Zambian Border (Closure) (Hansard, 29 January 1973)

§ 17. Mr. Molloy
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement concerning the closure by the Rhodesian régime of the border with Zambia.

§ Sir Alec Douglas-Home
This is a most regrettable development. I believe it can only make more difficult the search for an acceptable settlement of the 932 Rhodesian problem and increase the level of tension in the whole area. Our interest is to see a rapid return to normal. I am in contact with the Zambian Government and with Mr. Smith.

§ Mr. Molloy
While I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, inasmuch as it shows that he is in contact with both sides, may I ask him to acknowledge that the Zambian Government are a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations and that the Rhodesian Government are an illegal bastard régime? Should he not make a statement saying that the British Government, on behalf of our people, stand by the people of Zambia and will give all possible aid? I know he would not wish to have any direction over the BBC, but when the BBC invites Mr. Ian Smith to make a statement on television would he not agree that he should ask the BBC to invite also a spokesman from the Zambian Government to make a statement?

§ Sir Alec Douglas-Home
It is not for me to say what the BBC should or should not do. I think that is better left to the BBC. The Zambian Government are a member of the Commonwealth, and we are in touch with Zambia as a member of the Commonwealth, and I hope that our procedures in relation to her are not only correct but friendly. If we can help, we have told the Zambian Government that we will do so. When a Government pursuing racialist policies inside a country find freedom fighters coming from outside, I am afraid that that is a situation which I have warned time and again would be bound to lead to conflict, and my fear all along, through all these years and from long ago, has been that eventually there would be a front on the Zambesi between the southern half of Africa and the north. That is something we must all try to avoid.

§ Mr. Soref
Since my right hon. Friend has expressed disapproval of terrorism elsewhere, will he express his regrets to the Zambian Government at the presence of terrorist gangs in Zambia, consisting of Chinese and Russian trained guerrillas? Is it not a fact that there are 30,000 Chinese at present in Zambia and Tanzania working allegedly on the Tanzanian Railway, and that they are an ever-ready threat to Rhodesia?

§ Sir Alec Douglas-Home
There is no doubt that there are terrorist gangs which can be represented as a threat to Rhodesia. I do not on the facts feel myself justified in making representations to the Zambian Government.

§ Mr. James Johnson
In contradistinction to the Fascist balderdash we have just listened to from the benches opposite, may I say how glad we all are, in all parts of the House, to hear the tones of the Foreign Secretary in saying that it is the hostility by Mr. Smith which has led to the hardening of attitudes and to the confrontation of black and white which we all fear and detest as the right hon. Gentleman does? May I ask him to answer one question on the Kariba Dam? Does he feel, as some of us do, that Mr. Smith may take action later in cutting off supplies from Zambia or does he think that that is impossible in view of the way we have laid down that the dam should work?

§ Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Mr. Smith has declared that he has no intention of doing any such thing.