Welensky was misrepresented

21 November 2010 - 02:00 By GC Humphrey, Pennington
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GC Humphrey: Cameron Duodu's assertion that, at the 1957 Commonwealth Conference, Roy Welensky and South Africa's foreign minister were "representatives of racist regimes that preached that Africans were not even fit to vote" is, as far as Welensky is concerned, a travesty of both the truth and recorded history.

The federal constitution of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was non-racial in every respect for both voters and members of parliament. The British government would not have agreed to its establishment on any other terms. One of the institutions founded by the federal government was the university, which even in the war years churned out graduates of all races.

Fortunately, there are some of us who worked for that government who are still alive and able to lay out the facts. What happened after the dissolution of the federation had nothing to do with Welensky, and Duodu needs to do his research before maligning this person.

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