Zimbabwe

33.3: Zimbabwe

33.3.1: The Unilateral Declaration of Independence

In 1965, the conservative white minority government in Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom, but did not achieve internationally recognized sovereignty until 1980 as Zimbabwe.

Learning Objective

Describe the events that followed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence

Key Points

  • The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes first demarcated the present territory during the 1890s; it became the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1923.
  • In 1965, the conservative white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia.
  • After the cabinet released the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), the British government petitioned the United Nations for sanctions against Rhodesia and in December 1966, the UN complied, imposing the first mandatory trade embargo on an autonomous state.
  • The United Kingdom deemed the Rhodesian declaration an act of rebellion, but did not re-establish control by force.
  • The state endured international isolation and a 15-year guerrilla war with black nationalist forces; this culminated in a peace agreement that established universal enfranchisement and de jure sovereignty in April 1980 as Zimbabwe.

Key Terms

Wind of Change
A historically significant address made by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the Parliament of South Africa on February 3, 1960, in Cape Town. He spent a month in Africa visiting a number of what were then British colonies. The speech signaled clearly that the Conservative-led British Government intended to grant independence to many of these territories, which happened subsequently in the 1960s.
Rhodesia
An unrecognised state in southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territorial terms to modern Zimbabwe.

Background

The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was a statement adopted by the Cabinet of Rhodesia on 11 November 1965, announcing that Rhodesia, a British territory 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 nearly two centuries before. Britain, 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. Amid near-complete international isolation, Rhodesia continued as an unrecognized state with the assistance of South Africa and Portugal.

The Rhodesian government, comprised mostly of members of the country’s white minority of about 5%, was indignant when amid decolonization and the Wind of Change, less developed 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’ self-government and that Britain was betraying them by withholding it. This combined with the colonial government’s acute reluctance to hand over power to black nationalists—the manifestation of racial tensions, Cold War anti-communism, and the fear that a dystopian Congo-style situation might result—to create the impression that if Britain did not grant independence, Rhodesia might be justified in taking it unilaterally.

A photograph of the proclamation document announcing the Rhodesian government's Unilateral Declaration of Independence ("UDI") from the United Kingdom, created during early November 1965 and signed on 11 November 1965.

Unilateral Declaration of Independence: A photograph of the proclamation document announcing the Rhodesian government’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (“UDI”) from the United Kingdom, created during early November 1965 and signed on 11 November 1965.

The Road to Recognition

A stalemate developed between the British and Rhodesian Prime Ministers, Harold Wilson and Ian Smith respectively, between 1964 and 1965. 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 Britain and black nationalist leaders in Rhodesia held that it was not. After Wilson proposed in late October 1965 that Britain 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 recognized 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 nationalist groups, began in earnest two years later, and after several attempts to end the war Smith agreed 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 the UDI as part of the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979. Following a brief period of direct British rule, the country was granted internationally recognized independence under the name Zimbabwe in 1980.

Attributions