Victoria Falls Conference (1975)
Vorster and the Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda acted as mediators in the conference, which was held on the border in an attempt to provide a venue both sides would accept as neutral.
The Victoria Falls Conference, the détente initiative and the associated ceasefire, though unsuccessful, did affect the course of the Rhodesian Bush War, as they gave the nationalist guerrillas significant time to regroup and reorganise themselves following the decisive security force counter-campaign of 1973–74.
[3] The two rival nationalist movements began what they called their "Second Chimurenga"[n 1] against the Rhodesian government and security forces, and, while based outside the country, sent groups of guerrillas into Rhodesia at regular intervals.
[9] The effect of the security forces' decisive counter-campaign was undone by two drastic changes to the geopolitical situation in 1974 and 1975, each relating to one of the Rhodesian government's two main backers, Portugal and South Africa.
In Lisbon, a military coup on 25 April 1974 replaced the right-wing Estado Novo administration with a leftist government opposed to the unpopular Colonial War in Angola, Mozambique and Portugal's other African territories.
Far from being seen as a gesture of potential reconciliation, the ceasefire and release of the nationalist leaders gave the message to the rural population that the security forces had been defeated, and that the guerrillas were in the process of emulating FRELIMO's victory in Mozambique.
[3] According to the terms agreed in December 1974, the talks between the Rhodesian government and the UANC were to take place within Rhodesia, but in the event the black nationalist leaders were loath to attend a conference on ground they perceived as not neutral.
[3] According to Rhodesian intelligence, the various nationalist factions had not patched up their differences, were not prepared to accept Muzorewa as their leader and, to this end, were hoping that the conference failed to produce an agreement.
The Rhodesians relayed these concerns to Pretoria, which told them firmly that the UANC would surely not risk losing the support of Kaunda and the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere by deliberately sabotaging the peace process.
When the Rhodesians persisted in their complaints, citing evidence of nationalist infighting in Lusaka, the South Africans were terser still, eventually wiring Salisbury: "If you don't like what we are offering, you always have the alternative of going it alone!
They themselves, he said, had refused the Anglo-Rhodesian accord agreed four years previously, which he said had offered Rhodesian blacks "preferential franchise facilities", and they themselves had chosen to use "unconstitutional means and terrorism in order to overthrow the legal government of our country."
[13] This argument went on for nine and a half hours before the conference broke up, Smith refusing outright to grant diplomatic immunity to the UANC's "terrorist leaders who bear responsibility for ... murders and other atrocities".
[14] After the failure of the talks across the Falls, even the facade of a united front amongst the nationalists was broken on 11 September, when Muzorewa expelled Nkomo and four of his deputies from the council after they suggested a new leadership election be held.
If he could be brought into an internal government, and ZIPRA onto the side of the security forces, Smith thought, ZANU would find it difficult to justify continuing the guerrilla war, and even if they did so, they would be less likely to win.
[16] Dr Elliot Gabellah, Muzorewa's deputy in the UANC, told Smith that Nkomo was "the most balanced and experienced" of the nationalist leaders, and that most Ndebele now favoured open negotiation.
[16] Nkomo was wary of being labelled a "sell-out" by his ZANU rivals, particularly Mugabe, so to prevent this from happening he first consulted Kaunda, Machel and Nyerere, the presidents of the Frontline States.
