563. Paper Prepared in the Department of State1
STATUS REPORT ON SOUTHERN RHODESIA
Two draft resolutions on Southern Rhodesia are now before the Security Council. The first resolution, introduced as a negotiating tactic by the Afro-Asians on April 18, calls upon the United Kingdom to use force to end the rebellion and provides a basis for the imposition of Chapter VII enforcement measures against South Africa and Portugal for their continued non-compliance with sanctions. The second draft, introduced by the UK on April 23, would (1) make comprehensive the present limited mandatory sanctions on trade with and investment in Southern Rhodesia; (2) prohibit the transfer to the territory of most private remittances; (3) attempt to restrict emigration to Southern Rhodesia; (4) impose a limited ban on travel from and air transport to Southern Rhodesia; (5) exempt landlocked states in southern Africa from full compliance with sanctions; and (6) expand the role of the Secretary-General and the Security Council in supervising implementation of sanctions.
Two weeks of British negotiations with the Afro-Asians in New York have produced slight accommodations by both sides toward a mutually acceptable draft resolution, but the Afro-Asians insist that any final resolution include (1) calls for UK action to prevent further executions in Salisbury and to end the rebellion “all effective measures”; (2) censure of South Africa for having assisted the Smith regime in defiance of sanctions; (3) termination of all communications with Rhodesia; (4) prohibition against transfers of funds from Rhodesia; (5) severance of consular relations; and (6) an injunction against further UK consultations with the Smith regime.
Both the British and we find these additional proposals unhelpful and most undesirable. However, reports from New York indicate that several friendly Security Council members are prepared to support many of them. For this reason, we followed the UK on May 2 in making representations in Asuncion, Copenhagen, Ottawa, Paris and Rio de Janeiro [Page 950] in an effort to muster enough abstentions in the Council so that the question of vetoing the Afro-Asian proposals will not arise.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Rhodesia, Vol. II, Cables, 2/66–12/68. Confidential. No drafting information appears on the source text. A May 9 covering memorandum from Read to Rostow reads: “I enclose for your information a report on the UN Security Council’s current consideration of the question of Southern Rhodesia. It supplements my memorandum of April 6 which indicated that the British Government, in an effort to deflect Afro-Asian proposals in the Security Council for the adoption of radical measures to deal with the Rhodesian problem, was trying to develop support for less far-reaching proposals of its own.” A copy of the Department’s earlier Status Report on Southern Rhodesia (dated April 7, not April 6) is ibid., Memos and Miscellaneous, 2/66–12/68.↩