Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence
Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Cabinet of Rhodesia on 11 November 1965, announcing that Rhodesia, a British crown colony in southern Africa that had governed itself since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state. The culmination of a protracted dispute between the British and Rhodesian governments regarding the terms under which the latter could become fully independent, it was the first unilateral break from the United Kingdom by one of its colonies since the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. The UK, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations all deemed Rhodesia's UDI illegal, and economic sanctions, the first in the UN's history, were imposed on the breakaway colony. With the help of the Commonwealth Secretariat, members of the Commonwealth were able to cooperate and advise Rhodesian Africans on policy. Amid near-complete international isolation, Rhodesia continued as an unrecognised state with the assistance of South Africa and Portugal.
The Rhodesian government, which mostly comprised members of the country's white minority of about 5%, was indignant when, amid the UK colonial government's Wind of Change policies of decolonisation, African colonies to the north without comparable experience of self-rule quickly advanced to independence during the early 1960s while Rhodesia was refused sovereignty under the newly ascendant principle of "no independence before majority rule". Most white Rhodesians felt that they were due independence following four decades of self-government, and that the British government was betraying them by withholding it.
A stalemate developed between the British and Rhodesian prime ministers, Harold Wilson and Ian Smith respectively, between 1964 and 1965. The dispute largely surrounded the British condition that the terms for independence had to be acceptable "to the people of the country as a whole"; Smith contended that this was met, while the UK and African Nationalist Rhodesian leaders held that it was not. After Wilson proposed in late October 1965 that the UK might safeguard future black representation in the Rhodesian parliament by withdrawing some of the colonial government's devolved powers, then presented terms for an investigatory Royal Commission that the Rhodesians found unacceptable, Smith and his Cabinet declared independence. Calling this treasonous, the British colonial governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, formally dismissed Smith and his government, but they ignored him and appointed an "Officer Administering the Government" to take his place.
While no country recognised the UDI, the Rhodesian High Court deemed the post-UDI government legal and de jure in 1968. The Smith administration initially professed continued loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II, but abandoned this in 1970 when it declared a republic in an unsuccessful attempt to win foreign recognition. The Rhodesian Bush War, a guerrilla conflict between the government and two rival communist-backed black Rhodesian groups, began in earnest two years later, and after several attempts to end the war Smith concluded the Internal Settlement with non-militant nationalists in 1978. Under these terms the country was reconstituted under black rule as Zimbabwe Rhodesia in June 1979, but this new order was rejected by the guerrillas and the international community. The Bush War continued until Zimbabwe Rhodesia revoked its UDI as part of the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979. Following a brief period of direct British rule, the country was granted internationally recognised independence under the name Zimbabwe in 1980.
Background
The southern African territory of Rhodesia, officially Southern Rhodesia, was a unique case in the British Empire and Commonwealth: although a colony in name, it was internally self-governing and constitutionally not unlike a dominion. This situation dated back to 1923, when it was granted responsible government within the empire as a self-governing colony, following three decades of administration and development by the British South Africa Company. Britain had intended Southern Rhodesia's integration into the Union of South Africa as a new province, but this having been rejected by registered voters in the 1922 government referendum, the territory was moulded into a prospective dominion instead. It was empowered to run its own affairs in almost all respects, including defence.Whitehall's powers over Southern Rhodesia under the 1923 constitution were, on paper, considerable; the British Crown was theoretically able to cancel any passed bill within a year, or alter the constitution however it wished. These reserved powers were intended to protect the indigenous black Africans from discriminatory legislation and to safeguard British commercial interests in the colony, but as Claire Palley comments in her constitutional history of the country, it would have been extremely difficult for Whitehall to enforce such actions, and attempting to do so would have probably caused a crisis. In the event, they were never exercised. A generally co-operative relationship developed between Whitehall and the colonial government and civil service in Salisbury, and dispute was rare.
The 1923 constitution was drawn up in non-racial terms, and the electoral system it devised was similarly open, at least in theory. Voting qualifications regarding personal income, education and property, similar to those of the Cape Qualified Franchise, were applied equally to all, but since most blacks did not meet the set standards, both the electoral roll and the colonial parliament were overwhelmingly from the white minority of about 5%. The result was that black interests were sparsely represented if at all, something that most of the colony's whites showed little interest in changing; they claimed that most blacks were uninterested in Western-style political process and that they would not govern properly if they took over. Bills such as the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, which earmarked about half of the country for white ownership and residence while dividing the rest into black purchase, tribal trust and national areas, were variously biased towards the white minority. White settlers and their offspring provided most of the colony's administrative, industrial, scientific and farming skills, and built a relatively balanced, partially industrialised market economy, boasting strong agricultural and manufacturing sectors, iron and steel industries and modern mining enterprises. Everyday life was marked by discrimination ranging from job reservation for whites to petty segregation of trains, post office queues and the like. Whites owned most of the best farmland, and had far superior education, wages and homes, but the schooling, healthcare, infrastructure and salaries available to black Rhodesians were nevertheless very good by African standards.
In the wider Imperial context, Southern Rhodesia occupied a category unto itself because of the "special quasi-independent status" it held. The Dominions Office, formed in 1925 to handle British relations with the dominions of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa and the Irish Free State, also dealt with Southern Rhodesia, and Imperial Conferences included the Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister alongside those of the dominions from 1932. This unique arrangement continued following the advent of Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences in 1944. Southern Rhodesians of all races fought for Britain in the Second World War, and the colonial government gradually received more autonomy regarding external affairs. During the immediate post-war years, Southern Rhodesian politicians generally thought that they were as good as independent as they were, and that full autonomy in the form of dominionship would make little difference to them. Post-war immigration to Southern Rhodesia, mainly from Britain, Ireland and South Africa, caused the white community to swell from 68,954 in 1941 to 221,504 in 1961. The black population grew from 1,400,000 to 3,550,000 over the same period. Rhodesian authorities actively promoted immigration and reproduction of whites to boost their numbers while encouraging family planning for blacks to curtail their numbers. They hoped that by altering the demographic content of the territory enough they could have a stronger position from which to petition the British government for more autonomy.
Federation and the Wind of Change
Believing full dominion status to be effectively symbolic and "there for the asking", Prime Minister Godfrey Huggins twice ignored British overtures hinting at dominionship, and instead pursued an initially semi-independent Federation with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, two colonies directly administered from London. He hoped that this might set in motion the creation of one united dominion in south-central Africa, emulating the Federation of Australia half a century before. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, defined in its constitution as indissoluble, began in 1953, mandated by the results of a mostly white referendum, with Southern Rhodesia, the most developed of the three territories, at its head, Huggins as Federal Prime Minister and Salisbury as Federal capital.Coming at the start of the decolonisation period, the federation of self-governing Southern Rhodesia with two directly ruled British protectorates was later described by the British historian Robert Blake as "an aberration of history—a curious deviation from the inevitable course of events". The project faced black opposition from the start, and ultimately failed because of the shifting international attitudes and rising black Rhodesian ambitions of the late 1950s and early 1960s, often collectively called the Wind of Change. Britain, France and Belgium vastly accelerated their withdrawal from Africa during this period, believing colonial rule to be no longer sustainable geopolitically or ethically. The idea of "no independence before majority rule", commonly abbreviated to "NIBMAR", gained considerable ground in British political circles. When Huggins asked Britain to make the Federation a dominion in 1956, he was rebuffed. The opposition Dominion Party responded by repeatedly calling for a Federal unilateral declaration of independence over the next few years. Following Lord Malvern's retirement in late 1956, his successor Sir Roy Welensky pondered such a move on at least three occasions.
Attempting to advance the case for Southern Rhodesian independence, particularly in the event of Federal dissolution, the Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister Sir Edgar Whitehead brokered the 1961 constitution with Britain, which he thought would remove all British powers of reservation over Southern Rhodesian bills and acts, and put the country on the brink of full sovereignty. Despite its containing no independence guarantees, Whitehead, Welensky and other proponents of this constitution presented it to the Southern Rhodesian electorate as the "independence constitution" under which Southern Rhodesia would become a dominion on a par with Australia, Canada and New Zealand if the Federation dissolved. White dissenters included Ian Smith, MP for Gwanda and Chief Whip for the governing United Federal Party in the Federal Assembly, who took exception to the constitution's omission of an explicit promise of Southern Rhodesian independence in the event of Federal dissolution, and ultimately resigned his post in protest. A referendum of the mostly white electorate approved the new constitution by a majority of 65% on 26 July 1961. The final version of the constitution included a few extra provisions inserted by the British, one of which—Section 111—reserved full powers to the Crown to amend, add to or revoke certain sections of the Southern Rhodesian constitution by Order in Council at the request of the British government. This effectively negated the relinquishment of British powers described elsewhere in the document, but the Southern Rhodesians did not initially notice it.
The black Rhodesian movement in Southern Rhodesia, founded and organised by urban black elites during the late 1950s, was repeatedly banned by the colonial government because of the political violence, industrial sabotage and intimidation of potential black voters that characterised its campaign. The principal nationalist group, led by the Bulawayo trade unionist Joshua Nkomo, renamed itself with each post-ban reorganisation, and by the start of 1962 was called the Zimbabwe African People's Union. Attempting to win black political support, Whitehead proposed a number of reforms to racially discriminatory legislation, including the Land Apportionment Act, and promised to implement these if his UFP won the next Southern Rhodesian election. Intimidation by ZAPU of prospective black voters impeded the UFP's efforts to win their support and caused low turnout, but regardless, the UFP won 14 of 15 primarily black seats in the December 1962 Southern Rhodesian election. However, much of the white community saw Whitehead as too radical, and soft on what they saw as black extremism. As a result, the UFP was soundly defeated in the primarily white seats by the Rhodesian Front, a newly formed alliance of conservative voices headed by Winston Field and Ian Smith, in what was widely considered a shock result. Field became Prime Minister, with Smith as his deputy.