Ian Smith Is to Introduce Apartheid

A speech made by Ian Smith over the radio on February 18 made it clear that the regime envisaged an apartheid future for the African population. He said that this is what the Africans themselves wanted, “invariably the evidence that I have from Africans is that they prefer to live according to their own customs -- to live their own way of life in the same way as the European does," The great problem, he said, was to ensure that the African was given as good a chance in life as the European, The Government believed, he said, that the chiefs were better suited to represent Africans' views at present than African MPs. The regime is adopting a tougher attitude towards all dissent. It has gazetted draft new citizenship laws giving it greater powers to deprive Rhodesians of citizenship unless they are born in the country. The Minister of Internal Affairs will be empowered to take away citizenship from people whose activities are judged to be prejudicial to public safety or order or likely to harm relations between sections of the public, And during "any war in which Rhodesia is engaged" the same will apply to those who unlawfully trade or communicate with an enemy or engage in business they know would assist an enemy -- an entity that could be broadly interpreted as Mr. Smith and his colleapues who regularly refer to the struggle against sanctions as "war",