BREAKUP OF THE FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A004300050002-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 5, 2006
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 27, 1963
• Content Type: REPORT

Release 2006/05/24: CIA-RDP79-00927A00490mber 1963
OCI No. 0312/63
Copy No. 7 0
SPECIAL REPORT
BREAKUP OF THE FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND NYASALAND
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
5CRET
c" )~l' chided from automatic.
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BREAKUP OF THE FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND NYASALAND
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,
Britain's most complicated experiment in African
constitutional development, is to be dissolved on
31 December after ten stormy years. The federa-
tion is breaking up because the leaders of its
African population have persisted in viewing it
mainly as a device to perpetuate white influence.
Its demise ends British hopes for an economically
integrated, multiracial state in central Africa.
In two of the constituent territories--Northern
Rhodesia and Nyasaland--African-dominated govern-
ments are on the verge of independence. In the
third--Southern Rhodesia--the white-dominated gov-
ernment is also demanding independence, present-
ing Britain with its thorniest decolonization prob-
lem to date. The Zambezi River will mark the
frontier between African white and black national-
isms, and moderates on both sides are likely to
have increasing difficulty making their influence
felt.
Background to Dissolution
The federation was estab-
lished in 1953 amid strenuous
African objections. It associ-
ated the British-run protector-
ates of Northern Rhodesia and
Nyasaland with Southern Rhodesia,
a white-controlled colony which has
had substantial internal auton-
omy (including control of its
own defense forces) since 1923.
For the British and South-
ern Rhodesia's whites, federa-
tion promised to end a whole
range of difficulties. Southern
Rhodesian whites hoped that the
federation would be granted the
independence which had long
eluded the colony and that white
domination would thereb be pre-
served.
the local whites and the
British thought that the com-
bination of Northern Rhodesian
copper, Southern Rhodesian man-
ufacturing and agriculture, and
Nyasaland labor would produce
a strong, unified economy. The
British also hoped that if pov-
erty-strickenNyasaland were in-
cluded in the federation, its
dependence on the Exchequer
would be reduced; indeed, they
compelled the whites to take on
Nyasaland before they would
sanction federation at all.
Hopes regarding the econ-
omy have been amply justified
over the last ten years, but
economic progress did not erad-
icate the African feeling that
the federation had been set up
for the benefit of Southern
Rhodesia's whites. The African
campaign against it got into
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Federation
Rhodesia
and Nyasaland
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BREAKUP OF THE FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND NYASALAND
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,
Britain's most complicated experiment in African
constitutional development, is to be dissolved on
31 December after ten stormy years. The federa-
tion is breaking up because the leaders of its
African population have persisted in viewing it
mainly as a device to perpetuate white influence.
Its demise ends British hopes for an economically
integrated, multiracial state in central Africa.
In two of the constituent territories--Northern
Rhodesia and Nyasaland--African-dominated govern-
ments are on the verge of independence. In the
third--Southern Rhodesia--the white-dominated gov-
ernment is also demanding independence, present-
ing Britain with its thorniest decolonization prob-
lem to date. The Zambezi River will mark the
frontier between African white and black national-
isms, and moderates on both sides are likely to
have increasing difficulty making their influence
felt.
Background to Dissolution
The federation was estab-
lished in 1953 amid strenuous
African objections. It associ-
ated the British-run protector-
ates of Northern Rhodesia and
Nyasaland with Southern Rhodesia,
a white-controlled colony which has
had substantial internal auton-
omy (including control of its
own defense forces) since 1923.
For the British and South-
ern Rhodesia's whites, federa-
tion promised to end a whole
range of difficulties. Southern
Rhodesian whites hoped that the
federation would be granted the
independence which had long
eluded the colony and that white
domination would thereby be pre-
yed.
Both
the local whites and the
British thought that the com-
bination of Northern Rhodesian
copper, Southern Rhodesian man-
ufacturing and agriculture, and
Nyasaland labor would produce
a strong, unified economy. The
British also hoped that if pov-
erty-strickenNyasaland were in-
cluded in the federation, its
dependence on the Exchequer
would be reduced; indeed, they
compelled the whites to take on
Nyasaland before they would
sanction federation at all.
Hopes regarding the econ-
omy have been amply justified
over the last ten years, but
economic progress did not erad-
icate the African feeling that
the federation had been set up
for the benefit of Southern
Rhodesia's whites. The African
campaign against it got into
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stride in 1958, when Kamuzu
Banda, calling for the death of
the "stupid federation," returned
to Nyasaland after 40 years
abroad. Over the past five years
riots, demonstrations, deten-
tions, proscriptions of parties,
emergency proclamations, and com-
plex constitutions have followed
each other pell-mell in all
three territories. The end
result, acknowledged by Britain
in an announcement last April,
satisfied Banda's demand. The
federation is indeed dead, but
it leaves a troublesome legacy.
The Dissolution Process
Dissolution will also render
at least two of the territories--
Northern Rhodesia is a possible
exception--financially weaker
than they were while the federa-
tion existed. The aggregate
borrowing power of the three
will probably be less than the
federation's, and Southern
Rhodesia in particular will be
saddled with a large part of the
federation's debt of about $800
million. There is also a good
chance that, despite the expense,
each territory will want its own
currency and bank of issue,although
Britain still hopes to get around
this somehow.
The federation's structure
is extremely complex, and dis-
mantling it has been an enor-
mously difficult process. Most
of the federal functions have
already been handed back to the
territories, but there remains
one area in which the lines have
not yet been drawn: the involved
question of interterritorial
economic relations.
Protective tariffs have
given the nascent industries of
Southern Rhodesia--whose gross
output in 1959 was more than
$500 million--a guaranteed mar-
ket in the two northern terri-
tories for the past ten years.
Now, however, both Northern
Rhodesia and Nyasaland are
threatening to set up tariff
barriers and encourage their own
industries. Neither territory
is likely to move very rapidly
toward economic self-sufficiency;
nevertheless, the Southern Rho-
desians will no longer have
these markets to themselves.
One other unresolved question
involves the future of the 36,000
officials of the federal govern-
ment. Whites, of course, predom-
inate in the upper levels of the
civil service, and most of them
want to work for Southern Rhodesia.
Since that territory cannot ab-
sorb all of them, many will be
faced with the choice of working
for Africans in the other two
territories or being declared
redundant. Plans for employing
these people--and for paying
lump-sum compensation to those
who elect to leave the service--
are still being worked out; at
any rate, it seems likely that
good administrative talent will
become increasingly scarce in
the north.
None of these difficulties
and concerns has had a signif-
'icant effect on political de-
velopments, however. Nyasa-
land is scheduled to become the
independent state of Malawi
on 6 July 1964, and Northern
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Rhodesia--to be called Zambia--
seems likely to follow before
the end of the year. Prime Min-
ister Winston Field's government
in Southern Rhodesia has reacted
by demanding independence for
that territory as well.
Nyasaland (Malawi)
Nyasaland has been an
embarrassment to Britain ever
since missionary pressure in the
late 19th century induced London
to establish the protectorate.
It is about the size of Indiana
and is inhabited by three to
four million people, almost all
of them Africans living by sub-
sistence agriculture. Aside
from small quantities of tea,
cotton, and tobacco, most of
which are grown on the few
European plantations, the terri-
tory's only resource is an
industrious and adaptable labor
force, which it must export in
order to survive. Nyasas (or
Malawians) working on farms in
Southern Rhodesia and in South
African mines are an important
source of cash for Nyasaland; but
even so, the Banda government's
budget is so far out of balance
that more than half of it is
underwritten by direct or in-
direct British subsidies.
Banda and his lieutenants
have some understanding of this
situation, and they are caution-
ing their followers not to ex-
pect the millennium with inde-
pendence. Nevertheless, they
tend to assume too easily that
the economic problem will work
itself out, and in particular
that their present strongly
pro-US attitude will automati-
cally produce large quantities of
American aid.
Malawi has a flavor of its
own, much of it derived from
Banda's own peculiar blend of
provincialism.
Kamuzu Banda (Hastings, his
"European" first name, has long
since fallen out of use) spent
several years in Ghana, and his
Malawi Congress Party is modeled
on the Nkrumah pattern. There
are the usual party trappings
--youth league, women's groups,
and a party police answerable
to Banda--which blanket the
country. Just as there is
the philosophy of "Nkrumaism"
in Ghana, so in Nyasaland there
is "Kamuzuism"--defined as
"ideals of African personality,
African Unity, World Peace,
Social and Economic reconstruc-
tion of Malawi and Africa in
particular and the World in
general." So far, however, the
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"ideology" of Banda's movement
appears devoid of the strong
current of Marxism notable in
Nkrumah's. But, like the
Ghanaian leader, Banda himself
is deified by his followers.
All this, however, has
developed in a tiny territory
which lacks the means and seems
to lack the desire to export its
nationalism: a territory, more-
over, which depends on white-
ruled Southern Rhodesia for a
labor market and on white-ruled
Mozambique for an outlet to the
sea. Aside from hypersensitivity
to alleged affronts to their
dignity, Malawians show few
typical symptoms of African na-
tionalism. Banda tends to ignore
the rest of Africa, Ghana always
excepted. He has not been par-
ticularly helpful to Mozambique
African nationalists, and he has
not responded at all to sugges-
tions that Nyasaland might join
an East African federation. He
does have a vague notion that
"his people" in Northern Rho-
desia, Tanganyika, and Mozambique
should be brought into a "Greater
Malawi," but he has shown no
inclination to press such a pre-
tentious scheme.
After Banda goes (he is 57
and not too well), Malawi may
become a more active pan-Afri-
canist center; the two lieu-
tenants who are competing for
the succession are both more
radical than he is. The pres-
sure of economic necessity will
inhibit their support of anti-
white movements, however. At
any rate, it seems likely that
the country will drift steadily
away from the other components of
the federation. This will not
be regretted on either side;
Banda has always aimed his
choicest invective at the fed-
eration government at Salisbury,
and Sir Roy Welensky, the earth
federal rime minister
Northern Rhodesia (Zambia)
Economically, Northern
Rhodesia has the greatest po-
tential of the three territories.
Not only does it contain a
quarter of the world's known
copper reserves, but it is the
only one of the three which is
underpopulated. Its 3.5 million
people (all but 78,000 of them
Africans) live in an area half
as big as Alaska, and the ter-
ritory has reasonable prospects
of approaching agricultural
self-sufficiency. As long as
copper prices remain stable it
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will have no trouble balancing
its budget, and at present the
chances of a relatively high
rate of private investment are
fairly good.
and they appear to be leaving
now rather than run the risk
of being thrown out later. If
enough of them leave, copper
production will be jeopardized.
As with most underdeveloped
countries, however, these pros-
pects could be easily shattered.
The territory's future depends
on three interrelated factors:
moderate African leadership; a
competent, generally apolitical
white colony; and income from
copper production.
The government is nominally
a coalition of two African
parties, but one of these is
bankrupt, divided, and almost
leaderless. Elections in Janu-
ary are expected to confirm a
fact which the coalition and a
complex constitution have ob-
scured: the dominance of Kenneth
Kaunda and his United National
Independence Party (UNIP).
Kaunda, an ascetic whose two
models are Gandhi and Tangan-
yika's Julius Nyerere, is one
of a tiny coterie of able mod-
erates at the head of UNIP.
There is a powerful element in
the party which tends toward
vioLence and racism, however;
and white uneasiness would
increase sharply if these ele-
ments displaced Kaunda.
Even under the present
leadership, more whites are
Leaving Northern Rhodesia than
either of the other territories.
Many key Europeans in the min-
ing industry are South Africans,
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Moderation is the only
road to stability in Northern
Rhodesia; yet, on the frontier
of the confrontation between
white and black territories,
moderation is difficult to
achieve. Economics link Kaunda's
domain tightly with Southern
Rhodesia. His country's copper
smelters need the colony's coal;
it shares the huge Kariba hydro-
electric complex with. Southern
Rhodesia; and at present most
of its copper is shipped out by
railroad through Southern Rho-
desia and Mozambique. His dream
of a rail link with Tanganyika
is still far from fruition.
At the same time, Lusaka,
the Northern Rhodesia capital,
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is bound to become a center
for African intrigue against
the remaining white strongholds
in southern Africa. Radicals
will become increasingly numer-
ous and vociferous; they will
include Northern Rhodesian Afri-
cans now beginning to come back
from studies in the Soviet bloc.
Kaunda will be hard put to keep
himself and his country from
being squeezed between white and
black nationalism.
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
In both Northern Rhodesia
and Nyasaland, the target of
African nationalism was London
or Salisbury, and the fact that
the opposing center of power
was outside the territory made
the transition to black rule
relatively easy. Self-govern-
ing Southern Rhodesia, with
225,000 whites among 3,770,000
Africans, is a completely dif-
ferent case; the struggle is
primarily a Local one, and there
is no outside deus ex machina
to bring the Africans to power.
The African nationalists in
Southern Rhodesia have been
generally inept and have not
yet developed a strategy to fit
this situation.
Britain has not formally
interfered in the colony's in-
ternal affairs since it granted
self-government 40 years ago.
Behind-the-scenes influence
there certainly has been, but
on a government-to-government
leveL Southern Rhodesia's aa-
tonomy is complete. The terri-
tory's technical status as a
colony notwithstanding, London
is not likely to intervene against
the wishes of its white-controlled
government.
Britain has special reasons
for not interfering at present.
Last December-the white Southern
Rhodesian electorate turned out
the paternalist but relatively
moderate government of Sir Edgar
Whitehead and replaced it with
a more racist-minded administra-
tion headed by Winston Field.
Field himself is not very far
to the right of Whitehead on
racial matters, but the white
population as a whole is steadily
becoming more reactionary. Heavy-
handed treatment by Britain
would probably drive Field out
of office and might result in
a unilateral declaration of in-
dependence by right-wing whites.
For this reason the British are
handling the whole problem with
kid gloves.
Unfortunately for London,
Field and his associates, who
are well meaning but not very
astute, have not acted with
equal finesse. When it became
obvious earlier this year that
the Federation was headed for
dissolution and the two northern
territories were on the verge
of independence, Field demanded
independence for Southern Rho-
desia as well. Otherwise, he
said, his government would simply
declare its own independence. He
apparently thought he could bully
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London into agreement, but the
British temporized and eventu-
ally persuaded him that to carry
out his threat would be suicidal.
By that time,however, he
was firmly committed to the in-
dependence theme. In September
his party's congress, in a move
which pointed up the power of
the conservative trend among
the whites, directed him to
seek independence "without strings
attached." This mandate made
Field's dilemma worse, since
Prime Minister Douglas-Home
countered by strongly implying
for the first time that independ-
ence will be granted only when
there is majority rule, albeit
with minority guarantees. This
statement, designed in part to
ease pressures in the UN and
in the Commonwealth, offers a
prospect which frightens and
enrages most whites.
Field thus has botched
the independence campaign;
clearly the best he can hope
for now is the indefinite con-
tinuation of the present situa-
tion. He is a reasonable man,
but he is not strong enough to
lead the whites out of their
cul-de-sac. As long as outside
pressures are not too severe,
he probably can control the
wilder members of his party--
those who want independence come
what may and who believe, with
no discernible justification,
that South Africa will provide
shelter for an independent
Southern Rhodesia. He is not
likely, however, to be the
source of any constructive moves.
From some points of view,
Field's government has had con-
siderable success. It has kept
the nationalist movement under
control through stringent leg-
islation (including a mandatory
death penalty for making or us-
ing a Molotov cocktail) and per-
sistent chivvying of African
leaders. Until mid-November,
when there was some sabotage
near Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia
had been calm to a degree un-
precedented in recent years.
The nationalist movement
itself, which was always weak,
has continued to decline. In
addition to the effects of the
government's harassment, it is
currently suffering from a deep
internal split. Last July a
group which included most of
the nationalist "intellectuals"
broke away in protest against
the incompetent leadership of
Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo, however,
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energetically stumped the Afri-
can areas and preserved his
position with the colony's
African masses. As a result,
Nkomo's People's Caretaker
Council enjoys wide popular
support, while Ndabaningi
Sithole's Zimbabwe African Na-
tional Union is strong in edu-
cated Africans and appears to
have wider support from outside
among independent African states.
Both groups claim to have plans
for subversion--the recent
sabotage near Bulawayo was prob-
ably the work of Nkomo followers
--but they are wasting much of
their energy in conflicts with
each other. There is little
chance that they will soon be
brought together, and Field
reaps the benefits in the mean-
time.
There seems little prospect
of an early end to the impasse
in Southern Rhodesia. Britain
is concentrating for the moment
on the federation's dissolution,
but even after that it will
take time--if indeed it is pos-
sible at all--for the whites
and the Africans to work their
way out of the dead-end streets
into which they have maneuvered
themselves.
In the meantime the cur-
rent recession, which has caused
mounting unemployment among the
Africans, seems likely to con-
tinue. The Africans will prob-
ably become a little more effec-
tive in their antigovernment
activities, and in turn the gov-
ernment will become even more
repressive. As long as the whites
retain their will to resist,
Britain will have great diffi-
culty breaking this vicious cir-
cLe, but unless it can be broken,
there certainly will be more
extensive vi 1 nce and racial
bitterness.
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