page_title: Victoria Falls Conference (1975)
section_title: The Victoria Falls Conference
hierarchical_section_title: Victoria Falls Conference (1975) / The Victoria Falls Conference
caption_attribution_description: English: Ian Smith, the Rhodesian Prime Minister, in 1975עברית: איאן סמית', הראש הממשלה של רודזיה, בשנת 1975
context_page_description: The Victoria Falls Conference took place on 26 August 1975 aboard a South African Railways train halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border between the unrecognised state of Rhodesia and Zambia. It was the culmination of the "détente" policy introduced and championed by B. J. Vorster, the Prime Minister of South Africa, which was then under apartheid and was attempting to improve its relations with the Frontline States to Rhodesia's north, west and east by helping to produce a settlement in Rhodesia. The participants in the conference were a delegation led by the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith on behalf of his government, and a nationalist delegation attending under the banner of Abel Muzorewa's African National Council, which for this conference also incorporated delegates from the Zimbabwe African National Union, the Zimbabwe African People's Union and the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe. 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.
context_section_description: 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. The Rhodesians, however, were keen to adhere to the accord and meet at a Rhodesian venue. In an effort to placate both sides, Kaunda and Vorster relaxed the terms so that the two sides would instead meet aboard a train provided by the South African government, placed halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge, on the Rhodesian–Zambian border. The Rhodesian delegates could therefore take their seats in Rhodesia and the nationalists, on the opposite side of the carriage, would be able to attend without leaving Zambia. As part of the détente policy, Kaunda and Vorster would act as mediators in the conference, which was set for 26 August 1975.
  The UANC delegation was led, as expected, by Muzorewa and included Sithole representing ZANU, Nkomo for ZAPU and James Chikerema, the former ZAPU vice-president, for a third militant party, the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe. 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!"
  The conference started on the morning of 26 August as planned. The six Rhodesian delegates took their places first, then around 40 nationalists entered and crowded around Muzorewa on the opposite side of the cramped railway carriage. Vorster and Kaunda arrived and sat on the Rhodesian side, where there was more space, and each spoke in turn, giving their blessing to the negotiations. Muzorewa then opened the proceedings at Smith's invitation. Speaking assertively, the bishop gave three concessions which would have to be given by the Rhodesian side for talks to begin: first, one man, one vote was established by Muzorewa to be "a basic necessity"; second, an amnesty would have to be given for all guerrilla fighters, including those convicted of murder by the High Court in Salisbury; and finally, all of the nationalists would have to be given permission to return to Rhodesia as soon as possible to begin political campaigning. Smith replied calmly that Kaunda, Nyerere and Vorster had all assured him that the UANC had agreed not to demand preconditions for talks, and that Kaunda and Vorster had in fact confirmed this to him that same morning; his delegation was therefore surprised by Muzorewa's confrontational opening speech.
  Smith says that his reply "provoked a flood of rhetoric"; the nationalists evaded his words and, one by one, gave passionate speeches about being "a suppressed people ... denied freedom in their own country" who only wanted to "return home and live normal, peaceful lives". Smith sat back and waited for them to finish, then responded that there was nothing stopping them from going home at any time and living peacefully if they so wished, and that they were in this situation by their own hand. 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." The UANC delegates countered by railing against Smith even more strongly than before, repeating their previous arguments and rejecting the right of Britain to negotiate on 
caption: Prime Minister Ian Smith was surprised by Muzorewa's confrontational opening speech, but only antagonised the nationalists by saying so.
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