Race and Diplomacy in Zimbabwe

"This book examines the archival evidence related to the negotiations around Zimbabwe's decolonialization. The argument concerns the preoccupation with race as the primary way decolonization was negotiated. The first two chapters contextualize how the white settler states of Southern Africa, next two chapters detail the sudden shift in Cold War thinking about Rhodesia caused by the decolonization of Angola and Mozambique in 1975, including US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's negotiations with Front Line State Presidents and South Africans. The Geneva Conference in late 1976 is explored, with attention to the ability of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo to take advantage of Kissinger's diplomacy. The next chapters look at attempts by the British, Zambians, and Nigerians to negotiate a transfer of power from Ian Smith to the PF. It would take another two years for the British to oversee a transfer of power to Mugabe's ZANU party in April 1980. The final two chapters examine the fallout between Mugabe and Nkomo in the early 1980s, arguing that obsessions with race and ethnic conflict in earlier negotiations enabled the Americans and British to provide Mugabe Cold War cover for state crimes committed against Nkomo's supporters in the Matabeleland and Midland provinces"--