6. Negotiating for Security Guarantees: The Civil War in Zimbabwe

THE NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT to the civil war in what was then Rhodesia, signed in London on December 21, 1979, defied most predictions of how the war would end. Despite a prime minister who vowed, “I don’t believe in majority rule, black majority rule, ever in Rhodesia, not in a thousand years,”¹ despite impassioned racial, tribal, and ideological differences, despite large economic injustices and imbalances in military power, this conflict ended peacefully.² Why did Zimbabwe’s civil war, which most observers considered intractable, end in a successfully implemented settlement?

Informed observers have attributed Zimbabwe’s success to economic pressures from outside countries and to the particularly adept mediators who handled the negotiations in 1979. An examination of the process of negotiation, however, reveals that these conditions were neither new in 1979 nor sufficient to obtain a final peace agreement. Although international pressure did encourage Prime Minister Ian Smith and the nationalist rebels to participate in lengthy negotiations, the rebels did not agree to a cease-fire—the third and final element of the settlement—until Britain promised to station Commonwealth monitors, peace-keepers, and observers on Zimbabwean soil and to run the transition after the treaty. Throughout the negotiations, the Patriotic Front displayed extreme concern for its relative strength and safety during the transition period and consistently demanded assurances that it would not be attacked or permanently shut out of power if it signed an agreement. Every attempt to negotiate failed except when Britain promised direct military and political involvement. In short, Britain’s ability to mollify these fears by sending peacekeepers, cease-fire observers, and election monitors to Zimbabwe was the crucial variable for success.

Current Explanations of the Settlement

Most accounts of Zimbabwe’s civil war claim that the conflict was ripe for resolution by 1979, at which point skillful mediation allowed the combatants to reach a deal.³ Accounts differ on whether costs of the war,⁴ a military stalemate,⁵ or international pressure⁶ played a larger role in convincing the antagonists to negotiate. All agree, however, that “changed conditions would not, in themselves, have been sufficient to bring about success. The other element was the negotiating dexterity of Carrington and the British team.”⁷

Both the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front rebels had strong economic incentives to pursue a peaceful solution in 1979, a fact that supports chapter 4’s finding that rising costs are likely to convince combatants to initiate negotiations. In Zimbabwe’s case, however, it was the potential end of foreign aid and the burden of economic sanctions rather than the duration of the war or war-related deaths that pushed the two parties to the table.

By 1979, the neighboring governments of Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique were putting increasing pressure on the rebels to end a war that threatened stability in the region, and they threatened to cut off foreign assistance if this did not occur. The government of Rhodesia faced its own financial reasons to negotiate. Eleven years of war, worldwide economic recession, and high prices for imported oil had left Rhodesia’s economy on the verge of collapse, and by 1979 whites were leaving the country at a rate of one thousand per month.⁸ The government did not have money or manpower to fight indefinitely.

Outside pressure and the costs of war were thus decisive in getting the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front to initiate each of these peace talks. It is also true that Peter Carrington’s mediation helped the two sides reach and sign the Lancaster House bargain. But the cost of war and skillful mediation were not sufficient to obtain peace. Fighting had been costly for many years and had encouraged Ian Smith and the Patriotic Front to pursue negotiations in 1974, 1976, and 1977, during which time highly skilled mediators (Henry Kissinger, David Owen, Cyrus Vance) intervened, to no avail. In fact, it was during Kissinger’s intervention in 1976 and not Carrington’s in 1979 that Ian Smith agreed to hand power over to the black majority. If Smith’s government had conceded the issue of majority rule in 1976 and the Patriotic Front had signed a comprehensive bargain in 1978, why was it not until December 1979 that peace prevailed? That, I argue, is where third-party security guarantees come in.

The Negotiations

Zimbabwe’s civil war began in 1972 as guerrilla forces rose up to challenge increasingly oppressive discrimination by the white government of Ian Smith and to force the government to discuss the issue of majority rule.⁹ Negotiations to end the conflict were attempted every year from 1973 to 1979. Four of these negotiations met the coding criteria outlined in chapter 4 and are thus considered serious attempts to negotiate. The detente scenario, the Kissinger plan, the Anglo-American initiatives, and the Lancaster House conference were all formal negotiations in which the main warring factions held face-to-face talks, had agreed to discuss a political solution to the war, and were sufficiently strong militarily to continue the war if talks broke down.¹⁰

If the credible commitment theory is valid—if civil wars are more likely to end in negotiated settlements when the short- and long-term survival of both sides is guaranteed—we would expect all attempts to negotiate a settlement to the Zimbabwean civil war to fail except those that were underwritten by an outside guarantor and that contained specific political, military, or territorial guarantees of power. We would also expect post-treaty protection to be the issue most difficult to resolve and the issue over which negotiations were most likely to break down. However, the theory would be disproved if Ian Smith and the Patriotic Front rebels made no attempt to obtain third-party guarantees during negotiations, if both sides were willing to sign and implement a peace settlement as soon as the issues directly related to the cause of the war (in this case land reform, economic reform, and majority rule) were resolved, and if implementation did not depend on the deployment of outside observers.

The following sections explore each of the four negotiations in detail, considering features that conform to or diverge from the theory.

First Negotiations: The Detente Scenario

The first serious attempt to resolve Rhodesia’s civil war began in 1974, fourteen months after its beginning, and continued intermittently through August 1975. The historical details of this first attempt reveal the important role outside pressure played in getting negotiations off the ground. The talks centered around the question of majority rule; no issue appeared more difficult to resolve at this early stage in the peace process. I emphasize this point because this issue was eventually settled long before a peace treaty was signed.

By 1974 the guerrilla war had not yet disrupted Rhodesian life seriously and did not threaten the continued dominance of Prime Minister Smith and his white Rhodesian Front government. Neighboring South Africa and Zambia, however, had much to lose from an unstable neighbor and put pressure on Smith and the rebels to end the violence. South Africa’s economic and political survival depended on a peaceful southern Africa, and landlocked Zambia needed safe and open transportation routes through Rhodesia to the Indian Ocean.¹¹ Both countries insisted that the combatants initiate peace talks, and the government (supported by South Africa) and the rebels (supported by Zambia) agreed.

The fact that both Ian Smith and the rebels were willing to initiate peace negotiations at a time when battle deaths were low, the war was young, and violence failed to threaten Zimbabwe’s main urban centers suggests that international pressure, a factor not discussed in the previous chapters, can play an important role in bringing combatants to the bargaining table. In this case, outsiders’ ability to cut economic aid, block important escape routes, and establish embargoes directly affected the costs each of the combatants was forced to pay and appeared to factor into their decision to fight or bargain. Outside economic assistance, therefore, seems to better capture how costly the war was to fight, at this stage in the conflict, than either the duration of war or war-related deaths.

Informal negotiations began in October 1974. South African prime minister John Vorster believed his country could induce Smith to accept a peace plan that called for a three- to five-year transitional period to majority rule if given enough encouragement. In return, President Kaunda of Zambia believed he could convince the rebels to accept a cease-fire. After secret discussions with Ian Smith in November and December, Vorster promised the rebels that the Rhodesian government would release all political prisoners, lift the ban on the two main black nationalist military groups, ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) and ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union), that made up the Patriotic Front, suspend political trials and revoke death sentences for political offenders, and suspend all politically discriminatory legislation.¹² In return, the black leaders of Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, and Tanzania (also known as the frontline presidents for their geographical proximity to Rhodesia) promised Smith that they would attempt to convince ZANU and ZAPU to “desist from the armed struggle.”¹³

Smith did not accept any transition to majority rule, but he did release the first group of nationalist leaders. Among them were Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Edson Sithole, and Abel Muzorewa, black leaders who would later play decisive roles in the settlement of the war. Smith then demanded an immediate cease-fire during which the guerrillas would surrender arms and withdraw from Rhodesia.¹⁴ The rebels refused. Instead, ZANU and ZAPU insisted that they would observe a cease-fire only when a date for a constitutional conference had been fixed and “meaningful discussions” toward majority rule had begun.¹⁵

The government and the rebels did not meet again until January 20, 1975, by which time the military and economic situation on the ground had not changed. The rebels reiterated their demands. They wanted the government to accept a parliamentary majority, to open the civil service and other areas of employment that were presently denied to black Africans, and to make appointments on merit rather than race. They understood that white Rhodesians had skills necessary for a stable and efficient government and economy and were willing to moderate their demands as a result. If Smith was willing to consider majority rule in three to five years rather than immediately, the rebels were ready to proceed with serious settlement talks. But Smith remained intransigent. There would be “no handover to a black majority government,” he assured white Rhodesians.¹⁶

South Africa attempted to break this deadlock by increasing constraints on the Smith regime. On February 11, South Africa announced that it would withdraw the two-thousand-man police force it had provided for the Rhodesian government since 1967. Zambia in turn promised that guerrillas would no longer be allowed to infiltrate Rhodesia over the Zambezi River, their main attack line.

The withdrawal of South African forces convinced Smith to convene the constitutional conference the rebels demanded, but he remained obstinate on almost all issues. Smith, for example, refused to travel outside Rhodesia to negotiate. The rebels responded that they would not (and could not) meet in Rhodesia, since Smith refused to grant immunity to their exiled and imprisoned leaders.¹⁷

On August 9, 1975, a compromise was reached in the form of the Pretoria agreement. The parties agreed to meet on the Victoria Falls Bridge, which spanned the border between Rhodesia and Zambia, in coaches supplied by the South African government. There would be no preconditions to the talks, which meant that Smith would not be obliged to discuss majority rule. The object of the formal meeting was “to give the parties the opportunity to publicly express their genuine desire to negotiate an acceptable settlement.” The parties would then meet at a formal conference during which they would ratify the agreed-upon proposals.¹⁸

The Failure of the Victoria Falls Conference

Smith and the rebel delegation (which included Muzorewa, Nkomo, and Sithole) met at Victoria Falls on August 25, 1975. The conference floundered immediately. Muzorewa demanded a constitutional settlement “based on the transfer of power from the minority to the majority people of the country.”¹⁹ “Black majority rule,” he declared, “is the only basis for success.”²⁰ Smith responded that this was “completely and utterly unacceptable to us.”²¹ Muzorewa then insisted that African National Congress representatives presently in exile should be given immunity to attend future meetings.²² Smith again refused, and the meeting broke up the next day. Neither side had yielded on any issue, and each side blamed the other for the breakdown of the talks.

Observers have argued that the Victoria Falls conference failed because it was poorly planned and executed: the “mediation framework . . . proved to be totally unconducive to serious negotiations between the parties.”²³ True, Vorster’s and Kaunda’s attempt to mediate the war in Rhodesia was ill-defined and disorganized. South Africa and Zambia allowed Smith to haggle over cease-fire terms, locations for talks, release of prisoners, and preconditions for a constitutional conference, deflecting attention from the basic issue, majority rule. It is clear, however, that neither side was willing to compromise on the issue, and there was little that outside mediation could have done about it.

But why were the combatants, especially Smith, unwilling to discuss solutions that fell between these two extremes? The prime minister, for example, could have discussed an arrangement that gave blacks a majority in only one of the houses of parliament. Or he could have proposed a transfer of power to the black majority twenty-five years down the road. Both of these solutions would probably have been accepted by the rebels at this stage of the war, and were far better deals than the one white Rhodesians accepted four years later.

Smith refused to compromise on majority rule because his government was under no military pressure to do so. Government forces still appeared far stronger than the guerrilla army, and the rebels had certainly not fought whites to a military stalemate. In fact, the government was enjoying a series of military successes. Rhodesian military intelligence boasted that “in October and November 1974 we killed more terrorists than we had killed in the total period from 1972 to October 1974.”²⁴ Guerrilla attacks were confined to isolated farms along the Rhodesian border and did not threaten urban areas, where most whites lived. Whites “believed that they could continue indefinitely; neither sanctions nor the war yet endangered white survival. Christmas festivities in 1974 continued undisturbed by the possible approach of major changes.”²⁵

At this point, only South Africa could apply the economic pressure necessary to break Smith’s resolve, and Vorster was not willing to push him that far.²⁶ Smith’s haggling over details was only a smokescreen to conceal the important fact: he was under no military pressure from the rebels or economic pressure from his main patron to compromise on the issue of majority rule. As long as his army continued to advance militarily and South Africa remained sympathetic to Smith’s desire to maintain white rule, there was little reason to give in.

The Kissinger Plan

By June 1975, it had become clear to both the rebels and the frontline presidents that Smith had no intention of agreeing to majority rule. When the August negotiations at Victoria Falls failed, President Machel of Mozambique, President Nyerere of Tanzania, and rebel leaders Muzorewa, Nkomo, Sithole, and Chikerema pledged to intensify the armed struggle. There was a growing feeling within the rebel organization that a resumed guerrilla war was the only way to win concessions from Smith and achieve black majority rule.²⁷ In February 1976, the rebels renewed their military crusade, and a new and more violent phase of the war began.

The same month, the British foreign secretary James Callaghan sent officials to Rhodesia’s capital to gauge Smith’s situation and to renew the possibility of a peace settlement. Britain’s interest in settling the conflict had increased after Fidel Castro dispatched thousands of combat troops to Angola in late 1975. The United States, led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, also decided that peace in Rhodesia was necessary to halt the “radicalization” of southern Africa. Kissinger feared that continued war would usher in a radical black nationalist government in Rhodesia, instigate racial unrest in neighboring states, and allow the Soviets and Cubans to gain an additional foothold in the region.²⁸ On April 27 Kissinger pledged American support for majority rule in Rhodesia and promised to solicit South Africa’s help to ensure a rapid negotiated settlement. He emphasized that the Smith regime would face America’s unrelenting opposition until a negotiated settlement was achieved.²⁹

While Kissinger and Vorster plotted how and when to induce majority rule to Rhodesia, violence escalated. By June 1976 the guerrillas were attacking from three sides—Mozambique, Zambia, and Botswana—and had infiltrated far past the border region. In response, the Rhodesian government extended military service, increased taxes, cut travel and emigration, and initiated its own offensive strikes at guerrilla and refugee camps in neighboring Mozambique.³⁰

Smith’s raids into Mozambique were a resounding military success but disastrous politically. The attack on adjoining states and against helpless refugees convinced Vorster that the Rhodesian prime minister would never accept majority rule unless his war effort collapsed.³¹ Moreover, South Africa feared that Rhodesian attacks into neighboring countries would “bring every Cuban in sight to Rhodesia’s borders.”³² Immediately after the raid, Vorster blocked Smith’s access to critical trade routes through South Africa, cut oil shipments, and curtailed arms and ammunition deliveries. South Africa had finally decided to make continued war very costly for the white minority regime.³³

Despite increased economic pressure, the outlook for successful negotiations remained grim. Smith’s raids into Mozambique had hurt the rebels and forced them to ease their guerrilla offensives. Smith’s military position, therefore, was improving, and his willingness to compromise correspondingly declined.³⁴

For their own reasons the rebels were equally unenthusiastic about negotiations at this time. They were splintered into rival factions and did not agree that negotiations with Smith were the best strategy to obtain majority rule. Robert Mugabe, in particular, saw Kissinger’s mission as a ploy to end the violence and establish a black puppet government sympathetic to white interests. His arm of the Patriotic Front, the Zimbabwe African National Union, intended to fight any settlement.³⁵

South Africa, however, responded by increasing economic pressure on Smith. Vorster now blocked the flow of goods between the two countries, cut off money and equipment needed to support the war effort, and withdrew twenty-six helicopters and all helicopter pilots, cutting Rhodesia’s air force in half.³⁶ On September 16, Rhodesia’s minister of finance, David Smith, warned Ian Smith that unless Rhodesia received a large injection of money, it could not continue to pay for the war.³⁷

On September 19, 1976, Kissinger handed Smith a list of five points that would be the basis of a Rhodesian settlement. Its conditions were these:

1. Rhodesia would agree to majority rule within two years.

2. Rhodesian representatives would meet immediately at a mutually agreed place with black leaders to work out an interim government until majority rule was implemented.

3. The interim government would consist of a Council of State, half of whose members would be black and half white, with a white, nonvoting chairman.

4. All members would take an oath to work for rapid progress to majority rule.

5. The United Kingdom would enact enabling legislation for progress to majority rule. Rhodesia would also enact such legislation as would be necessary.³⁸

Kissinger informed Smith that he must either accept or reject the package as a whole. Kissinger believed that if Smith rejected the terms, his regime could not survive for more than three months. If Smith accepted the terms, Western powers would set up a financial trust to help Rhodesia economically and to guarantee the rights of whites.³⁹

South African sanctions had the desired effect. Smith agreed to discuss a peace settlement, showing once again that outside pressure and the costs of war can induce even a highly intransigent leader to compromise. Now, however, Smith’s concerns for the security of white settlers surfaced. Smith informed Kissinger that his party could not survive if it relinquished majority rule to an enemy that outnumbered whites twenty-four to one. Smith believed the survival of the white settlers could be assured only if whites retained command of important security posts. Smith insisted, therefore, that the chairman of the executive council and two key cabinet ministers, the minister of defense and the minister of law and order, be white.⁴⁰ If Kissinger approved these amendments, Smith would accept majority rule.⁴¹

Kissinger accepted Smith’s demands, and on Friday, September 24, Smith announced via radio and television that white rule would end in two years if the rebels accepted the Kissinger plan.⁴² Four years after the war began and two months after South Africa cut essential war supplies, the white minority government accepted majority rule—an issue most observers believed could never be resolved through negotiation.

The Nationalists’ Rejection of the Proposal

With the main political issue driving the war resolved, negotiations immediately turned to the question of security. The rebels and frontline presidents met on September 25 in Lusaka to discuss Smith’s announcement. Smith had surrendered minority rule, and for that they rejoiced. The rebels stated quite clearly, however, that they would not accept the proposals if Smith retained control of the security positions.⁴³ Mugabe insisted that “it does not matter what type of parliament is put up during or after the transitional government—if it does not control the army it is a sham—it’s hollow because there is no guarantee that it will not topple the administration anytime.”⁴⁴ If Smith controlled the ministries of defense and of law and order during the transition, rebels believed, he would manipulate or overturn upcoming elections and constitutional changes.⁴⁵ Therefore, Mugabe demanded that the rebels take over the Rhodesian army during the proposed transitional government.

Negotiations deadlocked over this issue. Smith refused to accept any proposal for transitional arrangements that did not give whites control of all security positions, and Mugabe rejected any such an arrangement. Vorster, satisfied with Smith’s acceptance of the Kissinger plan, had already lifted sanctions, opening South African railways to Rhodesian traffic and fully restoring oil and ammunition to the white government.⁴⁶ Once South African restraints were lifted, Smith had little incentive to compromise further.

Britain, however, did not give up hope for a settlement. Between September 1976 and February 1977 the British continued to search for acceptable post-treaty security arrangements, and it was during this time that the rebels first sought third-party security guarantees. In November 1976, the Patriotic Front demanded that the transition include “a Resident Commissioner answerable to Britain” who would be “charged with the duty of ensuring full and proper implementation of the . . . Agreement.”⁴⁷ Britain responded with a vague offer of a “British presence” but insisted that Britain had no intention of administering Rhodesia during a transitional period and would certainly not send troops. Smith, confident in his ability to continue the war now that South African sanctions had been lifted, rejected all counterproposals.

Why the Kissinger Plan Failed

The Kissinger talks may be viewed as two separate negotiations: those that occurred while South Africa applied severe economic sanctions, and those that took place after they were lifted. Only during the first phase did Smith have strong incentives to reach a political bargain, since he desperately needed to end the war before his government ran out of money and supplies. The second phase was simply a performance put on by Smith to pacify Washington’s and Pretoria’s demands for peace talks.

The first phase of the Kissinger talks, therefore, offers insights into the conditions under which seemingly intransigent leaders compromise on key issues driving a war. Until October 1976, Smith faced large costs for failing to cooperate with the Patriotic Front and could not remain stubbornly impassive at the bargaining table. He later admitted that his acceptance of majority rule

was not a decision that we welcomed, or that we accepted lightly, I must tell you that. We were placed in a situation where we virtually had no option. This was because of the actions of the then South African PM, John Vorster. As far as countries like Britain and America were concerned, we could defy them as we had done over the years. We could not do that to the one country which controlled our life-line. So, reluctantly—very reluctantly—we were forced to accept it.⁴⁸

This first phase also offers insights into the difficult security issues that arose once the question of majority rule was resolved. As the credible commitment theory predicts, control over security institutions immediately surfaced once the main issue driving the war was settled. Statements by both Smith and Mugabe reveal the depth of their concern over this matter. Mugabe stated that “it would be ridiculous for the settlers who were murdering the Zimbabweans to be intrusted with [our] security during the crucial transitional period.”⁴⁹ The rebels “would rather prefer Ian Smith having 100 per cent representation in Parliament and we having the army controlling, than having majority in Parliament with Ian Smith having the army, you see. That’s not transference of power at all.”⁵⁰ In short, the Patriotic Front was willing to reject Smith’s offer of majority rule if it meant that Smith’s party maintained control of post-treaty defense.

It is difficult to say if the deadlock over security positions would have been resolved had South Africa maintained sanctions on Rhodesia. Britain’s ensuing offers to administer the transition period and integrate the army went some way to addressing these security concerns. Still, it is unlikely that negotiations would have succeeded as long as Britain continued to reject any direct involvement in the transition. Neither side would likely have proceeded toward peace as long as Britain refused to enforce or guarantee any subsequent demobilization.

The Anglo-American Initiative

The failure of the Kissinger plan did not dissuade Britain and America from trying to find a solution to Rhodesia’s increasingly bloody war. The war had rapidly escalated in early 1977, and by the end of the year almost as many guerrillas and Rhodesian soldiers had been killed as in the four years from 1972 to 1976. Much of the increased violence could be attributed to guerrilla advances. After years of wavering between accommodation and rebellion, the rebels finally realized that “only through armed struggle can we achieve the right to rule ourselves.”⁵¹ By 1977, the rebels enjoyed the undivided support of a large rural population and an unlimited supply of modern weapons from the Soviet Union and China.

The Rhodesian government was not so fortunate. White emigration from Rhodesia rose to fifteen hundred a month—the highest departure figure since Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965. The defense budget increased 44 percent, to almost a million dollars a day.⁵² Call-ups for military service affected almost all white males and hurt an already beleaguered business community.

On March 9, 1977, British prime minister James Callaghan and newly elected president Jimmy Carter agreed that Britain and the United States should sponsor a new conference to end the war. The objective would be an independent Zimbabwe with majority rule by 1978.

British foreign secretary David Owen presented the first Anglo-American proposal in April 1977. It included a constitution that provided for a democratically elected government with the widest possible franchise, a bill of rights, and an independent judiciary.⁵³ It also included a transition period during which the Smith regime would surrender power to a neutral caretaker administration that would administer the country, organize and conduct elections, and prepare the country for the transition to independence. The proposal also established an internationally constituted and managed development fund intended to pay off whites for accepting majority rule.⁵⁴

Mugabe and Nkomo, however, resented U.S. involvement in what they believed was a purely British-Rhodesian affair. They argued that Britain had abdicated its responsibility to the black majority in Rhodesia ever since Ian Smith illegally declared independence in 1965. The Patriotic Front insisted that before a new round of talks commenced, “Britain must prove her capability, indeed her determination, that after the successful conclusion of a constitutional conference, she will effectively and properly implement the agreement that will have been reached.”⁵⁵ The rebels understood that without such assurances the transfer of power would never take place.

Owen refused to get involved without the United States. The British Parliament, he believed, would never agree to political or military intervention in Rhodesian affairs once an agreement was reached; London planned to use American muscle for that. In an attempt to circumvent the issue of direct British involvement, Owen changed negotiating tactics. Rather than organize a formal constitutional conference that could become bogged down in preconditions—a problem the detente scenario and the Kissinger plan faced—Owen decided to set up a series of brief meetings. He hoped that shuttle negotiations would maintain momentum, narrow the areas of disagreement, and allow him to find a settlement without further commitments from London.⁵⁶

A Joint Anglo-American Consultative Group was established to handle the roving negotiations that began in May 1977. Led by senior British Foreign Office official John Graham and U.S. ambassador to Zambia Stephen Low, the group toured African capitals to explore possible settlement terms. They found that the principal stumbling block to peace was control of the security forces once a treaty was signed.⁵⁷

This time, it was the Patriotic Front that demanded control of internal security. They regarded the present Rhodesian security forces as the fighting arm of the Smith regime and did not believe that these same forces would remain neutral after a settlement was signed. Smith, on the other hand, insisted that he retain control over these forces and warned that without such reassurance whites would abandon the country. Dismantling the current Rhodesian army, he insisted, “would be tantamount to signing the death warrant for a civilized nation.”⁵⁸

Graham and Low drafted a proposal to address these concerns. For the first time, Britain offered to govern Rhodesia directly. According to the new plan, a British commissioner and his team would replace Smith, supervise the existing administration, and oversee elections. Involvement would last no longer than six months.⁵⁹ During that time an international peacekeeping force would maintain a cease-fire, after which an integrated army of government forces and guerrillas would preserve the peace.⁶⁰ The new plan seemed to contain all the necessary elements for a peaceful and secure transition: a third-party overseer, an international peacekeeping force, and an army composed of both government troops and guerrilla forces.

Both Ian Smith and the Patriotic Front hated the idea. Nkomo argued that the interim government would continue to rely on the current Rhodesian police forces, civil service, and judiciary, and that Smith, therefore, would still be in control. Nkomo revealed his fears in a speech on July 24, 1977:

Suppose on our way to draw that constitution Smith massacres half the African delegation, what defense would that delegation have? None! Secondly, even if the constitution were successfully drawn, what guarantee is there that Ian Smith and his regime would, thereafter, be removed from power and that the constitution could then be implemented? None! . . . The forces of Smith are fighting to oppose independence. The British Government would like us to believe that these same forces can be relied upon to guarantee our independence which they are sworn to frustrate and defeat. How can they be considered reliable to guarantee the independence which it is their mission to frustrate.⁶¹

Nkomo and Mugabe insisted that only the Patriotic Front could take charge of an interim government and ensure the safety of all Zimbabweans.

Ian Smith also disliked the idea of British control of Rhodesia, but for different reasons. “Any suggestion of a peace-keeping force,” he said, “which is going to take the place of our present forces or push them into the background, or not come under the jurisdiction of our existing command structure, this is out. It is a non-starter.”⁶² Smith refused to discuss an arrangement that would integrate guerrilla forces into a new army.

The two positions did not change. If Britain wanted a settlement, it would have to convince both the Patriotic Front and white Rhodesia that their opponent would not be allowed to overpower them during the transition from war to peace, and from white to black rule. David Owen, however, could not deliver this assurance. Both the Right and the Left in Parliament attacked his plan for including the possibility of British military involvement. London refused to commit “a single British troop.”⁶³

On September 1, 1977, David Owen and American representative to the United Nations Andrew Young presented a firmer, more detailed Anglo-American plan. The most difficult part remained the transition. According to the plan, the transition period would still last no longer than six months, but a United Nations force would now supervise the cease-fire, support the civil power, and act as “liaison with the existing Rhodesian armed forces and with the forces of the Liberation Armies.” Responsibility for maintaining law and order during the transition period would remain with the existing Rhodesian police forces, although they would operate under a new British commissioner. Finally, a new national army would be established as soon as possible to replace the existing armed forces in Rhodesia.⁶⁴ In short, the plan called for the resignation of Prime Minister Ian Smith, the appointment of a British administrator, and the partial disbanding of the Rhodesian and black nationalist armed forces.

The Patriotic Front and the Smith regime were both dissatisfied with this solution. Smith attacked the idea of integrating “terrorists” into the Rhodesian army and called it “insane” to suggest guerrillas should form the basis of a national defense force.⁶⁵ Nkomo responded equally fervently: “We cannot accept orders to disarm, no, never. Nobody can disarm our army, nobody can tell us what the future of our country is going to be.”⁶⁶ Another proposal within the plan was particularly objectionable. Britain had chosen retired British field marshal Lord Carver as resident commissioner. Carver would be given dictatorial powers to govern Rhodesia for six months during the perilous transition from white to black rule, yet he would have no effective means to ensure that whites handed over power. Except for a small personal staff, Carver would rely solely on the existing Rhodesian administration to run the country.⁶⁷

Nkomo and Mugabe submitted their own proposal for a settlement. They asked that the armed forces of the Rhodesian regime and the police be completely dismantled. Similarly, they asked that judges, magistrates, and civil servants be subject to screening and open to reappointment in order to rid the government of any “unacceptable elements.” Finally, they insisted that the rebel forces be directly involved in all transitional functions. For the Patriotic Front, “The only guarantee of the definite advent of genuine independence for Zimbabwe is the direct involvement of the patriotic liberation forces in all organs and functions of the transitional structures which secure the transition until power has been totally transferred to the people of Zimbabwe by free and fair democratic elections.”⁶⁸

By November it was clear to the British that unless substantial changes were made to the Anglo-American plan, it would never succeed. Owen tried to keep the initiative alive by proposing cease-fire talks on Malta, but Smith refused to attend.⁶⁹ In the meantime, Smith pursued his own internal settlement with Bishop Abel Muzorewa (a man who controlled no military forces and did not have the support of the Patriotic Front), and on November 24 announced that he would accept the results of the first one-man, one-vote election, which included Muzorewa as candidate for prime minister.

Muzorewa won a resounding victory in the elections, and by April 1978 the first black-led government was installed in Rhodesia. The white electorate did not panic, and there was barely a murmur of protest; they had expected majority rule since 1976 and were now resigned to the fact. In fact, if majority rule would end the devastating war, whites would welcome it. Whites were far more alarmed at the prospect of losing their land, their property, and their economic standing. As long as they could retain control of the security forces, however, they believed they could fend off raids and protect themselves against expropriation.⁷⁰

Why the Anglo-American Initiative Failed

On the surface, the Anglo-American initiative failed because Smith refused to accept the possibility of an external police force and refused to integrate the Rhodesian army with guerrilla forces. When Smith found out that he could not retain full control of the armed forces, that he would have to share power with the Patriotic Front, he decided to pursue his own internal settlement with the militarily weak Muzorewa, hoping that a black prime minister would satisfy Britain and the United States. For their part, Britain and the United States adopted a wait-and-see attitude, hoping that Smith’s plan would end the war and save them added involvement in the unstable state. But by failing to condemn Smith’s settlement and abandoning their own Anglo-American plan, Owen and Young strengthened Smith’s position. Had they condemned the internal settlement from the start, Smith would have been forced to continue the Anglo-American negotiations, and an agreement on the difficult security issues might have been reached.

Britain and the United States understood that interim arrangements would be the key to solving the war in Rhodesia. They accepted that the simple verbal promise of open elections was not sufficient to guarantee that power would be transferred to the black majority and would not assuage the fears each side had about signing a peace agreement. A neutral caretaker together with peacekeeping forces would have to be deployed. London and Washington, however, wanted to limit their involvement, not enhance it, and both countries hoped that the internal settlement would help them do so.

But the Patriotic Front considered the internal settlement a “sham agreement reached and signed by fascist and racist rebel leader Ian Smith” and his “stooges.”⁷¹ They condemned the “iniquitous deal” for leaving both political and military power in the hands of the Smith regime, for giving whites the right to veto constitutional changes, and for leaving 50 percent of the land in the hands of 3 percent of the population. They vowed to continue the war until political and military power really did rest in the hands of the black majority.⁷² War continued.

The Lancaster House Negotiations

By August 1979 the Commonwealth heads of government, the United States, and newly elected prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, realized that the internal settlement between Smith and Muzorewa would not end the war and that a new constitutional conference would be needed.⁷³ That month, Britain sent invitations to the Patriotic Front leaders and to the Muzorewa-Smith delegation for a constitutional conference to be held at Lancaster House in London and chaired by British foreign secretary, Peter Carrington.⁷⁴ Both parties accepted.

Each of the delegations had different motives for attending the conference. The Muzorewa-Smith team needed to end the war and obtain international recognition for their regime. The economy teetered on the verge of disaster, and the government would continue to forfeit much-needed assistance and cash until the government was recognized and sanctions lifted. Moreover, Smith was under increasing pressure from his own white constituency to end a war it no longer understood. With a black government in power, it was unclear who or what they were fighting for.⁷⁵ Britain offered Muzorewa and Smith an added incentive for participating in talks. Britain promised that if the Patriotic Front walked out on the talks, Britain would recognize the new government; if Muzorewa and Smith refused to participate, sanctions would continue. Muzorewa’s government, therefore, had much to gain from cooperation.

Nkomo and Mugabe had different reasons for attending. The Patriotic Front’s biggest patrons, the frontline states Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, and Tanzania, continued to suffer greatly from the war and made their own deal with the rebels. If the rebels attended the conference and it failed because of Britain or Muzorewa, they would unconditionally support continued conflict. If, however, Mugabe refused to go to London and explore a compromise solution, they would close down the war.⁷⁶

Few participants or observers believed the conference would succeed. The two delegations distrusted one another profoundly, and both sides continued to demand full power during the transition period; their terms for settlement had not changed since the failed Geneva conference of 1976.⁷⁷

The Lancaster House conference was set up to resolve three core issues in sequence: the constitution, the transition, and the cease-fire. Carrington had ordered the agenda this way to build momentum; political issues would be discussed first, since they were expected to be the easiest to resolve, followed by transitional governance issues. Discussions on the cease-fire and all corresponding security matters would be negotiated last, when it would be more difficult for either side to back down.

At each stage Carrington was careful to obtain early approval from Muzorewa, who offered little resistance in the hopes of forcing the rebels to be the ones who rejected the deal. Carrington and the Patriotic Front then battled back and forth—a fascinating tug-of-war between the British secretary, who used the threat of recognizing Muzorewa to obtain concessions from the guerrillas, and Robert Mugabe, who used the threat of continued war to force Britain to accept increasingly greater involvement in the transition.⁷⁸ A brief description of the discussion surrounding each of these core issues will make clear just how critical British involvement and the location of assembly points for disarming forces was to the final signing and implementation of the settlement.

The Constitution

In their opening speech on September 10, 1979, the Patriotic Front announced that they would not compromise on two key issues. First, they expected to share both political and military responsibility with Britain during the transition. Second, they wanted to discuss military issues before constitutional matters.⁷⁹ The rebels made it clear that post-treaty security was their ultimate concern. Carrington refused to change the order of the discussion but assured the Patriotic Front that the conference would seek a comprehensive agreement on transitional arrangements. Carrington then distributed a thirteen-page summary of constitutional proposals.

The Muzorewa delegation accepted Carrington’s constitutional proposals on September 21 with no revisions.⁸⁰ The plan included numerous safeguards to protect white interests.⁸¹ Eventually, the Patriotic Front agreed that 20 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament be reserved for whites, but rejected the other guarantees that they believed left too much power in the hands of the white population.⁸²

Negotiations surrounding the new constitution increasingly focused on the issue of land. The Patriotic Front believed that land should be returned to the Africans from whom it had been taken, while Britain and Muzorewa insisted that whites be compensated for their property. Nkomo and Mugabe refused to change their position until Britain, backed by the United States, offered a “land compensation package” that guaranteed reparations while also guaranteeing that land be available to distribute to the black community.⁸³ With these assurances, the Patriotic Front accepted a new constitution that contained all the reforms the guerrillas had been fighting for: one-man, one-vote elections, majority rule, and independence.⁸⁴ It also solved an issue of particular concern to minority whites: land redistribution. By October 5, 1979, all the main issues driving the war were formally resolved.

The Transition

With the constitution approved, the issue of post-treaty governance immediately surfaced. The Patriotic Front had already issued a plan that included a specific quota of political power in the transition and outside intervention. This plan proposed that an eight-man transitional governing council be created, composed of four Patriotic Front members and four British-Muzorewa regime representatives, with a British chairman at the helm. The army, police, public service, and judiciary would also be run by similarly integrated councils. A United Nations force would keep the peace.⁸⁵

Britain presented its own proposal for the transitional period. Britain insisted that the Rhodesian and guerrilla armies not be integrated, and that the day-to-day running of the country continue in the hands of the existing ministries.⁸⁶ Britain did, however, offer to become more involved in the transition. This time Britain promised to take direct control of Rhodesia during the transition to majority rule, appoint a governor with executive and legislative power who would have overall control of the election, and send Commonwealth observers (not forces) to the area.⁸⁷ Carrington, however, continued to insist that British involvement not exceed six months, and that no British troops, peacekeeping forces, or UN action be included.⁸⁸

Once again, Britain attempted to limit outside involvement in the transition, and once again the rebels objected. The plan included no power sharing, no UN presence, and no peacekeeping force. In response, the Patriotic Front published its own “Essential Requirements for the Transition”:

The Security Forces during the interim period must be an army composed of a combination of the Patriotic Front’s and the Regime’s armies, and a police force composed of a combination of the Patriotic Front’s and the Regime’s police forces, operating in both cases alongside a United Nations Peace-keeping Force and a United Nations Civilian Police Force to supervise the cease-fire and ensure peaceful integration. The foregoing structure is essential to ensure that the process towards genuine majority rule and independence will be irreversible.⁸⁹

The rebels continued to demand equal representation in the interim security forces and a UN force to guarantee the peace.

On November 9, Britain changed its stance and announced that it would be prepared to contribute to a Commonwealth military monitoring force of several hundred men. Carrington emphasized that these men would be “monitors,” not peacekeepers—an offer that was far from the UN army composed of many thousand soldiers that Nkomo and Mugabe had demanded.⁹⁰ The Patriotic Front responded by insisting that rebel armies be treated equally by the governor during the transitional period.⁹¹

On November 13 Carrington announced that Britain would be willing to extend the role of the proposed Commonwealth force and the length of the interim period. Two days later he agreed that the Patriotic Front would not only “maintain the ceasefire” on an equal basis with the Salisbury government army “from day one” but would be regarded as an equal defense force during the interim period. He also promised that the monitoring force would remain in Zimbabwe until the new government was established and independence granted, not just through the election.⁹² Carrington hoped these added security assurances would help reassure the Patriotic Front and convince them to accept the British transitional plan.⁹³

The added assurances had the desired effect, and on November 15, 1979, the Patriotic Front finally accepted Britain’s proposal for the transition. Once the political and transitional issues were resolved, negotiations proceeded to the most contentious issue of the conference: how to demobilize, disarm, and disengage the rival militaries.

The Cease-Fire

The final topics on the agenda were the cease-fire and the logistics surrounding the demobilization of the competing armies. Once again Carrington opened the talks by presenting a ten-point plan. It called for a cease-fire to commence within seven to ten days of the completion of a Lancaster House agreement. By that time all cross-border infiltration of Patriotic Front troops would have to stop, and those guerrillas within the country would have to gather with their arms at designated assembly points. A Commonwealth monitoring force (of several hundred) and an integrated committee of the commanders of the three armies would assist the British governor in maintaining the cease-fire.⁹⁴

Although Muzorewa and his delegation seemed satisfied with the proposal, the Patriotic Front called the proposals “repugnant.” Nkomo claimed that Britain’s proposals would place Front guerrillas in what he termed “concentration camps” and leave Salisbury’s forces in their own bases, strategically placed to control all the major towns with “their bombers and fighters and South Africa sitting across the river.” If the Patriotic Front won the election, the regime’s forces “would be ideally placed to pre-empt that victory by a coup.”⁹⁵

Nkomo and Mugabe offered their own plan. It called for

•A substantial Commonwealth “peacekeeping” (not monitoring) force of several thousand capable of enforcing the cease-fire

•A Commonwealth cease-fire supervisory commission

•Both parties being responsible to the government for observance of cease-fire and a joint cease-fire supervisory commission under a British chairman

•Demarcation of areas dominated by one side or the other

•Disbandment of certain Rhodesian military and paramilitary units

•Surrender of a vast private armory of weapons held by Rhodesian civilians

•A new civil police⁹⁶

Carrington responded by releasing a revised cease-fire proposal. In it he promised to station Commonwealth monitors wherever Patriotic Front forces and Rhodesian government forces were assembled.⁹⁷

On the surface, Carrington’s new proposal appeared to provide adequate and equal security to both the Patriotic Front and the Rhodesian government forces. In reality, the Patriotic Front forces remained far more vulnerable to attack. The plan required that Front guerrillas be moved into as many as fifteen assembly points. The government forces, however, would be permitted to remain in their original bases and airfields with their full array of arms and equipment. Moreover, all of the guerrilla assembly points would be located in the periphery of the state, leaving government forces exclusive control of the urban and industrial heartland.⁹⁸

The Patriotic Front opposed the size and composition of the Commonwealth forces; they were too small to be effective and too Anglo-centric to be unbiased. They also resented the unequal treatment of their forces and the short length of the cease-fire period. Carrington agreed to increase the Commonwealth force to over one thousand, but he rejected any additional contributor states and refused to increase the cease-fire period. London’s Conservative government insisted on keeping the transitional period as brief as possible in order to minimize their political vulnerability at home.⁹⁹

The Patriotic Front and Britain finally agreed on all elements of the cease-fire plan except the unequal treatment of rival forces during the transition period. The issue of “reciprocal disengagement” consumed the rest of the negotiations. According to Mugabe,

If we were weak on this point, we would find our soldiers placed in positions which would reduce them from the strong instrument we had built and developed to a much weaker instrument. They would have given up most of their arms and they would have been in assembly areas which gave a greater advantage to the Rhodesian forces than to us. We insisted that they should keep their arms, at least for their own protection. Then came the question, where would they be placed? It was in working these points out that we faced great problems.¹⁰⁰

Negotiations deadlocked on this issue, and on December 3 Carrington told the press that he was “as close to despair as I have been in the whole three months of negotiations.¹⁰¹

On December 4 Carrington offered the Patriotic Front two additional assurances (although he refused to bend on the issue of equal disengagement). Carrington increased the monitoring force to twelve hundred and promised that the South African troops currently stationed in Rhodesia would not be allowed to interfere in the transition. He also vowed that the Rhodesian Air Force, which Britain refused to ground, would be “monitored effectively,” a concession that would prevent the government from bombing rebel assembly camps.¹⁰²

The conference then entered eleven days of bickering as Nkomo and Mugabe argued over additional cease-fire terms.¹⁰³ In an attempt to break the impasse, Carrington announced that Lord Soames would leave immediately to assume his position as governor of Rhodesia; sanctions would be lifted as soon as Soames landed in Salisbury, at which point Carrington would pursue a final settlement with the Muzorewa government.¹⁰⁴

Carrington’s threat came with a concession.

I am conscious of the concerns expressed by the PF that their assembly places should not be in close proximity to Rhodesian bases and that they should not be “encircled.” There has never been any question of the PF being encircled. They will be under the authority of their own commanders and other forces will be in close proximity to them.

On the day Soames left for Rhodesia, Carrington assured Nkomo and Mugabe that the Patriotic Front’s assembly points would be located near their operation areas and far away from the Rhodesian army bases. Moreover, the Rhodesian forces would be required to take the first step of initiating the cease-fire by “moving into the close vicinity of their bases to permit the Patriotic Front to assemble their forces.”¹⁰⁵ The offer for the government to move first was an important compromise.

The breakthrough finally came on December 15. Carrington yielded even further on the topic of assembly points. He promised that additional assembly points would be created if the thirty thousand troops the Patriotic Front claimed would assemble did in fact show up.¹⁰⁶ Later that weekend, Britain formally offered a sixteenth assembly point located in the heart of Rhodesia.¹⁰⁷

Carrington would go no further. At this point, Tongogara, head of the military arm of the Patriotic Front, and President Machel of Mozambique attempted to persuade Mugabe that the cease-fire terms were sufficient to ensure the protection of the guerrilla forces. As long as rebel soldiers were close to the Mozambiquean and Zambian borders, they could survive attack. Machel also reminded Mugabe that Mozambique wanted a settlement and would not continue to support the Patriotic Front if it refused this plan.¹⁰⁸

On December 17, 1979, the Patriotic Front accepted the cease-fire agreement and initialed the British offer. Muzorewa signed four days later.

Implementation

The credible commitment theory expects the timing of implementation to correspond to the arrival of outside monitors or enforcers, and this is exactly what occurred. With the peacekeepers and monitors in place at the time of settlement, implementation proceeded on schedule. According to U.S. observer Jeffrey Davidow, “After some rocky first days in which the expected flow of guerrillas into the assembly points was disappointingly low, the numbers entering picked up rapidly. By January 4, the end of the two-week ceasefire period, 17,000 [rebel soldiers] had entered the camps and more straggled in later, until the numbers reached about 22,000.”¹⁰⁹

Elections were held on March 4, 1980, three months after the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front signed the Lancaster House agreement. Mugabe won a landslide 62 percent of the vote in the British-supervised elections and set up a cabinet that included two white members, Joshua Nkomo, and three members of Nkomo’s opposition party.¹¹⁰ On April 15 Mugabe went a step further to alleviate whites’ fear about their future and named Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, former commander of the white Rhodesian Forces, as commander of the new national army.¹¹¹ Two days after Peter Walls was named commander of the Zimbabwe army, and almost four months after his arrival, Lord Soames formally ceded political power to Robert Mugabe.¹¹² By November 1980, the integration of rebel and government forces was completed under British supervision, and the new Zimbabwean army was formed. The political and military transition was now complete.

Why the Lancaster House Negotiations Succeeded

International pressure and the high costs of war once again played an important role in convincing the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front to initiate the Lancaster House negotiations. In this case, pressure from South Africa, the United States, and the frontline states and the increasing costs of war, especially for the white minority population, were critical in convincing the two sides to meet again. But Mugabe admitted that these pressures were not enough to get him to sign a peace agreement. An interviewer remarked, “The diplomats relate the story that you were in fact determined to break on this issue [the cease-fire] and only Machel [president of Mozambique] restrained you.” Mugabe responded:

No, we defied Machel on that one completely. Machel would have wanted us to accept even before the first concession was made! On that one we said, “No. In the ultimate it is our own salvation, and we will not go.” . . . Our soldiers could have been decimated by a well organized attack in the positions which they had been given.¹¹³

The Patriotic Front and the Rhodesian government participated in negotiations because outside pressure and the high costs of war induced them to do so, and they compromised on key issues such as majority rule and the reciprocal disengagement of forces for these same reasons. But as Mugabe made clear, it was unlikely that the rebels would ever have signed and then implemented the final agreement if a third-party guarantee had not been arranged.

The preceding analysis discloses that the negotiations were dominated by the question of internal security during the transition. Give-and-take bargaining over political or economic positions did not determine the success or failure of the Anglo-American and Lancaster House talks. Instead, success hinged on resolving three critical issues. Would the rebel forces have equal authority of internal security during the transition to majority rule? Would Britain agree to monitor the transition, ensuring that the process toward majority rule was irreversible? And would the rebels have some ancillary means to protect themselves even if Smith and his South African supporters decided to return to war?

The negotiations to end the civil war in Zimbabwe reflect the Patriotic Front’s effort to extract credible commitments from a government that had been strongly opposed to black rule. Ian Smith’s successive concessions and Britain’s increasing willingness to run the transition gradually reassured the rebels that they could not be exploited should the government choose to back out on the deal. Outside pressure and war costs did convince the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front to initiate negotiations, and Peter Carrington did help them locate acceptable terms. But in the end, the Patriotic Front would never have signed the final cease-fire agreement without British and Commonwealth participation in the transition.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the process by which the Rhodesian government and the Patriotic Front ended their war during the 1970s. In this case, the combatants’ fear of the transition, their determination to seek outside security guarantees, and their decision to sign and implement a peace treaty were linked. The Patriotic Front was willing to return to war and forgo the benefits of majority rule as late as December 1979 because effective guarantees for the safety of the Front’s armed forces did not exist. In addition, the rebels specifically asked for outside assistance in monitoring compliance, and every attempt to negotiate failed until Britain promised extensive involvement in the transition.

The history of the negotiations in Zimbabwe, therefore, illustrates the powerful role post-treaty security fears play in the resolution of civil wars and the part outside intervention plays in convincing combatants to proceed with implementation. The combatants in this case were able to end their war peacefully because Britain, a far more powerful entity than either the white Rhodesians or the black majority, guaranteed the safety and security of both parties. Twelve hundred Commonwealth forces, numerous British observers, and a well-known British governor stationed on Zimbabwean soil would have made it significantly more difficult for either side to renege on the deal, and thus enhanced the probability that peace would prevail.¹¹⁴ Additional measures, such as allowing the rebels to keep their arms, locating rebel camps near escape routes, allowing white settlers to keep British citizenship, and retaining South African forces on their border, further reassured combatants and enhanced their faith in their own survival. In the end, the Patriotic Front and the Rhodesian whites were able to move from war to peace because Britain stepped in and guaranteed the safety and survival of both sides.

¹ Quote taken from Martin Meredith, The Past Is Another Country: Rhodesia, 1890–1979 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979), 212.

² Zimbabwe is one of the most frequently chosen cases to study in the literature. See Stephen Stedman’s Peacemaking in Civil War; Jeffrey Davidow, A Peace in Southern Africa: The Lancaster House Conference on Rhodesia, 1979 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984); William H. Moore III, “Why Internal Wars End: The Decision to Fight, Negotiate, or Surrender,” Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado at Boulder, which uses the Zimbabwean civil war as its crucial case study; and Stephen Low’s “The Zimbabwe Settlement, 1976–1979,” in Saadia Touval and I. William Zartman’s International Mediation in Theory and Practice (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985).

³ A few books give full credit to individuals involved in the negotiations. For example, Cyrus Vance in his memoir Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983) asserts, “The credit for the final negotiation of Zimbabwe’s independence properly belongs to the British, principally to the skillful diplomacy of Peter Carrington” (297). Similarly, Peter Carrington, British foreign secretary and chairman of the Lancaster House Conference, believed that success was due to “my determination to take matters step by step. . . . I was sure that previous attempts had failed through attempting overprecision too early, through framing complex plans of ultimate order instead of coaxing minds towards the resolution of the next practical, intermediate step in debate.” See Peter Carrington, Reflecting on Things Past: The Memoirs of Peter Lord Carrington (London: William Collins, 1988), 301. Most discussions of the Lancaster House conference, however, accept the dual importance of ripeness and mediation. For example, Susskind and Babbit claim, “It is hard to predict when all the preconditions for mediation will be met, yet an acceptable mediator must be ‘on the scene’ precisely when the opportunity for intervention presents itself. Otherwise, the opportunity may be lost.” Lawrence Susskind and Eileen Babbit, “Overcoming the Obstacles to Effective Mediation of International Disputes,” in Mediation in International Relations: Multiple Approaches to Conflict Management, ed. Jacob Bercovitch and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), 42.

⁴ For “costs of war” or “ripeness” arguments, see Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War; Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa; and Susskind and Babbit, “Overcoming the Obstacles.”

⁵ For an exposition of the “stalemate” argument see Stephen Low’s “The Zimbabwe Settlement.”

⁶ For the arguments on “international pressure” see Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, vol. 1; Mariyawanda NzUwah, “Conflict Resolution in Zimbabwe: Super-power Determinants to the Peace Settlement,” Journal of Southern African Affairs 4, no. 4 (1979): 389–400; and Low, “The Zimbabwe Settlement.”

⁷ See especially Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 101.

⁸ The total white population at the time was approximately two hundred thousand.

⁹ Guerilla uprisings began in 1965 when Smith, the newly elected prime minister of Rhodesia, refused to transfer political power to the black majority against the wishes of Britain. Violence did not reach one thousand battle deaths per year, the threshold in this study, until 1972.

¹⁰ Other negotiations did take place between Ian Smith and the British Government (the “Tiger,” “Fearless” and “Douglas-Home” talks), and between Smith and black nationalists not in control of any armed forces. These negotiations are not included in the analysis since ZANU (the main rebel faction fighting the war) was not invited to participate.

¹¹ All of Zambia’s exports and 95 percent of its imports traveled through the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique or through Rhodesia and South Africa. An unstable Rhodesia also posed a significant military threat to its neighbors since the Rhodesian government controlled the most powerful air force on the African continent at the time, a gift from Britain during the late 1960s.

¹² David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), 140.

¹³ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 141.

¹⁴ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 167.

¹⁵ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 172.

¹⁶ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 172.

¹⁷ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 186.

¹⁸ “The Pretoria Agreement between the Prime Ministers of South Africa (Vorster) and Rhodesia (Smith), August 9, 1975,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:7.

¹⁹ “Victoria Falls Conference: Draft Memorandum by the ANC, August 25, 1975,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:9.

²⁰ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 192.

²¹ “I. Smith’s Statement to the House of Assembly on the Victoria Falls Conference, August 26, 1975,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:9–10.

²² “Victoria Falls Conference: Draft Memorandum,” 2:9.

²³ Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War, 48–50.

²⁴ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 161.

²⁵ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 169.

²⁶ “Throughout the detente exercise, Vorster always had at his disposal the means to force Smith to come to terms, but he was constantly hamstrung by the need to avoid antagonizing his own electorate and provoking an outcry in Rhodesia.” Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 130.

²⁷ From the Financial Times of London, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:17.

²⁸ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 232.

²⁹ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 222.

³⁰ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 230 and 237.

³¹ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 241.

³² Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 238

³³ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 242.

³⁴ On August 25, in an interview published in the Washington Post, Smith insisted, “This question of quick majority rule is a facile, superficial argument to our own plan. I want to assure you that not only the whites in Rhodesia but the majority of the black people in Rhodesia oppose that sort of thing.” Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 247.

³⁵ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 251.

³⁶ Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War, 95.

³⁷ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 248.

³⁸ Proposals as presented in Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War, 166–67.

³⁹ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 254.

⁴⁰ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 250–51.

⁴¹ Although Smith would concede much by accepting these terms, the five points still gave him considerable space to maneuver. Smith had two years to preserve as much white influence as possible. Whites would have a major role in the drafting of the new constitution and be able to ensure that their interests were protected. They would also be in a position to play one black leader off against the others. More important, sanctions would end, the war would cease, and the exodus of white immigrants would likely end. See Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 255.

⁴² Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 261.

⁴³ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 255 and 258.

⁴⁴ “Report on R. Mugabe’s Comments on the Kissinger Proposals, September 27, 1976,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:162.

⁴⁵ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 255–56.

⁴⁶ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 266.

⁴⁷ “Proposal by the Patriotic Front on the Structure of the Transitional Government and on a Time Table for the Conference, November 30, 1976,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:224.

⁴⁸ Michael Charlton, The Last Colony in Africa: Diplomacy and the Independence of Rhodesia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 2.

⁴⁹ “New UK Plot Rejected,” Daily News (Dar es Salaam), December 25, 1976, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 2:236.

⁵⁰ “Interview with Mugabe ca. May 11/14, 1977,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:328. Asked if his demand for white control over the police and army during the transition was a make-or-break issue, Smith replied that it was (“Interview with Ian Smith, October 1976,” in Baumhoegger, 2:176).

⁵¹ “R. Mugabe’s Message to the Nation,” March 8, 1977, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:280–81.

⁵² Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 280.

⁵³ “Rhodesia. Proposals for a Settlement,” published September 9, 1977 as White Paper Cmnd. 6919, Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:417.

⁵⁴ “Rhodesia. Proposals for a Settlement,” 3:417.

⁵⁵ “Mugabe’s Speech to the World Conference against Apartheid, June 16–19 1977,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:361.

⁵⁶ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 266–67.

⁵⁷ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 299.

⁵⁸ General John Hickman, the new Rhodesian army commander, quoted in Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 299–300.

⁵⁹ The plan stated that they would remain no longer than six months. Six months was considered sufficient time to convert to black rule yet short enough to ensure that Britain would not become embroiled in a “Vietnam-like” quagmire.

⁶⁰ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 300.

⁶¹ “Message to Zimbabwe,” July 24, 1977, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:387.

⁶² “Ian Smith’s News Conference in Salisbury, July 6, 1977,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:373.

⁶³ “Debate in the British House of Commons after D. Owen’s Visit to the USA,” July 25, 1977, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:389.

⁶⁴ “Rhodesia. Proposals for a Settlement,” 3:418.

⁶⁵ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 269–70.

⁶⁶ “Reactions to Anglo-American Initiative by the Patriotic Front,” Zambia Daily Mail (Lusaka), August 27, 1977, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:407.

⁶⁷ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 310–11. Carver had played a leading role against the Mau Mau movement when Kenya was still a British colony in the 1950s, and his appointment strengthened the Patriotic Front’s suspicion that Britain secretly supported the Smith regime. Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:509.

⁶⁸ “The Patriotic Front’s Statement on the British Proposals Adopted at a Meeting of Its Co-ordinating Committee in Maputo,” September 12, 1977, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 3:433.

⁶⁹ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 320–21.

⁷⁰ Meredith, The Past Is Another Country, 322–23.

⁷¹ “Statement by the Patriotic Front concerning the Internal Settlement Agreement, March 4, 1978,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 4:533.

⁷² Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 304.

⁷³ As Peter Carrington explained years later, “You couldn’t leave things as they were. You had got to the end of the road with the Anglo-American proposals, and recognition of the Bishop’s [Muzorewa’s] regime would have led to the most appalling problems—not least the isolation of Britain by the rest of the world, including the United States. And it would have intensified the war in Rhodesia. There would have been much more bloodshed. It would have settled nothing, and, incidentally, would have brought the sorts of things that everybody has been trying to avoid in Southern Africa that much nearer—the Soviet involvement, the East German involvement, and all the rest of it.” Quoted in Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 28.

⁷⁴ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 315.

⁷⁵ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 298.

⁷⁶ Charlton, Last Colony in Africa, 68–69. According to Robert Mugabe, “The front-line states said we had to negotiate, we had to agree to go to this conference. There we were, we thought we were on top of the situation back home, we were moving forward all the time, and why should we be denied the ultimate joy of having militarily overthrown the regime here? . . . Nevertheless, we agreed to give the exercise a trial. But, at that time, I never felt it would succeed.” Charlton, Last Colony in Africa, 69–70.

⁷⁷ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 14–15.

⁷⁸ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 49 and 51.

⁷⁹ Financial Times, September 11, 1977.

⁸⁰ Smith was the only member of the delegation to vote against it.

⁸¹ This included “an extensive bill of rights guaranteeing individual freedoms, an undetermined number of white seats in a 100 person legislature for a period of seven years, remuneration for any lands that might be distributed, and the honoring of pension rights for white public officials.” See Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War, 178.

⁸² Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 59.

⁸³ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 63.

⁸⁴ Martin and Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, 318–19.

⁸⁵ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 67.

⁸⁶ Financial Times, October 18, 1977.

⁸⁷ The critical military arrangements remained vague: “The commanders of the security forces will be responsible to the governor who will assume authority over the civil police.” Financial Times, October 23, 1977.

⁸⁸ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 68.

⁸⁹ Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 6:1129.

⁹⁰ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 73.

⁹¹ According to Jeffrey Davidow, U.S. observer to the negotiations, “This [request] was more than just matter of pride. It related to their concern that if law and order deteriorated to the point where it could not be restored by the police alone, the governor would assume their separate or joint culpability and rely solely on the Rhodesian military for help. Those forces would, in turn, use their operational freedom to the Patriotic Front’s disadvantage.” Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 74.

⁹² Financial Times, November 14 and 15, 1977.

⁹³ Financial Times, October 14, 1977.

⁹⁴ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 78.

⁹⁵ “Nkomo Fears Salisbury Plot to Eliminate Patriotic Front,” Financial Times, November 24, 1979, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 6:1188.

⁹⁶ Financial Times, November 20, 1977.

⁹⁷ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 80.

⁹⁸ Financial Times, November 26, 1977. According to the Financial Times of December 17, 1979, “It is easy to see why the Front objects. A careful look at the British map shows that there are no Patriotic Front “assembly bases” on the wide arc of ‘midland’ Rhodesia which stretches from Umtali in the east to Bulawayo and Plumtree in the Southwest. This is the most strategic area of the whole country: it is the prime area of white settlements and white farms, of main transport routes, or main industry and main towns. The British map, the Front argues, leaves the whole arc in the effective charge of the Salisbury forces. It disregards the presence of guerrillas there.” Quoted in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 6:1234.

⁹⁹ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 81.

¹⁰⁰ Charlton, Last Colony in Africa, 130.

¹⁰¹ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 82.

¹⁰² “Lancaster House Conference: Reports on the Conditional Agreement on the Ceasefire Terms, December 5, 1979,” Daily Telegraph (London), December 6, 1979, in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 6:1212.

¹⁰³ On December 15, 1979, the London Observer wrote, “Despite late efforts to bring the Front into the settlement, their ‘no’ to Britain’s final terms made the outcome of 14 months of Lancaster House negotiations look like possible collapse. The crisis came not over the constitution and the ceasefire, but over details as to how the guerrillas would be assembled after they emerged from the bush.” “The Lancaster House Conference: Reports on the Final Plenary Session, December 15, 1979,” in Baumhoegger, The Struggle for Independence, 6:1232.

¹⁰⁴ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 84.

¹⁰⁵ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 85.

¹⁰⁶ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 86.

¹⁰⁷ Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 88.

¹⁰⁸ Charlton, Last Colony in Africa, 126.

¹⁰⁹ Nonetheless, despite this high compliance rate, the Patriotic Front did not demobilize completely. Approximately one-third of the rebels had been ordered by their commanders not to enter the camps and instead to “bury their arms and meld in with the local population” in case the peace treaty broke down. See Davidow, Peace in Southern Africa, 91.

¹¹⁰ For further details see Keesing’s Contemporary Archive, August 1980.

¹¹¹ Africa Research Bulletin, April 1–30, 1980, 5640.

¹¹² See the Africa Research Bulletin, April 1–30, 1980, 5639–40.

¹¹³ Charlton, Last Colony in Africa, 125.

¹¹⁴ It is also important to note that Lord Soames had authority to request that additional British troops be sent to Zimbabwe if necessary.