Rhodesia in talks with PM over plans for independence from Britain

The Post reported on the future of Rhodesia, which would later become modern-day Zimbabwe on October 24 1965.

“Mr Ian Smith (Prime Minister of Rhodesia’s white minority government) said the question of a unilateral declaration of independence by Rhodesia would not come into the issue during his talks with Mr Harold Wilson this week. In a surprise statement, issued less than 48 hours before the British prime minister was due to arrive, Mr Smith said the topic for discussion would be his government’s offer of a treaty to guarantee the 1961 constitution.”

Despite Smith’s assertion, Rhodesia made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on November 11 that year, announcing the British territory now regarded itself as an sovereign state. It had governed itself since 1923 and, in declaring independence, became 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 due to the fact that the country was run by the white minority. Economic sanctions, the first in the UN’s history, were imposed on the breakaway colony.