Odd Couple at Odds

The Zambezi River is a traditional --and usually tranquil--dividing line between black-ruled and white-ruled Africa. In the past two months, however, the muddy, snaking river that separates Zambia from Rhodesia has become something of a war zone. Its banks are studded on both sides with mines, its waters are patrolled by Zambian and Rhodesian gunboats, and gunfire echoes sporadically along its 400-mile border section.

Both landlocked countries, Zambia and Rhodesia were forced into an uneasy cohabitation by economic necessity. Zambia needed Rhodesia to transport half of its copper to the Indian Ocean port of Beira in Mozambique for shipment to world markets; Rhodesia needed the $25 million a year that the copper shipments brought its railroad in transit revenue. The arrangement--a triumph of pragmatism over politics--has now been scuttled by a series of guerrilla attacks by exiled black Rhodesian rebels who operate under an umbrella organization called FROLIZI (Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe--the African term for Rhodesia). After a particularly bloody outburst during the Christmas holidays, Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith closed the border to Zambia.

Smith had hoped that by shutting the border and cutting road and rail links with Zambia (while leaving rail lines open for copper shipments) he could force the Zambian government to crack down on the rebels. The scheme backfired badly. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, who had previously given the guerrillas little encouragement, promptly stopped shipping copper through Rhodesia, a move that could mean financial disaster for the country's money-losing railroad. "History may prove it was the wrong decision," Smith conceded last week.

FROLIZI does not plan to wait for the verdict of history. In fact, if the border closure did anything, it changed a frontier to a front and encouraged the guerrillas to make ever-bolder attacks. They have already infiltrated Rhodesia through Mozambique, where there is no river barrier. In recent weeks, a score of Rhodesian and South African policemen (who help with border patrolling) have been killed or wounded. In addition, three civilians have been killed and five wounded in border areas. I

Surprisingly enough, South Africa is keeping lines open to Zambia, despite the conflict, for its own pragmatic reason. South Africa does $65 million annually in trade with Zambia (mostly in heavy mining machinery). Last month some South African businessmen, with full government knowledge, shipped vital replacement machinery directly to Zambia by air. South African government officials, meanwhile, are annoyed that Smith acted without consulting them. Grumbled Cape Town's Afrikaans daily Die Burger: "Mr. Smith should realize that the obligation to his friends down south is to find solutions to his existing problems, not to create new ones."

Kaunda also has something of a problem: how to export the copper, which provides 95% of Zambia's foreign exchange. For the moment at least, his difficulties seem closer to solution than Smith's diplomatic dilemma. About one-third of Zambia's copper is already being shipped through neighboring Zare to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Benguela railroad--and more can be handled when a $24 million modernization program is finished early next year. Other exports are being carried by a fleet of newly purchased Italian trucks along the Great North Road to Makumbako in western Tanzania, where much of it will be transshipped by rail to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam (see map). When the new Chinese-built Tanzam railway running from Zambia into Tanzania is completed in 1975, it will be able to carry 30,000 tons of copper a month-more than used to go through Rhodesia.

Last week Kaunda sought to cut off Rhodesia's final hope of recovering the revenues lost because of the copper ban. At the U.N., the Zambian delegate called for a reinforcement of the economic sanctions imposed on Rhodesian exports in 1966 when the white-minority regime illegally severed ties with Great Britain. If Zambia gets its way, and if the U.S. can be persuaded (or forced) to stop importing Rhodesia's chrome--which brought $8,800,000 in revenues to Rhodesia last year--Smith could find the border closure as costly politically as it would be financially.

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