5; on Morris, see Hodder-Williams, Richard, ‘Rhodesia's search for a constitution. Or, whatever happened to Whaley?’, African Affairs, 69:276 (1970), 217–18, 223–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Smith, Betrayal, 154–5.
36 Report, 12–13.
37 Smith, Betrayal, 151–8.
38 Smith, Betrayal, 153.
39 Meredith, The Past, 97; Hancock, White Liberals, 159.
40 Report, 6.
41 CL Smith 4/003(M), Record of Meeting between Harold Smedly and J. F. Gaylard, 17 Jan. 1972, Pearce Commission, Sundry Meetings. In the US, random, or probability, sampling had become increasingly inclusive and scientific in the 1940s and ‘50s; by 1955 there was a shift in scientific sampling to develop ways to recognize the variety of minority opinions. See Igo, Sarah, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge, 2007), 126–34, 148–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Southern Rhodesia had been the exposed to survey research since the late 1950s, and researchers prided themselves on the rigorous methods they brought to survey research and the census. See Rogers, Cyril A. and Frantz, C., Racial Themes in Southern Rhodesia: The Attitudes and Behavior of the White Population (New Haven 1962), 42–86Google Scholar; Shutz, Barry M., ‘European population patterns, cultural persistence, and political change in Rhodesia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7:2 (1975), 3–25Google Scholar.
42 Report, 35–8.
43 Todd, Say No, 72.
44 Report, 31–2, 38.
45 CL Smith 4/003(M), Record of Meeting held in Prime Minister's Office, 12 Jan. 1972, 4PM, Pearce Commission, Sundry Meetings.
46 Report, 39–40.
47 Report, 70; Todd, Say No, 114–18; Mutasa, Didymus, Rhodesian Black Behind Bars (London, 1974), 75–6Google Scholar.
48 Report, 58–9, 72–3. In contentious public meetings, the Asian community supported the proposals by the narrowest of margins.
49 Report, 165, 168. In a few urban areas, public meetings had to be postponed because of demonstrations and riots. Subsequent meetings were held in the magistrate's court and went smoothly, 172.
50 Berlyn, Phillipa, The Quiet Man. A Biography of Ian Douglas Smith, I. D. Prime Minister of Rhodesia (Salisbury, 1978), 205–6Google Scholar. Berlyn was a journalist assigned to the commission as an interpreter. The only time she saw a crowd outraged was when the commission arrived two hours late.
51 Report, 17; Muzorewa, Rise Up, 99–101.
52 Lemon, David, Never Quite a Soldier: A Policeman's War 1971–1983 (Stroud, 2000), 55Google Scholar.
53 See Morgan, Edmund S., Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (New York, 1988), 183–9Google Scholar; Frank O'Gorman, ‘The secret ballot in nineteenth century Britain’, in Romain Bertrand, et al. (eds.), The Hidden History of the Secret Ballot (Bloomington, 2006), 16–42.
54 In 1972 Ian Smith told journalists that being susceptible to intimidation was a cultural characteristic of Africans, one that made them totally unlike Europeans. Niesewand, Peter, In Camera: Secret Justice in Rhodesia (London, 1973), 67Google Scholar.
55 Kriger, Norma, ‘ZANU(PF) strategies in general elections, 1980–2000: discourse and coercion’, African Affairs, 104:414 (2005), 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scarnecchia, Timothy, The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield 1940–1954 (Rochester, 2008), 94–9, 158–9Google Scholar.
56 Bashford, The African National Council and Settlement.
57 Report, 104–5.
58 Report, 104–7; Hancock, White Liberals, 152–3; ‘What happened to Ronnie Sadomba’, Centre Point, 2:4 (1972), 2; Peter Niesewand, ‘Settlement’, 8–10; Niesewand, In Camera, 67. This infuriated the RF, who were to complain that the commission did not want district commissioners present when Africans gave evidence, and thus had failed to see ‘that they were taking evidence from the same crowd at each meeting’. These men traveled in buses, ‘three busloads at a time’, filled the halls and took turns giving evidence ‘so it's not always the same men’. Quinton interview, NAZ/ORAL/QU2. Smith repeated this in his memoirs: ‘leading agitators traveled in advance of the commission, from meeting to meeting, orchestrating the opposition.’ Smith, Betrayal, 155.
59 Report, 40, 11.
60 McKeon, Nancy, ‘Rhodesia's fighting bishop’, Africa Report, 17:3 (1972), 9Google Scholar.
61 Berlyn, Quiet Man, 206.
62 Bashford, The African National Council and Settlement.
63 Among the groups that now made up the ANC were the African Christian Council (founded 1906), the African Farmers Union (founded 1936), and the African Teachers Association (founded 1944). ‘Rhodesia: ANC and others’, Africa Confidential, 13:10 (19 May 1972), 6–7; Muzorewa, Rise Up, 106–11.
64 CL Smith 4/003(M), Meetings, Dorneywood, 17 Apr. 1972, 11AM, and 1PM.
65 CL Smith 4/003(M), Meeting, Dorneywood, 17 Apr. 1972, 11AM. The Centre Party had also come to London in March to ask that the proposals be implemented so as to develop rural areas; they had only been vetoed, they argued, because of intimidation. See Hancock, White Liberals, 160; ‘Rhodesia: ANC and Others’, 7. Six months later, the Centre Party disconnected its phones and closed its offices. BHI CE/5, Diana Mitchell, Paper for circulation at Centre Party Congress, 28 Oct. 1972.
66 For much of 1972 Douglas-Home and his negotiators claimed to have been misled by Rhodesians and their fictions. Lord Goodman said Smith had assured him that chiefs could deliver the African vote: ‘No one warned me that the idea that chiefs could control tribes was wrong. The tribes controlled the chiefs.’ Quoted in Brivati, Lord Goodman, 204. Before the White Paper was published, however, Douglas-Home wrote memos about what to do if the proposals were rejected: British National Archives, Kew (BNA) CAB 129/159/128, Alec Douglas-Home, ‘Rhodesia: Options in the Event of a failure to achieve a settlement’, 5 Nov. 1971.
67 Rhodesian cabinet committees were more flexible than Smith was. A fraction of the United Kingdom committee, for example, suggested that Rhodesia implement some of the proposals anyway, and wait for Britain to react. CL Smith 4/003(M), United Kingdom Committee, Cabinet Room, 26 Apr. 1972.
68 CL Smith 4/003(M), Meeting, Dorneywood; Second meeting, Carlton Terrace, 19 Apr. 1972.
69 CL Smith 4/003(M), Meeting with Prime Minister and Sir Denis Greenhill, 17 May 1972, Test of Acceptability Discussions and Meetings with British.
70 CL Smith 4/003(M), Notes on Third Meeting between Prime Minister and Sir Denis Greenhill, 19 May 1972, 8:30AM.
71 Parliamentary Debates, 8 June 1972 (Salisbury, 1972)Google Scholar, cols. 18, 22, 28, 32, 42, 85–86, 102, 130, 146, 148, 170, 176, 189.
72 Parliamentary Debates, 8 June 1972, cols. 207, 209–10, 213; ‘Rhodesia: distant prospects’, 7. A government pamphlet published that month concluded that the British should amend the proposals to earn ‘the respect and gratitude of those Rhodesians whose interests Britain claims to represent’. Ministry of Information, Where Did Pearce Go Wrong? A Brief Appreciation of the Pearce Report (Salisbury, 1972), 5Google Scholar.
73 Muzorewa, Rise Up, 118, 123.
74 Kirk, ‘Pro-settlement groups’, 4–5. Muzorewa noted that these African groups were funded by the Rhodesian government, at the same time it denounced the ANC as ‘rabble-rousers’. Years later, he boasted that the ANC was not banned because the Rhodesian government could not establish a link between it and the banned political parties now in Lusaka. Muzorewa, Rise Up, 120–1, 124–5.
75 ‘Rhodesia: Distant prospects’, Africa Confidential, 13:16 (11 Aug. 1972), 6–7; CL Smith 4/003(M), Minutes, Working Committee of the United Kingdom Committee, 11 Oct. 1972.
76 CL Smith 4/003(M), United Kingdom Committee, Memoranda, 8 Dec. 1972, and Minutes, 31 May 1973.
77 Muzorewa, Rise Up, 131–3; Smith, Betrayal, 157–8.
78 Quoted Martin and Johnson, Struggle for Zimbabwe, 101.
79 Throughout 1972, the 1961 constitution was hauled out as an example of the consequences of African intransigence: had Africans not boycotted the referendum on the 1961 constitution, white Rhodesians never would have elected the Rhodesian Front in 1962. When Africans removed themselves from the political processes specific to Rhodesia, they got what they deserved. Bowman, White Politics, 187; Hancock, White Liberals, 152–3; Meredith, The Past, 101–2. For the afterlife of the 1961 complaint, see Shamuyarira, Nathan, Crisis in Rhodesia (London, 1965), 165–7Google Scholar; Wood, So Far, 74.
