PM Transcripts

) S T KA L I
PRIME MINISTER
FOR MEDIA 15 AUGUST, 1979
RHODESIAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCE
The Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, has welcomed the early
initiative of the British Government in calling a Constitutional
Conference on Rhodesia to begin on 10 September. It is a most
encouraging development in the long history of confl. ict which
has brought suffering and distress to a large part of Africa,
which with peace could have a promising future. Peace and
prosperity can'only flow from co-operation among all groups of
Rhodesians on the basis of genuine majority rule. Human dignity
demands a constitutional settlement based on the framework agreed
at the Cormmonwealth Conference in Lusaka.
Australia has been particularly concerned to see that provisions
for constitutional amendment should be consistent with the general
objective of providing for effective majority rule and that
similar considerations should be incorporated in arrangements
for administration of the Defence Forces, Public Service and the
Police. The Prime Minister expressed the strong hope that the leaders of
the Patriotic Front and the Salisbury Government would participate
in the forthcoming discussions in the same spirit of practical
good sense which the Front Line States and Britain had brought to
the Lusaka conference, making it one of the most successful in the
history of the Commonwealth.
We cannot ignore the difficulties which are bound to arise along
the way but an important requirement now is to ensure that the
process of discussion gets under way as early as possible and that
the momentum developed at Lusaka is maintained.
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