Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 18, 1978, Winnipeg, Manitoba 10 tuesday july 18, 1973 gloom settles on Rhodesia by David b. Ottaway the Washington Post Salisbury there is an atmosphere of gloom and doom settling Over this War exhausted country and the Central Issue is fast becom ing How to avoid chaos from engulfing it in the painful passage of Power from White minority to Black majority Rule. Contrary to White Hopes the multiracial transitional government set up in March Here has not produced either a ceasefire in the War West Ern recognition or support or the lifting of economic sanctions. Instead the War has escalated and is taking an Ever heavier toll on White and Black civilian lives. Law and order is on every one s minds african and european As the future be comes More Uncertain with the failing of the new govern ment. Each Day there is yet an other sign that european institutions and Law and order Are crumbling in the Countryside even though the cities remain islands of peace and normality. Scores of schools hospitals clinics churches and Rural councils Are ceasing to function. Massacres of africans and euro peans Are taking place with increasing frequency and seeming deliberate Ness. Hundreds of missionaries Are fleeing from the Rural areas under threat of assassination and dozens of White banners Are pulling out of the heavily guerrilla infiltrated areas along the Eastern Bor Der. One Small farming town Cashel is on the verge of being abandoned altogether. A number of the 200-Odd reserves set aside for the african population the so called tribal Trust lands have been More or less taken Over by the guerrillas and about 50 of the 250 Rural councils there have been Dis banded. But there is scant evidence to Date that the guerrillas Are setting up their own institutions to replace the european ones. Instead it appears from most african accounts that they Are ruling by the gun alone. Meanwhile both nationalist guerrilla leaders and White moderates As Well As extremists Are hardening in their attitude toward each other. The guerrillas now talk As if an outright military Victory is just months away while diehard White supremacists Are beginning to speak of taking a final carrying out a scorched Earth and going on a it is reminiscent of the talk in Angola Mozambique and Algeria in the Twilight of co Lonial Rule when Large euro Pean populations produced extremist paramilitary groups of their own Bent on revenge and destruction be for leaving. Within the rhodesian army there Are said to be elements pushing for a total mobilization of the White population for a final Campaign to wipe out the guerrillas operating inside Rhodesia and to carry out massive raids on their Camps in neighbouring Zam Bia and Mozambique. Banditry another sign the possible chaos ahead is growing apace and Many believe this is primarily to blame for the recent spate of mass murders by guerrillas of both White missionaries and africans. National Lead ers based in Zambia and Mozambique Are disowning these grisly deeds and one of their top representatives Here has blamed them on rogue vigilante groups roaming the Countryside. Missionaries and Farmers say that at least some of the trouble is coming from undisciplined teen agers who run with the guerrillas and act in their name while Rob Bing stores and missions. This May explain the Lack of any pattern in the attacks on Mission stations. In some cases the guerrillas have ordered Mission Aries to close Down and let them go without harming anyone. In others the guerrillas shot the missionaries. Within the White led rhodesian army there Are also disturbing signs that discipline is slipping. On at least three separate occasions recently jittery soldiers have opened fire on african crowds or villagers indiscriminately. There Are other signs As Well of the crumbling of Law an order across the land and the developing turmoil. More than one million of Rhode Sia s 6.5 million africans have now been uprooted from their Homes and hundreds More Are fleeing daily either to neighbouring coun tries or the towns and cities to seek Refuge. Far More Whites than the figure officially show have also fled the country. Rhode Sian officials now concede that instead of the roughly europeans indicated in government statistics there Are probably Only around just two years ago the White Popula Tion was 277.000. While White Rule is slowly crumbling the Black nation Alist leadership destined to take Over this Mineral and farm Rich land is badly fragmented into five feuding factions. Three of them Are in the transitional government now trying to run the coun try and two others Are fight ing to destroy it. As in Angola there is no single nationalist figure in Rhodesia Strong enough to dominate or unify the entire Black population behind him. And tribalism is becoming a major Factor in the race for Power. At the same time there Are three separate armies at War Here. Two of them belong to opposing nationalist factions and each has or More guerrillas. One is armed and partly trained by China and the other by Cuba and the soviet Union. While they Are allies in the patriotic front dealing with the Western and african Powers inside Rhodesia the two armies Are jostling each other for control and influence of the african Popula Tion and occasionally Elat ing with each other. The third army that of the rhodesian government is still by far the largest with 30.000 to 10.000 men. And bet Ter equipped than those of the two nationalist guerrilla ones combined. Although now made up so per cent of african Volun Teers the rhodesian army is White office red and has hundreds european and american sol Diers recruited from abroad to serve in special Comman do units. In addition virtually every White family has its own automatic weapons to defend itself against guerrilla at tacks and women As Well As children at a surprisingly Early age Are trained to shoot. Rhodesian made machine pistols similar to the israeli Uzzi Are now Stan Dard household equipment. Thus in the absence of a negotiated settlement involving the guerrillas there is every reason to believe the passage from White to Black Power in Rhodesia could be bloodier than it was even in Angola also consumed by civil War at its Independence. But unlike the former Portu Guese Colony there is no co Lonial army Here to withdraw to the Home country and allow the contending african nationalist factions to fight it out. Fully aware of the danger of a massive White Back lash. Prime minister Ian Smith has sought to reassure the jittery european Popula Tion that he would keep his Promise to hold a special referendum on the March 3 agreement providing in Prin Ciple for a Transfer of Power to the Black majority at the end of this year. If it is Defeated he said then the White minority go verment would go Back to Square one in its negotiations with the nationalist. But it is highly unlikely that even the three moderate Black nationalist now in the interim government s executive Council Bishop Abel Muzorewa Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and chief Jeremiah Chirac would be willing or Able politically to talk to Smith. Winnipeg free pres Spanish democracy facing Rocky Road i Globe and mall photo site of peking Man discovery. Scaffolding has been erected in preparation for the return of the anthropologists by Ronald Koven the Washington Post Madrid Franco died was it two years ago no one remembers. I Don t remember myself. He is really it was not just anybody talking. It was the Man generally considered to be the most conservative member of the Spanish Cabinet pub Lic works minister Joaquin Garrigues Walker head of the Liberal party and son in Law of the count of Motrico perhaps Franco s most distinguished ambassador. A year after the first free parliamentary elections in -10 years Spain enjoys one of the most vigorous democracies in the world with the full spectrum of traditional european parties and a free press that sprang up like mushrooms after the rain. Yet there is a growing sense that the smooth Transi Tion from dictatorship to democracy miraculous As it has been is exceedingly fragile and that any of Sev eral major problems could touch off a reversal of the process. Among the factors that could Send the emerging democracy into a tailspin Are a growing disillusion Fossil hounds to resume digging in peking Man s Limestone Hill by John Frankk Globe and mail Toronto Chou Kou Tien China in a few weeks a group of leading chinese Fossil sleuths will begin digging away at an unprepossessing Limestone Hill about 50 kilo metres Southwest of peking. This is no Ordinary Hill How Ever for it has excited anthropological imaginations for Over half a Century be cause it was it re that peking Man was found in the Early 1920s. For i he first time in 12 years since the Start of the cultural revolution experts will have a Chance to investigate a Small chunk of land which Many feel still holds major clues to the Ori Gin of our species. Peking Man is an ancestor of Man who lived on the North China Plain years ago and the announcement in of humanoid fossils at Clio Kou Tien was one of the major scientific achieve ments of this Century. Sixteen years later the original fossils disappeared in the confusion of the Sec Ond world War under mysterious circumstances that have not yet been unravelled. According to Harry Shapiro an american anthropologist who became intimately involved with the peking Man project the loss was incalculable wrote prof. Sha Piro in 1971. In the his tory of the Fossil record of human evolution had there been a disaster of such magnitude. For these ancient Bones represented a Verita ble population of 10 individuals men. Women and Chil Dren from a stage of Evo Lution previously the return of experts from the vertebrate palaeontology and Pale anthropology Institute of the chinese Academy of sciences scheduled to commence work at the end of july is also an event of great significance and underscores a seamy Side of recent chinese his tory that is still not fully understood in the West. Thanks to some Clever but highly deceitful propaganda it was generally thought that the chinese government Dur ing the past few years of chairman Mao tse Tung s life comprehended the importance of archaeology and anthropology in a country As old As China. The famous exhibit of Arche Olgica trea sures found during the Cul Tural revolution was a significant Success in Many of the countries it toured. In fact As it turns out it was a very cynical cover up to the shocking state of Igno Rance and clumsiness in Chi Nese Archeo logical circles where most of the Good peo ple had been driven from their posts. More than that however the state of China s historic Sites was a scandal with the exception of a Foxx notable tourist spots like the forbidden City. This is All emerging now As the present government begins the Job of cataloguing the historical Sites most in need of repair and has Given the go ahead for major re search projects. At Chou Kou Tien the cynicism was even More pronounced. The government opened a Small anthropological museum in where guides regaled visitors about the sins of past exploiters of the site including the Kock Esfeller foundation a which Mosi of the Early exploration. This was being done mind you. At the same time that the government forbade anyone to work a few Steps away from the museum where there Are probably Many More major disco veries to be made. At the moment workers Are preparing a Large scaffolding and taking samples at the Vertille face of the 10-metre High Drift of Solidi fied mud and Stone a there peking Man Xmas found. It is hoped that further digging vill he Able to replace some of tin1 Bones that were lost possibly forever in 1911 when worried american anthropologists tried to ship the fossils out of China and away from the invading japanese. A few Days before the ship ment Xmas due to be picked up no noise blasting invented Moscow Router engineers have come up xviii of producing powerful Quarry explosions Xvi Hout noise flying debris and Mas Sive expansion of gases the anthropology and adventure. At tientsin the japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and most of the americans still in China were arrested when War Xmas formally declared. In the intervening confusion the Bones simply disappeared. The Story of How peking Man Xmas discovered is still one thai excites the popular imagination especially fora Canadian As the Man most associated Vith the Early Vork indeed the Man who Hax e this ancestor of ours his scientific name. Sin Anthro pus Xmas the remarkable Canadian scholar and adventurer Davidson Black. Born in Toronto in 1nw, Black spent his boyhood Summers in the tax Martha lakes in Ontario and became such an expert canoeist that he Xmas Able to take a Job with the Hudson s Bay company to carry supplies through Northern Ontario while he Xmas still a teen Ager. He be rame fluent in local Indian dialects and branched out into prospecting for Gold. Then one summer he undertook a Field trip for the geological Survey of Canada and acquired in the words of one of his later colleagues a practical knowledge of structural and Stratigraphical geology that subsequently amazed the geologists Vith whom he worked in connection Vith his later palaeontological studies and made it possible to direct and co ordinate so satisfactorily his extensive cenozoic re searches in Black studied comparative Anatomy and Medicine at the University of Toronto. After the first world War. In which he served in the Cana Dian army medical corps he came to China for the first time to pursue two passions Tass news Agency reports. The method involves pass ing a huge Jolt of Riec Trinity along a thin or Copper Vire a ced in Chan Nels drilled the Rock. The Vire is Imp Jia Tely converted a Gas con qual numbers of Pom e and negative and increases in volume a thousandfold. This rapid swelling creates a Shock wave which neatly slices off a piece of Stone Tass said. The so called electro Hydraulic explosion developed at the Moscow Institute of geological surveying is so mild and accurate that not a single crack is created in the slab knocked Loose from the Quarry Wall. Workers need not take shelter while such blasting is in Progress and Birds and animals living close to the quarries Are not disturbed. Tass said. He got both in much greater measure than he Ever dreamed. What originally led Black and other foreign palaeontologists to the area near Chou Kou Tien were reports that this was a Rich place for dragon the name chinese peasants gave to the fossils of dinosaurs which were highly prize in traditional chinese Medicine a there they were ground up and used in various potions. The first Teeth of peking Man were found in 1921. But it would take six years of convincing sceptical anthropological circles of the truth in the discovery. Although there were Many famous names associated with the discovery of peking Man and the struggle to thoroughly identify its significance including the Jesuit priest. Pere Geilhard de Chardin who won the enmity the evolution wary roman Catholic Church for his efforts it was Davidson Black who Xmas at the Centre of everything. This was partly because of his authority and drive but perhaps also because he was a unique individual who Learned Early on. A lesson about China few foreigners before him and not All that Many since had the Wisdom or humanity to understand. Maybe he Learned the Les son first Vith the indians in Northern Ontario. In any event he is remembered in China As one of the very few foreigners the chinese Felt neither above nor below. He Xmas conservative and Ami revolutionary but he never once misunderstood his role in China. One of his chinese colleagues wrote after death it is frankly admitted that sometimes we find co operation Between chinese and foreigners in scientific work rather difficult Many foreigners suffer from a superiority Complex at Best his manners become patronizing. On the other hand their chinese colleagues Are suffering from an inferiority Complex. They become self conscious and Supe Sensi Tive. Always imagining that the foreigner is laughing at them or despising them. In my dealings with Davidson Black i never found him suf Fering from such a Complex and his chinese colleagues became also free from perhaps this is Why at the site today Black s name is remembered without ran Cour. His Vork is acknowledged by the chinese simply and without much embellish ment. He was neither a Beth Une nor an opium trader. He came to China not Only to offer what he had but to learn what he could and As such he is the very Model of the kind of foreign Friend the chinese Are out scouring the world for right now. As for the mystery of the missing Bones it is quite probable that their Fate was ignominious and banal. Some people who have thoroughly investigated the matter now assume that they were discovered thought to be worthless and pitched into the garbage. However there Are still those who feel they May be around in China it self perhaps Japan or maybe even the United states. At one time the Chi Nese claimed they were Sto Len by americans but at the museum at Chou Kou Tien today they simply say that the fossils disappeared mysteriously in 19-11. said my guide we will be Able to replace them in the next few years once the digging begins ment with democracy itself because it has failed to pro vide overnight solution to All the country s problems. The Rise of the communist party which got what is generally considered to be an unnaturally Low nine per cent in last year s elections. A resurgence of fascism. The two dominant Par ties Lack of cohesion. The socialist and the ruling Centre democratic Union parties Are both Young inexperienced and unstructured. An Economy that is hav ing great difficulties converting from state control to Freedom resulting in High unemployment heavy inflation and insufficient invest ment. The insistence by the traditional regions led by Catalonia and the Basque country on an autonomy that the political right suspects is Only a step toward breaking up the country. Political leaders Are creat ing a consensus politics that is not natural to the Spanish political temperament. The most persistent criticism heard of Premier Adolfo Suarez even voiced privately by some of his own Cabinet ministers is that he is a pragmatist who cannot be classified on the left or the right. This said Fer Nando Onega a noted Colum nist and until recently a spokesman for Suarez. Likes bulls and blood. When consensus is reached people Are the consensus stretches from the communists through the civilized right of the count of Motrico and Manuel Fraga Iribarne Franco s information minis Ter and now the head of pop ular Alliance the most conservative party in the Politi Cal establishment. The communist party is the most ardent proponent of the National consensus and finds a willing partner in Premier Suarez. The other parties in the democratic part of the spectrum seem to fee that they have no Choice but to go along. A year of close communist collaboration with the govern ment is widely thought to have erased Public hesitation As the communists reach for an italian style historic Compromise Vith the Cen Ter right. There seems to be a Blithe Assumption even that the communists will increase their vote to 12 or 15 per cent Xvi Hout taking anything from the socialists. But in a recent by election in the Northern mining Region of Austria. The socialists lost ground while the communists Avon 22 per cent of the x ote. A socialist communist coalition is said a Cabi net minister on the govern nent s left. The leaders of both parties oppose it. It would automatically produce another civil the agreement on basics among the four main parties the communists and socialists on the left and the democratic Union and popu Lar Alliance on the right has left opposition nowhere to express itself but the Street. In most of Western Europe the Street Means the left. In Spain today it Means the fascists. They Only got a tiny vote in last year s elections but the signs seem Clear that after 10 years of fascist Rule it As unnaturally Small As the poor communist showing. The fascists Are playing on the nostalgia for Law and the uninterrupted economic growth of the Franco times. For the Broad based political establishment. Franco May Well be dead. But the youngsters of Blass Pinar s fascistic new Force spend a lot of their time painting Graffiti saying Franco is among the fascist next paper Al Alcazar is growing the most rapidly in circulation. The bustling atmosphere of new Force Headquarters n Cen trial Madrid is like that of a major electoral Campaign with attractive Youg people jostling each other constantly on the stairs and landings. Outside Pinar s offices stand relaxed Bat Alert Young bodyguards wearing the party s dark Blue shirt with red berets tucked in their epaulettes and Large crucifixes hanging around their necks. Pinar agrees that the coun try seems to Avant to be go verned in the Centre he said not a Center that is in the Middle of a pendulum swing from left to right. They want a Centre that they can hold onto a Centre that is a solid pole Vith a firm foun Dation. If the political prospects seem Uncertain the economic Outlook is even More clouded with heavy political implications. Under Franco the econ omy grew steadily at about six per cent a year in the decade 1965-75, making Spain the worlds 10th Indus trial Power. Since Franco s death nov. 20, 1975, it has been suffering a severe re cession. The average annual growth rate Over the three years has been 1.7 per cent. The effects of the Oil crisis political uncertainty a 26 per cent inflation rate last year and. For Spain a huge and rising unemployment rate of More than six per cent have also snapped Busi Ness Confidence. It s not a Bright said Garrigues Walker 11, the works minister. To control inflation we re going to have to slow Down the econ omy. That Means More unemployment and More votes for the left and a backlash from the extreme a proposed new Constitution is a potential time bomb of another kind. In the name of consensus it contains such anomalies As articles advocating both socialism and a free Market Economy. The Peculiar political situation is said Tierno Galvan. Recognized by both left and right As Spain s leading constitutional Law forces us to accept a Constitution that does not fit the National character. It tried to accommodate the past the present and the future the great argument for accepting it is that As soon As it is adopted democracy will be affirmed in despite his own grave reservations he predicted that the Constitution will get the approval of about no per cent of the voters when it is put to National referendum Proba Bly in october. The current state of affairs he said stems from the country s Choice of a Transi Tion from the Franco regime rather than a break with the past. The knot that was tied by said Galvan has not been Cut. It has merely been the Strong suspicion Lin Gers that the present Consen sus is based not so much on a determination to achieve a National reconciliation As on the fear of the consequences of disagreeing. What Hap pens when that fear Dies Down for All that Franco is in general ill favor it is thanks to him that essential ingredient of the smooth Transi Tion is in place. Franco personally groomed King Juan Carlos now 10. As his Succes Sor. He had him trained As an officer in All the main branches of the armed forces. The old Man knew exactly what he was said a parliamentary Leader of pre Mier party. The officers consider Juan Carlos one of them. Franco a next things would have to be different after him. In his political testament. Franco told the armed forces to obey the King even if he does things when Suarez legalized the communist party a year ago there was a great Deal of muttering in the army ranks. They Are still muttering against autonomy for Spain s disparate regions. But undoubtedly because of their Confidence in Juan Carlos they have not rebelled. The King also has rallied the left to him because the socialists and communists see him As the guarantor of the army s Good behaviour. So the King has come to Symbol ize the National consensus and to serve As a guarantor of the left s Good behaviour ;