More Stonings, More Laws

In the race for freedom in Africa, whites' concessions have seldom kept up with blacks' demands. The gap is perilously apparent in vast (150,000 sq. mi.) Southern Rhodesia, the only self-governing member of the troubled Central African Federation. The government has softened harsh apartheid rules and promised Africans a few seats in the legislature next year. But the blacks are not satisfied. They outnumber the whites 3,000,000 to 220,000, insist on "one man, one vote" -now. Since mid-July, they have pushed their cause by attacking police patrols, stoning motorists, cutting telephone lines and burning down schools.

Widely blamed for the violence are the ragtag followers of Joshua Nkomo, burly African boss of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, whose black nationalist organizations have twice been banned since 1959, only to reappear under a new name. Mild-mannered Nkomo, who has shown up frequently to plead his case for freedom at the U.N., insists that his group has refrained from violence. But he has yet to convince the government of Southern Rhodesia's white Prime Minister Sir Edgar Whitehead.

Last week the administration rushed a new law through Parliament prohibiting formation of any organization whose leaders or policies are the same as those of a group that has previously been outlawed. On its heels came another measure, which will make stoning automobiles or setting fire to inhabited buildings punishable by 20 years in jail.

Many leading whites were alarmed at this drastic action. To former Chief Justice Sir Robert Tredgold, who resigned from the bench in 1960 in protest against earlier restrictive measures, the new laws portend "a police state." What chiefly worried whites was the likelihood that such harsh measures might simply force the African nationalists underground. This seemed to be precisely what Joshua Nkomo had in mind. His answer to the government was simple and brisk: "The bannings will not be accepted."

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