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seemed likely to be acceptable to the illegal regime since this would
involve surrendering our declared principles and breaking our public pledges. Although we should recognise the limitations of the existing economic sanctions, we should persevere with them and in particular seek
to reduce the extent to which they were being evaded; at the same time
we should remain ready to reach an honourable settlement in accordance
with our principles. It might be that, if we were to stick by our stated
policy, the Europeans in Rhodesia would become willing to reach acceptable
terms with us, particularly in view of the difficulty for them of obtaining
capital for development; but this would in any event take time. We
should therefore take every opportunity to explore the possibility of
persuading the South African Government to put pressure on the Smith
regine to reach a settlement in accordance with our basic principles.
Finally, we should not rule out in the longer run the possibility of
divesting ourselves of the special responsibilities for Rhodesia which
derived from our sovereignty, perhaps by transferring these to the United
Nations.
In his talks with the Heads of Commonwealth Governments in Africa,
his aim would be to convince them that our purpose remained an honourable
settlement of the Rhodesian problem and that we had no intention of
if he succeeded in
DE CREAR
their
aeceptance
a
this
it would make it departing from our principles at the same time he would canvass with
easier ultimately to
compumar sedilement. He them the idea of a compromise settlement and would make plain that we were
not prepared to use force against the illegal regime or become involved
in a confrontation with South Africa. He would also seek to persuade
them that they could best contribute to making economic sanctions
effective by bringing pressure to bear on those countries which were not
enforcing them. During his visit to Rhodesia his ain would be to give
encouragement to the Governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, and, as regards the
illegal regime, to make plain to Mr. Smith that, although we were genuinely
ready to reach an honourable settlement of the Rhodesian problem,we were
prepared to continue with our present policies if such a settlement could
not be reached. Recent exchanges with the illegal regine had shown that the crux of the problem was the return to legality. This was a practical, as well as a legal, problem, since there could be no fair test of Rhodesian
opinion so long as the present regime continued and censorship was not
lifted nor the detainees released. In present circunstances any attempt at a settlement with the regime would bring us the discredit of having
shown ourselves willing to compromise and baving nevertheless failed to
reach a settlement. There was therefore no alternative to our present
policy.
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