Sir: Xan Smiley, writing in your issue of 30 September,
makes one good point and several poor ones. He quite rightly suggests that if the institutions (civil service, academia, judiciary) are handed over relatively intact this provides the best hope for a relatively tolerant society, far more than any hope for the continuance of a multi-party democracy. I still have that hope, though he apparently does not but even by his own criteria his judgment (for Nkomo, against the internal settlement) is sadly adrift. For Nkomo, in a tribal country, represents a tribal minority, which is why he does not want elections, and as leader of a small minority his need to root out and repress opposition if he came to power would be commensurately great, and tolerance therefore strictly limited. It depresses me that this country should be siding, in both Rhodesia and South West Africa, with those who fear and wish to delay elections until they can establish a militarily-backed dominance to back the intimidation they intend. And it depresses me still further that the Spectator, which should be 'another voice', should so faithfully retail the Foreign Office line when the great majority of its readers are (surely) disturbed and angry at the catastrophic policy we have followed in the area, and regarded the internal settlement as Rhodesia's Camp David, and have never heard of Xan Smiley.
Andrew Bell 49 Oxberry Avenue, London SW6
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