The Thin White Line

Except for members of the new government in Lisbon, no one is more worried about the future of Portugal's African territories than the ruling white minority of predominantly black Rhodesia.

Neighboring Mozambique provides landlocked Rhodesia with its principal outlet to the sea. The Portuguese territory is also a major infiltration route for black Rhodesian insurgents returning home from training camps in Tanzania. Black rule would mean a certain end to the virtual carte blanche that Rhodesian security forces now enjoy to go guerrilla hunting in the Mozambican bush. More important, a new government in the territory's capital, Lourenc,o Marques, might well refuse to transport Rhodesian goods by road and rail to Indian Ocean ports--meaning economic disaster.

Even without the future of Mozambique to worry about, Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith has his hands full dealing with what the nation's 271,000 embattled whites euphemistically describe as "the troubles." For several years after Rhodesia unilaterally declared its independence from Britain in 1965, it was able to go its own way with remarkable success. Guerrilla movements were generally unable to mobilize the territory's 5.7 million blacks against the white-dominated government. Sanctions voted by Britain and the United Nations were largely ignored by countries that saw profits in Rhodesian tobacco, beef and chrome. But 18 months ago, a guerrilla movement called ZANU (for Zimbabwe African National Union) caught hold on the rich agricultural plateau overlooking the Zambezi valley in the north. Since then, a bitter guerrilla war has claimed nearly 500 lives.

According to the Rhodesian government, the dead include 13 white civilians, 102 black civilians, 45 Rhodesian and South African military men, and 311 guerrillas--20 of them killed last week. Three Rhodesian air force planes have been lost in the past two months. The government claims that all three losses were due to accidents, but rumors persist that a rebel missile accounted for one of the planes (a Canberra light bomber) and that rifle fire brought down the other two. The guerrillas get funds from the Organization of African Unity and from China and Russia, which also supply arms.

Although southern areas of Rhodesia are still virtually free of guerrilla activity, even the limited scope of the resistance thus far has put severe strains on the 2,500-man white army and the 1,000 blacks of the Rhodesian African Rifles, who are supported by 45,000 army and police reservists as well as 5,000 South African police. Reserve call-ups have severely depleted the labor force, a problem exacerbated by the refusal of white trade unions to allow the training of blacks in many crafts.

Economic sanctions also are finally beginning to chip at the country's prosperity. Plans by European and U.S. banks to make illegal loans of $60 million were dropped after London newspapers caught on to the story. Tourism is being hurt by the recent refusal of the U.S. and other governments to allow their airlines to do business with Air Rhodesia. Foreign reserves are already so tight that shortages have developed in everything from Scotch to washing-machine parts. Inevitably, the economic squeeze has cut the regime's ability to play one of its best trump cards--cash income for Africans. Recently the University of Rhodesia reported that 90% of Salisbury's employed blacks make less than $133 a month, which is considered the poverty line.

Night Terror. Smith remains publicly confident, while privately he is negotiating with Bishop Abel Muzorewa, moderate chairman of the African National Council, Rhodesia's largest recognized black political organization. Smith acknowledges that majority rule must come to Rhodesia, but his timetable is nothing like Muzorewa's. The bishop is reportedly willing to wait ten years or so. Smith wants blacks to hold off another 60 to 75 years. The bishop has warned that unless the regime negotiates with him in better faith, Smith may eventually be forced to talk terms with the infinitely more intransigent ZANU instead. That prospect may already have chastened the Prime Minister. He is said to have secretly agreed to add six new seats to the 16 already held by blacks in the 66-seat legislature, to allow blacks to own more land, and to train them for more jobs, despite the protests of white unions.

One factor in Smith's decision may have been the effectiveness of ZANU terrorism, which has cast an aura of fear over the northern half of the country. On the highway just 40 miles north of Salisbury, TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs recently encountered about 40 soldiers of the white-led, black-staffed Rhodesian African Rifles, gingerly searching the roadside bush. Behind them were three trucks with more soldiers and heavy weapons pointed outward in all directions. Griggs found Centenary, which is just 100 miles from Salisbury, a virtual armed camp, with soldiers always carrying their weapons at the ready. A nearby airstrip is used by spotter planes that constantly patrol the bush. Farmers drive only by day, and their dinner guests invariably sleep over; the night belongs to the guerrillas.

What Good. The district's 13,000 white farmers, who raise cattle, corn and tobacco on prosperous large farms, have had to be resilient to stay on as long as they have, but many are now wavering. Reports Griggs: "I visited the farm of George Louw, a typical one planted mostly in tobacco. Louw is not his real name; several farmers who talked for publication have had their farms targeted for follow-up attacks. Louw was hit in early 1973. A ZANU squad sneaked up to the bedroom where he and his wife were asleep, and lobbed seven grenades through the window. His wife sat up and was blown to bits. It is now standard practice here to roll sideways out of bed.

"With shrapnel in his legs, arms and chest, Louw managed to crawl to the telephone and call for help before he passed out. Today, at 45, he is back on the farm with a cousin and teen-age son to help him; they live in a dramatically transformed household. It is now surrounded by a chain-wire fence, topped by barbed wire. Powerful searchlights flood the bush at night.

"Chow-like Keeshonds prowl the grounds. A new, detached sleeping house has a tile roof, unlike the flammable thatch of the main house. Beside the beds are stacks of ammunition, shotguns, pistols and Belgian F.N. automatic rifles. In the hall are a telephone and a battery-powered two-way radio linking Louw to the Centenary post. Even with all this, though, Louw does not feel safe. 'There's money to be made here,' he said, 'but what good does it do if you don't live to spend it.' "

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