Mr. ICHORD. You mentioned in your statement the difficulties of Rhodesia getting out its chrome. Trouble shipping it out. I certainly agree with your assessment as to the difficulty. It is a landlocked nation. It can get the chrome out through South Africa, which does not abide by the U.N. sanction. Its principal port, of course, is Lourenco Marques. I pointed out Mr. Machel just announced he established the first black Marxist government in Africa. However, Machel for all practical purposes was in control of Mozambique, under Frelimo, long before they actually became independent in fact. I'm wondering what policy Machel now is pursuing in regard to Rhodesia shipping its chrome and other commodities out through Lourenco Marques. Mr. FRASER. It is my understanding that Frelimo, during its struggles against the Portuguese Government, did not control most of Mozambique. It was more on the northern end-well, I'm not that familiar, but they did not have control over most of it, is my understanding. Mr. ICHORD. I think there was slow transition of power to the Machel government, was there not? Mr. FRASER. Well, Frelimo was making headway slowly, but it was making it. In any event, my understanding is that they have said that they will comply with the United Nations sanctions. Now when the effective date of that is I don't know. As I indicated there has already been trouble in transshipment. Mr. ICHORD. One more question. You mentioned Bishop Muzorewa, and his statement as to what he thought the feeling of a new black Rhodesian Government would be toward the United States, if they did not repeal the Byrd amendment. As I indicated in my statement, we did meet with Bishop Muzorewa. I have great admiration for him. He is a man of peace. He was educated in a Methodist school which happens to be in my district. He is a very fine man. I take it you believe Bishop Muzorewa, if a change in government would come about, would be prime minister or hold some other position of power? Mr. FRASER. It may depend on how the transition in power comes about. If it comes about peacefully I would think he would have an excellent opportunity, because I think he is one of the few figures which commands broad support within the black African community. Mr. ICHORD. He certainly does have support, but I think you are being rather optimistic in view of what I have seen over there. He is sitting on top of a keg of dynamite, as I indicated in my statement. Many of the leaders have been trained in Communist China. They have several leaders trained by the Russians. It would be my opinion Muzorewa, being the nice guy he is, isn't going to last very long. Mr. FRASER. As I say, it is hard to look into the future, but I say if there is a peaceful transition as the South Africans are trying to force on Ian Smith, his chances would be better. It would be better than if violence erupts on a broad scale. Then his posture and his views might have difficulty surviving. Mr. ICHORD. That is a matter of conjecture. Mr. FRASER. I know. But you see in my view this, if anything, would add weight to the argument we should come into compliance in the hope he and Smith's government would accede to some peaceful resolution of this problem. Mr. ICHORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Fraser. Mr. FRASER. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BENNETT. Congressman Buchanan, would you come forward? Mr. BUCHANAN. I want to be heard but I want to be as accommodating as possible. I will wait if the Chair prefers. Mr. BENNETT. I was only told about this bill a couple of days ago and was asked to try to get through with our responsibilities in this matter by Saturday. I'm a little quizzical whether we can do that, but I don't want to shortchange anybody. In the first place I myself am openminded. I am really trying to find out all the facts. That is the reason I want to read the U.N, Charter, to what extent it is involved here. I want to understand it, and I'm not trying to rush anybody through. I'm trying to find out all the facts. Be at ease and say what you want to say. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BUCHANAN, REPRESENTATIVE Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to the testimony of our two colleagues who have previously spoken, and I am constrained to say I approach this task a little as I used to approach the assignment of helping to hold religious services in the Alabama prison system on a regular basis Mr. BENNETT. That is not analogous to us, is it? Mr. BUCHANAN. I will explain, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BUCHANAN. I was always aware if we wanted any conversions they would be of particular significance and value, because I was dealing with tough cases. As one who himself has experienced conversion on the subject-I supported the Byrd amendment, indeed so far as to cosponsor it for national security purposes, because I shared the view of many Members of Congress--I think the prevailing view-that this is something our national security required. Therefore, for these very important reasons we voted to enact the Byrd amendment into law. Yet I myself have experienced conversion on the subject so I'm anxious to share where possible. Mr. Chairman, I believe that it is in the national interest of the United States that the Byrd amendment now be repealed, and this is the basis for my coming before the committee today. I do not come to make a moral case or judgment. I really have very little expertise on that as to morality and ethics. Mr. BENNETT. On the contrary, I think you have a very fine background in it. Mr. BUCHANAN. The truth is, I have read a sermon explaining and defending what I consider to be the consummate evil of human slavery on the grounds that it was God-ordained and told about in the Bible. I have myself heard sermons defending our old institutions of segregation and white supremacy on that same basis in the South. A similar system prevails in Rhodesia, I think almost without any challenge or question, and one more restrictive and repressive than anything we had at any point in our recent history. Mr. BENNETT, You wouldn't go back to the Civil War and say that, would you? Mr. BUCHANAN. Since the Emancipation Proclamation. Mr. BENNETT. Oh. Mr. BUCHANAN. I won't make moral judgment concerning it except to say I have two constituents, Dr. J. Morgan Johnson and his wife, Rosalie Johnson, a medical doctor, both of whom were Methodist missionaries in Rhodesia. He served some 15 years and she a somewhat shorter period of time. They were recently expelled from Rhodesia, and I have with me a newspaper account from the Washington Post of that, which I would appreciate being able to include in the record. Mr. BENNETT. Without objection it is so ordered. [The following information was received for the record:] RHODESIA EXPELS MISSIONARY (By Marjorie Hyer, Washington Post Staff Writer) Dr. J. Morgan Johnson isn't positive, of course, but he assumes that the reason he was expelled from Rhodesia was because more than a year ago he drew a cartoon that the government there didn't like. But the way things are in Rhodesia these days, a lot of his missionary colleagues, when his expulsion order came through last month, looked at each other grimly and said, "It could just as well have been us." Dr. Johnson and his missionary-physician wife, Dr. Rosalie Johnson, talked about life in Rhodesia as they waited between planes at Dulles Airport on their way to Mrs. Johnson's home in Birmingham, Ala. "It's the kind of thing you have hanging over your head all the time," said Mrs. Johnson of the expulsion order. Since she first accompanied her husband to Rhodesia in 1961, the missionary force of their denomination-United Methodist-has dwindled from "about 100 to around 30," she said. The attrition rate for other churches has been comparable. While only a dozen or so-the Johnsons couldn't remember exactly-have been expelled--many more were unable to get the necessary residence permits renewed. In Rhodesia, nearly 95 percent of the population is black African, but the government is controlled by the tiny minority of descendants of white European settlers. Most of the Christian churches and mission groups operating there have been bitterly opposed to the increasingly repressive policies directed by the white controlled government against the Africans. For most missionaries, their sympathies are strongly with the efforts of the Africans for independence. Dr. Johnson is a teacher in the mission-operated high school at Nyadiri. In February of last year he offered to drive the ambulance from the hospital where Dr. Rosalie worked, also in Nyadiri, to return some patients to a resettlement camp some 50 miles away. The camps, called "protected villages," are hastily thrown-together areas where African villagers from border areas where guerrillas operate are forcibly interned. "I had heard about such camps but I had never seen one," Dr. Johnson recalled. The camps are strictly off limits to most citizens and their existence is not generally known among the country's white population. "Some of the camps are models; these are the ones inquiring journalists are taken to," Dr. Rosalie said. In others like the one her patients came from-"they just put barbed wire around an area and shove the people inside," she continued. "There's no latrine, no water-they had to carry water in buckets from outside the camp-and no health facilities." When Dr. Johnson returned home from driving the recovered patients to the camp, he sat down and drew a rather mild cartoon that showed a sad-faced African father and mother and their two small children peering out between the rows of barbed wire. The cartoon bore the legend: "Settlers 74" and "Resettlement Camps-Are They Part of the Campaign?" "Settlers 74" was a government-sponsored effort to attract white Europeans to the country. The cartoon was sent to the church periodical, Mbowo, but it never appeared in print. An employee at the plant where Mbowo was printed saw it and reported it to authorities. Dr. Johnson was charged with "making a subversive statement" under the Law and Order Maintenance Act, even though the cartoon did not appear in print. "Under Rhodesian law, you can be charged if you have the 'intention' of making a subversive statement," Dr. Rosalie said. "We knew a student who was sentenced to the detention camp because of an essay he had written and put away in a shoe box. He had never shown it to a living soul, but the police found it when they searched his room." Ironically, the resettlement camps are such a well-kept secret that the officials who charged Dr. Johnson appeared to be unaware of their existence. "They really thought his cartoon was a subversive statement-some propaganda that he had made up" rather than a fairly tame depiction of the actual fact, Dr. Rosalie said. When his case came to trial last October, after the first day, the charges were inexplicably withdrawn. "I was never able to present my defense," Dr. Johnson recalled. Nevertheless, the information obviously went into his record and three months later, immigration officials ordered him out of the country. "My husband's the one to be deported, not me," observed Dr. Rosalie with a grin. "But all of his 'dependents' were ordered out too, and since there's no women's lib in Rhodesia, I had to come too." Four of the couple's five children were born in Rhodesia; all five were deeply distressed to have to leave what they had always known as home. Completely bilingual, they learned Shona (the tribal language of the region they lived in) as their first language and easily flip from it to English in talking with their parents. They have no hope of returning to Rhodesia so long as the present regime is in power. "We told all our friends we'd never come back to Rhodesia," said Dr. Rosalie, "but that we hoped to come back to Zimbabwe." Zimbabwe is the name the Africans give their country, which they hope one day they will control. Mr. BUCHANAN. I also have a letter from Dr. Johnson pertaining to their view of the situation within Rhodesia and pointing out such things, for example, as to the opportunity, in education. It is my understanding generally that there is very clear discrimination not only as to voting rights and participation in government, but also as to employment practices, with different wage scales. Also, in education, as Dr. Johnson points out in his letter, about 2 percent of the national income is spent for African education, and about 2 percent for the separate European education system. That is an equal sum for the total of 5,500,000 black Rhodesians on the one hand and 250,000 white Rhodesians on the other. Also, you don't have compulsory education except for the Europeans, and you do have a fee system; if the African children can't pay the fee they have to leave the school. This is one illustration of the sort of thing that is pointed up in the Johnson's letter which I would appreciate very much including in the record. Mr. BENNETT. Without objection it is so ordered. [The following information was received for the record :] BIRMINGHAM, ALA., May 26, 1975. Mr. JOHN H. BUCHANAN, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. BUCHANAN: Thank you for your letter of the 22nd May giving us an opportunity to offer whatever help we can give in the fight to repeal the Byrd Amendment. These responses to your questions are based on our personal experience of 16 years in Rhodesia (My service was from 1951-1954, 1961-1975, that of my wife from 1961-1975 only). We do not have library facilities here in Birmingham for accurate statistics or Bibliographic references, but I am sure you have this type of material available. 1. Our assessment as to the amount of time we believe the Ian Smith regime can remain in power and the reasons for this evaluation, based on our experience: Hopefuly, not long-but this is a difficult thing to assess. It might be argued that the reason that the regime has not collapsed before now is because of the Byrd Amendment and the consequent boost in foreign exchange and the even more significant psychological boost of an open, public violation of U.N. sanctions against Rhodesia. U.N. Economic sanctions have had a slow, but forceful effect on the economy and morale of the White community in Rhodesia and is, we are sure, a major force behind pushing Smith's government in the direction of negotiating with the Black Majority. Each violation of U.N. sanctions have slowed down that process. The Smith Regime has held on as long as it has, we believe, because of military and economic help from South Africa and the fact that Portuguese Mozambique continued to provide a considerable buffer zone from massive invasion of exiled forces and Rhodesia continued to be a valuable buffer zone for South Africa. When Mozambique becomes independent in June of this year almost half of Rhodesia's border will be that of the new Mozambique ruled by the Frelimo party which has pledged assistance to The African liberation movement for Rhodesia. South Africa will also share a border with Mozambique and a small border along the southern tip of Rhodesia and Rhodesia will become an economic and military liability to South Africa. Mr. Smith's government is indeed in very real difficulty. Mr. Smith does seem to be able to maintain a leadership position among his European electorate (representing the 250,000 white population), but I have never met any African who supports him and my 16 years of experience has been basically among the African population. The Rhodesian Front party has in fact never offered a candidate for African representation (the 5,500,000 black population). From a purely economic and politically selfish point of view we cannot see any wisdom in identifying American interests with the losing minority rule of the Smith regime which we cannot imagine outlasting the 5 year maximum survival possibility predicted by Dr. Vorster of South Africa. We would expect the downfall to be sooner. But we do hope that the United States does not build all of its foreign policy on selfish interest alone. We would like to feel that there is some emotional and idealistic sympathy with the aim of the 95% majority in Rhodesia to achieve majority rule in the framework of a constitution which empowers a truly representative government. Before leaving the subject of the instability of the present regime and the probability of a transfer of power to the African majority in the near future, we believe a word should be said about two of the most outstanding leaders in the united nationalist party now representing the African majority interests in Rhodesia-the A.N.C. Both Bishop Muzorewa, the president of ANC, and Rev. Sithole, one of the vice presidents and former president of ZANU, grew up among American missionaries, were both educated in America, and I am sure that the seeds of their identification with the political aspirations of their people were nurtured in the ideological soil of the "American revolution" and the constitutional democracy which developed in the United States and both men were also very much influenced by the social revolution that has taken place in the United States in recent decades of the breaking down of legalized segregation and the promotion of racial integration. These are the "revolutionary" ideas with which the Smith regime is fundamentally at war and not communism. However, we must admit that there is an increasing interest in communism among the younger generation within the African community in Rhodesia since it appears that it is the communist countries among the non-African countries that are quick to give unhesitating support to African political aspiration and the United States seems to have lost interest in its own "revolution" and appears to be much more con |