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Emergency Regulations. AI adopted these prisoners and the journalists, academics and trade unionists arrested in January and February 1975 following unrest over wage awards to government employees. The use of the emergency regulations by the Federal government has come under strong criticism from members of the Nigerian judiciary.
Rhodesia
The changing situation in southern Africa, stimulated particularly by the progress of Angola and Mozambique towards African rule, has brought about the growing isolation of the white regime in Rhodesia during the past year. The South African government's policy of improving relations with the African states north of the Zambesi, has placed Prime Minister Ian Smith's government under increasing pressure to reach a constitutional settlement with the African National Council (ANC), led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.
However, while engaging in protracted negotiations with the ANC, and even going as far as to release a number of detained African nationalist leaders, the ruling Rhodesia Front government has continued to introduce increasingly repressive legislation and to deal ruthlessly with any persons suspected of involve- ment with the guerrilla campaign being waged in the northeastern parts of the country. One former detainee, who was released during December 1974 and who is adopted by Amnesty International, was, at this writing (May 1975) to be tried in camera on charges of recruiting guerrillas. If convicted, he faces a mandatory death penalty under a recently introduced amendment to the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act.
In June 1974, AI received news of the closure of Gonakudzingwa (Sengwe) detention camp and the transfer of detainees to Salisbury Remand Prison. During the same month, Dr Edson Sithole, the publicity secretary of the ANC and a former Al-adopted prisoner, was re-detained by the Rhodesian authorities after a temporary breakdown in negotiations between the government and the ANC.
However, Edson Sithole and 12 other nationalist leaders were released from detention in early December 1974 in order to participate in settlement talks in Lusaka, Zambia, in which heads of state and other representatives of the govern- ments of Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa played an active part. At the talks, it was agreed that, as a preliminary to more detailed negotiations, the Smith government would release political detainees and that a ceasefire should be observed between government forces and nationalist guerrillas operating in the northeast. It was also decided that Rhodesia's two liberation movements, the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), would unite under the umbrella of an enlarged ANC and the leadership of Bishop Muzorewa.
Before the announcement of the agreement, the International Secretariat had cabled Mr Smith urging him to release all political detainees as a mark of his desire for a just and equitable settlement. After Mr Smith had broadcast his decision to "release the African leaders from detention and restriction, and their followers as well", a further cable was sent asking for clarification as to whether the amnesty would extend to all of the 350 political detainees known to be imprisoned in Rhodesia. Messages of support were also sent to the African heads of state and