CAN RHODESIA HOLD THE LINE?

Mr. Eric Butler wrote the following report after an intensive two weeks in Rhodesia and South Africa
It is a long way from Kingston. Jamaica, to Salisbury, Rhodesia, but I could smell the stench from the Commonwealth Conference as I met with Rhodesians to discuss their plight in the face of the intensified international attack upon their embattled country. I found it nauseating, and said so in a Rhodesian National T.V. programme, that men like Harold Wilson, Pierre Elliott - Trudeau, and Gough Whitlam, who like to present themselves as cultured and civilised, should be openly endorsing the Communist strategy for destroying civilised Government and law and order in Southern Africa.

Every informed person concerning Africa south of the Sahara knows that the threats of the African "nationalists" are but empty words, and that without the backing of the Soviet Union and Red China, supported by the treacherous policies of Western political leaders, Rhodesia and South Africa have nothing to fear from military attacks from the north.

Following the Kingston Conference, Dr. Kaunda of Zambia, boasted in Lisbon, Portugal, that African countries were training a "revolutionary army" to invade Rhodesia unless Mr. Ian Smith agrees to talks leading to immediate majority government." This type of government has led to the police State in Kaunda's own country, and growing economic chaos! It would be instructive to learn from Mr. Whitlam, for example, just which "liberated" African nation he feels is the ideal which Rhodesia might emulate. Perhaps he might nominate Uganda, where not so long ago "General" Amin reacted "dynamically" at a Cabinet meeting when his Finance Minister warned that the nation was desperately short of finance, gave the Finance Minister a back-hander and said, "Well create some more money you bloody fool"!

Fighting the terrorists on its northeastern borders in a most restricted manner, the Rhodesians, most of their troops being Africans, have been winning easily. But they are now faced with the threat that an "independent"" Mozambique, heavily subsidised by countries like the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, will choke Rhodesia's main export and import ports, Beira and Laurenco Marcques.

It is hard to find words to describe the viciousness of a man like Harold Wilson, Presiding over the greatest finance-economic crisis in British history, agreeing to impose an even greater burden on the hard-pressed British people in order to subsidise an attempt to bring the relative prosperity and law and order of Rhodesia to an end. Should Rhodesia be deprived of the Mozambique ports of Beira and Laurenco Marcques, and should Botswanna also be "persuaded" to close the Rhodesian rail line to the south, then Rhodesia would be completely at the mercy of South Africa's policies. And it is those policies, which are causing the Rhodesians more concern than the threats of the Whitlams, Trudeaus and Wilsons.

British General Sir Walter Walker, formerly one of the NATO best informed military leaders I have yet met concerning the realities of the international situation, has recently drawn attention to the far-reaching implications of what has happened in Portugal. As General Walker observes, a most strategic member of NATO changed sides without a shot being fired. The loss of Portugal has not only directly affected NATO, but is has opened the way for the final Communist offensive against Southern Africa through Angola and Mozambique. If Southern Africa were lost to the West, then Western Europe would be near the end.

Following the betrayal of General Spinola of Portugal, himself a subsequent victim of the revolutionary forces he released, the South African Vorster Government under Mr. John Vorster dramatically started to shift its policies, now talking about the necessity of detente. As Mr. Vorster and his closest advisers are well aware of the reality of the Communist strategy against Southern Africa, it appears that they are desperately attempting to try to buy time, even if this is at the immediate expense of Rhodesia. Mr. Vorster would not have received the best of advice from Mr. David Rockefeller, the open admirer of Chairman Mao of Red China, head of the Chase Manhattan Bank, whose last visit to South Africa I have mentioned in Censored History.

One of the most discussed comments on the Vorster Government's possible strategy is provided in a recent article in the Financial Times of London, under the heading, "Vorster's Grand Design." The article claims that the Vorster strategy concerning detente between South Africa and the African States can only be achieved if the Rhodesian question is settled. To achieve this objective, the South African Government "has to deliver Mr. Smith to the conference table and guide his hand to the dotted line....South Africans are going to have to force him - and they realise it, however much they deny it in public. They have plenty of weapons if they are inclined to use them...."

Whatever the truth about the allegations made in the Financial Times article, there is little doubt that the Rhodesian Government's sudden release of the Reverend Sithole and other Africans detained for their association with terrorist activities, in December, was in accordance with the wishes of the South African Government.

Heavy psychological warfare was also directed against the Rhodesians by the Afrikaans press, generally believed to represent the South African Government. The Afrikaans press joined with the poisonous English press in telling the Rhodesians that they should now face the realities of the inevitability of an African-majority Government within the near future. The Rhodesian people did not know until told by South African opponents of detente, that the Afrikaans press had long since been taken over by the supporters of international liberalism, and was no longer the sturdy voice of South African nationalism.

The authentic voice of the Afrikaaner people was heard in Salisbury on February 21st, when the distinguished Dr. J. D. Vorster, brother of the South African Prime Minister, and moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, told a large Rhodesian audience that South Africans would under no circumstances "throw them to the wolves."' The Rhodesian Government was assured that if they played their role in supporting Mr. Vorster's strategy, there would be a cease-fire by the guerrillas attacking Rhodesia. But in spite of the Rhodesian Government's release of Sithole and his colleagues, the terror campaign against Rhodesians continued. And when the Rhodesian Government ordered that Sithole be again detained, it being charged that he had plotted to assassinate three African politicians and that, by supporting the continuance of terrorism he had, as President of the Zimbabwe African National Union and Commander-in-Chief of ZANIA, been in a large degree responsible for the death, since the declaration of the so-called cease-fire, of terrorist victims in the north-east of Rhodesia.

The world media with few exceptions, launched yet another savage campaign against the Smith Government, while the Reverend Sithole was given space for articles designed to create the impression that he was a reasonable man being crucified by the evil "Smith regime". The Age, Melbourne, was one of the papers to publish the Sithole articles. No mention was made of the fact that ZANU, on its own admission, "is guided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism". And subsequently no publicity was given to the findings of the special court established to examine the charges against Sithole.

The judgment handed down by the President of the Special Court, Mr. Justice MacDonald, showed Sithole for what he really is: a man dedicated to the use of violence and bloodshed against innocent people, claiming that his supporters have the right to redemptive bloodshed", and that "killing of the white enemy in battle has a therapeutic value and gives confidence to the black participants in the struggle". Mr. Justice MacDonald remarked in the Court's judgment that "This is, to say the least, a strange statement from a person who professes the Christian faith and even stranger from an ordained Minister of a recognised Church."

Unfortunately there are many strange ordained Christian Minister's these days, many of them supporting the World Council of Churches backing of Communist-trained and Communist-equipped terrorists murdering African women and children. I would like to take these Ministers into Rhodesian hospitals where they could be confronted with the maimed (many for life) African victims of the cause they support. The evidence presented to the Rhodesian Court, much of it in documentary form which even Sithole's legal representative, Mr. Maisels, readily agreed could not be challenged, showed conclusively that Sithole had no intention of keeping the cease-fire arrangement made when first released from detention. He used his authority to ensure that the terrorist campaign was continued, the result being 35 murders in North -East Rhodesia. 32 of those murdered were Africans most killed in the most brutal manner.

Mr. Justice MacDonald observed, "In the whole of 1974....150 African civilians and 5 European civilians were murdered. It will be noticed that for every European civilian murdered, 30 African tribesmen were on average murdered. " The media of the world does not bother to notice this significant fact at all, constantly creating the false impression that the terrorists directed by Sithole and his colleagues are "freedom fighters" attempting to free the "oppressed" Africans from the "brutal Europeans."

As Mr. Justice MacDonald commented, "While it is possible to understand, without approving, operations against the Security Forces, the pitiless and wanton murder of unarmed African tribesmen is so cowardly and fiendish as to defeat the understanding of an ordinary decent man." Even more difficult to understand are the sick creatures of the West, the so-called intellectuals and "enlightened" who are twittering with excitement as they anticipate the overthrow of civilised government in Southern Africa. They are even worse than the crazed terrorists butchering their fellow-Africans. They are the same breed who praised the monster Stalin, and who support the criminals in Peking, brushing aside the mass liquidations and similar crimes against humanity, by proclaiming in their best detached academic manner that "one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

A SPECIAL DATE FOR MELBOURNE SUPPORTERS

Fresh from his current international tour, Mr. Eric D. Butler will address a meeting at The Victoria, Lt. Collins Street, on Monday 2th June, at 8.00 p.m. Make a note of the date now. Start preparing a list of friends and contacts now.

Mr. Butler will deal with: The treacherous role of Henry Kissinger in Vietnam. Was Kissinger responsible for Watergate and destruction of Nixon? The coming American disaster. Highlights from the momentous World Anti-Communist Conference in Brazil. Can Rhodesia hold on? Is it now too late to save Civilisation? This will be an address no one can afford to miss. Immediately following the finding of the Rhodesian special Court that the continued detention of the Reverend Sithole was more than justified, the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Hilgard Muller, flew to Salisbury. This was followed by the sensational release of Sithole from detention on April 4th to attend the summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U.) at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, on April 7th.

Announcing the decision to release Sithole in a special TV and radio statement on April 4th, Prime Minister Ian Smith described Sithole's release as "a sacrifice, which all Rhodesians must be prepared to make at this time." Mr. Smith's manner left no doubt amongst Rhodesians that their Prime Minister was a man under tremendous pressure, and that he was reluctantly permitting Sithole to leave Rhodesia in the hope that Prime Minister Vorster's policy of detente might yet produce some worthwhile results. But no sooner had Sithole left Rhodesia than he was making it clear that he and his colleagues were determined to press on with the Marxist-Leninist programme of violence and murder against both Rhodesia and South Africa.

At the O.A.U. summit in Dar-es-Salaam, it was made clear that the ultimate objective was to hang the hammer and sickle over Cape Town. The London Financial Times article made the significant point that the greatest threat to the Vorster strategy was a back-lash of the South African people, they making it clear to the Rhodesian people that they should not weaken their stand. Already this grass-roots type of development is gathering tremendous momentum.

Chaired by the former Rhodesian Foreign Affairs Minister Lord Graham, one thousand Rhodesians last month met in Salisbury to hear speakers from South Africa assure them that they would not he deserted by the South African people. My own message to the Rhodesian people was in a series of addresses at well-attended meetings to hold on, that time was on their side. I outlined the realities of the international conspiracy and stressed that if they could hold on while the rest of the world was disintegrating, they would be like an oasis in a wilderness.

As I left Cape Town I learned that the Vorster Government is dismayed by developments, that the extreme statements of Kaunda and others has shown clearly that no meaningful agreements can be made with such people. However, it is clear that a great watershed in Southern African history has been reached, and that the coming months are going to be critical, not only for the Rhodesians, holding a major front line for the West, but also for the whole of the Western world. I have every faith that the Rhodesians, a sturdy and manly community, will still be holding up the torch of civilised Government long after the Whitlams and Wilsons have been swept away by the growing backlash against their degenerate policies.

Monetary Royal Commission

In 1937, the Royal Commission into the Monetary and Banking system of Australia said in its report that the Commonwealth Bank (now the Reserve Bank) possessed all the power necessary to finance all Government needs:-. . . "it can lend to the Governments or to others in a variety of ways, and it can even make money available to the Governments and to others free of charge..." (Section 504).

When Mr. Justice Napier, Chairman of the Commission, was asked to interpret this Clause, his reply, (received through the Secretary of the Commission, Mr. Harris) was as follows: -"This statement means that the Commonwealth Bank can make money available to Governments, or to others on such terms as it chooses, even by way of a loan without interest, or even without requiring either interest or repayment of principal."