SMITH BACKS UP
A stiff warning from the British Labour government October 27 that it would consider any unilateral declaration of independence by the Jan Smith regime in Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia] "an open act. of defiance and rebellion and it would be treasonable to _. take steps to'give effect to: it, "had the result of temporarily cooling off the racist-minded Rhodesian prime minister.
He shouted "blackmail and intimidation" in the Rhodesian parliament but backed down from his previous position. He said that a "yes" vote in an independence referendum scheduled for November 5 in Rhodesia would not be interpreted as a mandate to declare unilateral independence, Only registered voters, announced in Salisbury as some 80,000 white and 15,000 nonwhite, will take part in the publicity move.
The British Labour government had threatened an immediate trade boycott if Smith went ahead, This, according to Sir Edgar Whitehead, leader of the opposition party in Rhodesia, would mean a drop in exports at once of fifty per cent and would precipitate a depression as. bad as’ the one in the thirties.
Ian Smith's aim is to consolidate a government-in Rhodesia patterned after the fascist-like Herrenvolk regime in neighboring South Africa,
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-- HOW. WAS. KHRUSH CHEV