P. K. van der Byl

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P. K. van der Byl
Hon. P. K. van der Byl, Rhodesian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence
Born	November 11, 1923 Cape Town, South Africa
Died	November 15, 1999 Caledon, South Africa

Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl (November 11, 1923 – November 15, 1999) was a Rhodesian politician, who was a close associate of Prime Minister Ian Smith, and served as his Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1979. Coming from a wealthy Cape family in South Africa, van der Byl spoke with an accent similar to that of the English upper class.^[1] As a member of the Rhodesian Front, he took a position popular with the right-wing of his party, and opposed attempts to settle with African nationalists whom he, and many others, regarded as being allied to Communists. He was normally known by an abbreviated form of his name, P. K. van der Byl.

After a high-flying international education, van der Byl moved to the colony of Rhodesia to manage family farms. He went into politics in the early 1960s through his involvement with farming trade bodies, and became a government minister responsible for propaganda. One of the leading agitators for the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, van der Byl was afterwards responsible for introducing press censorship. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to persuade international opinion to recognise Rhodesia as a new nation, but was popular among the members of his own party.

Promoted to the cabinet in 1968, van der Byl became a very prominent spokesman for the Rhodesian government and crafted a public image as a diehard supporter of continued White minority rule. In 1974 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence at a time when Rhodesia's one ally, South Africa, was supplying military aid. His extreme views and brusque manner made him a surprising choice for a diplomat (a Times profile in November 1976 described him as "a man calculated to give offence"^[2]). After offending the South African government, van der Byl was removed from the Defence Ministry.

In the late 1970s, van der Byl was willing to endorse the Smith government's negotiations with moderate African nationalist leaders and rejected attempts by international missions to broker an agreement. He served in the internal settlement government in 1979. After the creation of Zimbabwe, van der Byl remained involved in politics and close to Ian Smith, and he loudly attacked former Smith supporters who had gone over to support Robert Mugabe. He retired to South Africa when the Mugabe government abolished seats reserved for whites in Parliament.

[edit] Accent

One of the most conspicuous features of van der Byl was his manner of speech. Although a native South African of Cape Dutch ancestry, he spoke with an accent described (by a pro-Rhodesian source) as follows :

"van der Byl … … adopted what he thought was an aristocratic English nasal drawl and imperial English mannerisms" Chris Whitehead^[3]

This personal characteristic was intensely irritating to many people including South African government ministers. Detractors of van der Byl stated that his accent was an affectation. For example, the writer Dennis Hills described it as "a flawed Guards Officer accent". ^[4]. The journalist Dan van der Vat referred to his " pseudo-English drawl".^[5] The British politician Douglas Hurd compared van der Byl’s manner of speech to those of the Baron von Richtofen and Lord Haw Haw. ^[6]

However, van der Byl’s aristocratic mannerisms appeared uncontentious to many Rhodesian whites. They believed that his "nasal drawl" was the product of his time as an officer in the Hussars and his Cambridge education :

"P.K. van der Byl was a popular Minister of Defence who, despite his British upper crust accent - undoubtedly honed during his swashbuckling career as an officer in the hussars - hailed from a noble Cape family" William Higham ^[7]

[edit] Family and early life

Van der Byl was born in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Major Piet van der Byl, a member of Jan Smuts' South African cabinet during the Second World War. Like his father, Van der Byl was educated at the Diocesan College in Rondebosch^[8] but his studies were interrupted by war in 1941.^[9] He served with the South African Army during the Second World War^[8] and was briefly attached to the British 7th Queen's Own Hussars;^[2] he saw active service in the Middle East, Italy and Austria.

After being demobilised, van der Byl studied law at Pembroke College, Cambridge^[10] where his aristocratic manner stood out. 'PK' was always elegantly dressed and coiffured, and acquired the nickname "the Piccadilly Dutchman". He obtained a Third class degree in his Part II Law examinations in 1947.^[11] He went on from Cambridge to study at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1947-1948, although he did not obtain a degree.^[12] He also studied at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.^[13]

On August 31, 1979 he married (for the first time) Princess Charlotte Maria Benedikta Eleonore Adelheid von und zu Liechtenstein (thirty years his junior). She is the daughter of Prince Heinrich Karl of Liechtenstein, and a niece of Otto von Habsburg. The couple had three sons: Pieter Vincenz (P.V.) van der Byl (born 1980), Valerian van der Byl (born 1982) and Casimir van der Byl (born July 27, 1990).^[14]

[edit] Move to Rhodesia

Van der Byl came to Rhodesia in 1950 in order to manage some of his family's tobacco farming interests, hoping to make his own fortune.^[9] He welcomed the move as it allowed him to indulge his hobby of big game hunting: in that year in Angola he set a world record for the biggest elephant shot, a record which stood for many years.^[15]

In 1957, van der Byl was made a Director of the United Dominions Corporation (Rhodesia) Ltd, having already become an active member of the Rhodesia Tobacco Association. In 1956, he was elected by the members of the Selous Gadzema district to represent them on the Tobacco Association council. He was also Deputy Chair of the Selous Farmers' Association in 1957. His first involvement in government was in 1960 when the Rhodesia Tobacco Association made him one of their representatives on the National Native Labour Commission, on which he served for two years. In 1961, he also represented the Rhodesia Tobacco Association on the council of the Rhodesian National Farmers Union.^[16] He was recognised as a leading spokesman for Rhodesian tobacco farmers.^[8]

Dominion Party politician Winston Field had also led the Rhodesia Tobacco Association, and van der Byl agreed with him on politics in general. He joined the Rhodesian Front when it was set up under Field's leadership. At the 1962 general election, van der Byl was elected comfortably to the Rhodesia House of Assembly for the Hartley constituency, a rural area to the south-west of Salisbury.^[17]

[edit] Ministerial office

In 1963, Winston Field appointed van der Byl as a junior government whip,^[16] and on March 16, 1964 he was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for the Information Service.^[18] Although the van der Byl family were identified as strongly Liberal in South African politics, he became identified with the right wing of the party and helped to depose Field from the premiership in early April 1964, when Field failed to persuade the United Kingdom government to grant Southern Rhodesia its independence. The new Prime Minister, Ian Smith, appointed him Deputy Minister for Information.^[18] At this time, van der Byl's chief adviser was a South African called Ivor Benson, who strongly believed in an international communist conspiracy which was plotting to overthrow white rule in Rhodesia.^[19]

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on August 12, 1964 he attacked proposals for greater independence for broadcasters by referring to what he perceived to be the social effect in Britain:

To suggest that the BBC, forming opinion in the minds of the people of England, has been an influence for good in any way, when you consider the criminality of large areas of London; when you consider the Mods and Rockers, and all those other things; when you consider the total moral underminings which have been taking place in England, much to all our distress, in the last fifteen to twenty years, the Hon. Member can hardly bring that up as an argument in favour of the freedom of broadcasting.^[20]

By the end of 1964, van der Byl and his Ministry had control of broadcasting in Rhodesia.^[19] Speaking in Parliament he described the aims of his Department as "not merely to disseminate information from an interesting point of view but to play its part in fighting the propaganda battle on behalf of the country". He defined propaganda as "simply the propagation of the faith and the belief in any particular ideology or thing", and also stated that the Department would seek the "resuscitation of the determination of the European to survive and fight for his rights".^[21]

[edit] 1965 election

In May 1965, the Rhodesian Front government went to the country in a general election, with van der Byl one of the leading campaigners. Talk of a unilateral declaration of independence was already about and van der Byl argued that only a small fraction of Rhodesian business opposed it; however, his campaign speeches typically included an argument against business involvement in politics. He cited Johannesburg mining interests' support for the Progressive Party in South Africa, big business support for the Nazi Party in Germany, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia being financed by United States big business.^[22]

The Rhodesian Front won a landslide victory, winning every single one of the 50 constituencies which had predominantly European voters. At the Rhodesian Front Congress of August 1965, party members strongly attacked the press for failing to support the government. A demand for it to be made compulsory for all political articles to be signed by the author met with van der Byl's approval.^[23]

[edit] UDI

Within the government, van der Byl was one of the loudest voices urging Ian Smith to procede to a unilateral declaration of independence, or UDI. He angrily denounced the threat of sanctions from Britain, saying on May 4, 1965 that economic destruction of Rhodesia would mean total economic destruction of Zambia (the former Northern Rhodesia). This statement was interpreted as a military threat by David Butler, the Leader of the Opposition.^[24] He was charged with the task of selling the UDI project both to Rhodesian whites and to world opinion. In September 1965 it was announced that he would tour the United Kingdom to promote Rhodesian independence. According to David Steel, he claimed then that France and the United States would lead the international recognition of the UDI government.^[25] He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Information on October 22^[26] and as such van der Byl was one of the signatories to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence Document on November 11, 1965.

The signing of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. van der Byl appears, obscured, in a light-coloured suit at the top right of the picture.

Van der Byl was greeted by a speech strongly critical of the Rhodesian government from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who supported the use of armed force to bring the Rhodesians in line with United Kingdom policy on decolonization. He responded by comparing the speech to "the tragic connivance at the destruction of Czechoslovakia in exchange for the useless appeasement at Munich in 1938".^[27] van der Byl's response used the phrase "kith and kin" to refer to the ethnic links between the white Rhodesians and the people of the United Kingdom, by then. He saw no contradiction between signing a letter declaring "constant loyalty" to the Queen and declaring independence a few days later;^[15] the Rhodesian Government was careful at the time of UDI to state its continued loyalty to the British Crown, although it later declared a Republic.

Despite his belief in propaganda, van der Byl was outraged when the BBC subsequently set up a radio station at Francistown in Botswana which broadcast for 27 months criticising UDI and urging the Rhodesians to revoke it. He was later to claim the station was inciting violence,^[28] although this was denied by those who had been regular listeners.^[29] On January 26, 1966 after the declaration of independence, van der Byl was willing to be quoted saying that Rhodesian Army troops would follow a 'scorched earth' policy should the United Kingdom send in troops, comparing their position to that of the Red Army when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. He was highly critical of Harold Wilson, describing him as a "highly dangerous, uninformed and conceited little man".^[30]

[edit] Censorship

The Rhodesia Herald of September 21, 1966 shows the effect of censorship imposed by van der Byl's ministry.

Internally, his policy was enforced through Ministry control of TV and radio and through censorship of newspapers. From December 31, 1965, the Ministry of Information expanded its brief and was renamed the Ministry of Information, Immigration and Tourism, which meant that it was also responsible for deciding whether to grant or revoke permits to visit Rhodesia.^[26] In 1967 van der Byl was reported by Malcolm Smith, the former editor of the Herald, as remarking that a high degree of self-censorship was required, and support for the government was essential.^[31]

The Herald (and the Bulawayo Chronicle) decided to defy the restrictions, boldly printing blank spaces which identified removed material. van der Byl personally visited the newspaper offices on the day the new regulations came in to warn the staff that if the paper was printed as proposed, they would "publish at your peril". However the papers continued to appear with identifiable censorship in defiance of the government, and in 1968 the regulations were scrapped.

* CUSTOMER: Where did you get this newspaper with all these blank spaces?
* STORE KEEPER: That's no newspaper - that's my wrapping paper!

Following the tighter censorship, van der Byl is depicted as the customer in this cartoon from the magazine Umbowo in March 1966.

[edit] Deportation

Shortly after UDI, 46 academics working at the University College, Rhodesia (a racially non-segregated institution) wrote to The Times in London to denounce the move. Officers of the British South Africa Police visited many of those who had signed to search their houses. Shortly afterwards, the residence permit of one of the academics came up for renewal, which would normally be automatic; in fact, it was revoked and the academic was deported. van der Byl was the responsible minister and all but admitted that the reason was his opposition to UDI.^[32]

van der Byl's strategy seemed to work at home, with many Rhodesians remaining unaware until the end just how isolated and vulnerable their country was becoming. The Times was later to describe him as a "skilled propagandist who believed his own propaganda".^[15] When sanctions on Rhodesia were confirmed in January 1967, van der Byl compared their situation with Spain following the Second World War, saying that the isolation of Spain had not stopped it from becoming one of the most advanced and economically successful countries in Europe. However, the reality of the situation must have been brought home to van der Byl in April 1966 when he made informal approaches to see if he might visit Britain 'for social reasons' during a tour of Europe. The Commonwealth Relations Office replied that he would not be recognised as enjoying any form of recognition or immunity.^[33] Other European governments refused to recognise his passport and expelled him from the country.^[34]

[edit] Wider role in politics

On September 13, 1968 he was promoted to be the full Minister of Information, Immigration and Tourism. van der Byl's aristocratic background, military experience and academic credentials combined to give him an almost iconic status within the Rhodesian Front. Many were impressed by his exploits as a big-game hunter, which began when he shot his first lion in a garden in Northern Rhodesia at the age of 15.^[15] He was also known to be a patron of the arts in public and a womaniser in private. Many in the Rhodesian Front believed him to be "a 19th century-style connoisseur, a man of culture and an aristocrat-statesman" in the words of Michael Hartnack, a South African journalist.^[35] Hartnack went on to observe "Poseurs are an incipient hazard in any unsophisticated society". Within the somewhat claustrophobic confines of white Rhodesian society outside the RF, van der Byl was achieving some degree of respect.

In politics, he assumed the position of hard-line opponent of any form of compromise with domestic opponents or the international community. He made little secret of his willingness to succeed Ian Smith as Prime Minister if Smith showed even "the least whiff of surrender", and did his best to discourage attempts to get the Rhodesians to compromise. When Bishop Abel Muzorewa had his passport withdrawn in September 1972 after returning from a successful visit to London, the government did not attempt to counter the rumour that it action was taken following van der Byl's personal order.^[36]

In April 1972, van der Byl sparked a row over the agreement which Rhodesia and the United Kingdom had made in November 1971. Under this agreement, Rhodesia had agreed to certain concessions to African nationalism in return for the prospect of recognition of its independence; however, implementation of the agreement was to be delayed until the Pearce Commission reported on whether the settlement proposals would be approved by the people of Rhodesia. Van der Byl insisted that Rhodesia would not implement any part of the agreement unless Rhodesia's independence was first acknowledged, regardless of the answer from the Pearce Commission. When the Pearce Commission reported that the European population of Rhodesia were in support but the African population were opposed, the agreement was ditched. Many outside and inside Rhodesia had hoped that the government would implement some of the agreement even if Pearce reported against it.^[37]

His derision of working class British Labour politicians also caused problems. When, in January 1966, three visiting Labour MPs were manhandled, kicked and punched while attempting to address 400 supporters of the Rhodesian Front, van der Byl blamed the three for refusing an offer from his Ministry to coordinate the visit, and pointed out that they were breaking the law which required government permission for any political meeting of more than 12 people.^[38]

The propaganda circulated by his Ministry (typically including references to "happy, smiling natives") was considered laughable. Visiting British journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, who knew van der Byl socially, reported seeing a copy of Mein Kampf on his coffee table.^[39] His propaganda strategy became increasingly unsuccessful abroad, where van der Byl alienated many of the foreign journalists and politicians that he came into contact with. Max Hastings, then reporting for the Evening Standard, described him as "appalling" and said that he and Smith "would have seemed ludicrous figures, had they not possessed the power of life and death over millions of people"; van der Byl had him deported.^[40]

Conservative MP Douglas Hurd described van der Byl, as "the most ignorant and offensive person in authority whom I have ever met. A false Englishman in the manner of von Richthofen. Against elections, against everything except intrigue and condescension."^[41]

While still popular with the Rhodesian Front members, he was criticised at the 1972 Party Congress for his lack of success in improving Rhodesia's image around the world; however, he retained the confidence of Ian Smith and was kept on in a government reshuffle on May 24, 1973. That winter saw him promote a new Broadcasting Bill to transfer control of the monopoly Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation. Allan Savory, then the lone white opposition MP, criticised the Bill for the composition of the proposed board, which was dominated by strong supporters of the Rhodesian Front. van der Byl insisted, somewhat unsuccessfully to foreign observers, that the government was not trying to take over broadcasting.^[42]

[edit] Minister of Defence

His finest hour was the two years he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence, a post he was appointed to on August 2, 1974. van der Byl (clad in beautifully tailored battledress) would fly by helicopter to a beleaguered army outpost. Wearing dark glasses and sporting a swagger stick, he would deliver a rousing speech for the benefit of the troops and the TV cameras - before returning to Salisbury in time for a good dinner. Many white Rhodesians (including some of its army personnel) found this sort of thing to be vastly impressive.^[13] He also drew heavily on Winston Churchill for some of his inspiring speeches, as for example when he told the Rhodesian army "If the battle should wax fiercer, there can be no question of surrender. We shall contest every river, every crossroads, every village, every town and every kopje."

Also,"... it is better to fight to the last man and the last cartridge and die with some honour. Because, what is being presented to us here is a degree of humiliation ..." PK, commenting on a British peace plan.^[43]

Rhodesia's defensive position took a blow in 1975 when the Portuguese government suddenly withdrew from Mozambique which bordered Rhodesia on the east, leaving that country under the control of a Soviet-allied government which actively supported the military overthrow of both South Africa and Rhodesia's white minority governments. The ZANU forces under Robert Mugabe and Edgar Tekere went over to Mozambique to intensify the Bush war, and the Rhodesian Army made several cross-border raids. Mozambique President Samora Machel declared these attacks an act of war and blockaded Rhodesia from early 1976.

There were rumours, in February 1976, that Soviet tanks were being unloaded in Mozambique to help in the war and, unluckily for van der Byl, the British Foreign Office minister was David Ennals, one of those who had received rough treatment in 1966. Ennals announced that in the event of a racial war breaking out in Rhodesia, there would be no British help. van der Byl responded by claiming this indicated Britain accepting Rhodesia's independence.^[44] He attacked Abel Muzorewa for supporting President Machel, saying that "being a good churchman and a Bishop there is a very strong possibility he might be a communist".^[45]

Following Mozambique, the Zambian government permitted guerillas to establish bases from which to attack Rhodesia in their territory in summer 1976. Van der Byl told a newspaper reporter that this had to be expected.^[46] As infiltration grew, he declared at the beginning of July that the Rhodesian Army would not hesitate to bomb and destroy villages that harboured guerillas.^[47] A cross-border army raid inside Mozambique in August 1976 killed at least 340 and probably between 600 and 1,000, with van der Byl insisting that the government had irrefutable proof that the raid had targeted a guerilla training camp, but that it was not willing to disclose it.^[48] International opinion generally condemned the raid as a massacre.

[edit] Foreign Affairs

Van der Byl took over at a time when South Africa was putting increasing pressure on the Rhodesians to make an agreement on majority rule. In March 1975, he had to fly urgently to Cape Town to explain why the Rhodesian government had detained Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole of the Zimbabwe African National Union, who was improbably accused of plotting to murder his colleagues. The South Africans were extremely displeased with this action and suspected that the real reason was that the Rhodesians objected to Sithole and preferred to negotiate with Joshua Nkomo.^[49] van der Byl was unsuccessful in reassuring the South Africans and Ian Smith was forced to follow him.

Victoria Falls Bridge where the August 1975 negotiations took place

Gradually the South Africans grew unwilling to help Rhodesia. The remaining 200 South African policemen transferred to help in the guerilla war were removed suddenly in August 1975, a move which appeared to precede even more disengagement. Van der Byl responded in a speech on August 8 which asserted that "The terrorists who are trained and equipped outside our border and who invade our country with the willing help of other governments are here for a much wider purpose than the overthrow of Rhodesia. They are here to represent a force which sees Rhodesia as just one more stepping stone to victory over South Africa because they see South Africa as a vital key to the security of America, Europe and the rest of the western world."^[50]

When the Rhodesian government held talks with the African National Council on the railway bridge across the Victoria Falls in August 1975 (the train in which the talks took place was strategically in the middle of the bridge so that the ANC were in Zambia while the Rhodesians remained in Rhodesia), van der Byl was not a member of the Rhodesian delegation. This was a curious omission given his position. He did however participate in talks with Joshua Nkomo that December.

"van der Byl languidly fielding questions at a press conference in his pseudo-English drawl, flashing an evil grin, his teeth discoloured by tobacco and red wine, was a memorable diversion from the stupefying dullness of Rhodesia" - Dan van der Vat

Van der Byl's habit of referring to the African population as "munts" (he asserted that "Rhodesia is able to handle the munts"^[51]) led to extreme unpopularity with the South African government, and he did not attend talks with South African Prime Minister John Vorster in October 1975. This was interpreted as being connected to a personal dislike. When, on August 26 1976, the South African government announced the withdrawal of all its military helicopter crews from Rhodesia, van der Byl was outspoken in his criticism and Vorster was reported to have refused to have anything to do with "that dreadful man van der Byl".^[8] Ian Smith decided "clearly I had no option"^[52] and on September 9, 1976, a sudden cabinet reshuffle deprived van der Byl of his Defence responsibilities. Smith claimed that the South African dislike of van der Byl was partly motivated by the memory of his father who had been in opposition to the National Party.^[53]

[edit] Contribution to diplomacy

As the prominence of the issue of Rhodesia increased in the late 1970s, attention on van der Byl increased. Reporters noted his impressively quotable lines at press conferences (such as his explanation for why the Rhodesian government did not usually give the names of guerillas which it had hanged: "It's an academic question, because they are normally dead"^[2]). While negotiating with the Patriotic Front put together by ZANU and ZAPU at the Rhodesia conference in November 1976, he described ZANU leader Robert Mugabe as "this bloodthirsty Marxist puppet" and the Patriotic Front proposals as "almost a parody, a music hall caricature of communist invective".^[54]

At this conference, which was jointly organised by the United Kingdom and United States, van der Byl rejected the idea of an interim British presence in Rhodesia during a transition to majority rule, which was identified as one of the only ways of persuading the Patriotic Front to endorse a settlement.^[55] Ultimately, on January 7, 1977 he announced the rejection of any agreement that the conference might come to.^[56]

Later that month, van der Byl was finding pressure put on him by more moderate voices within Rhodesia and hinted that the government might amend the Land Tenure Act which restricted the amount of land which Africans could own. He also remarked that Bishop Abel Muzorewa "can be said to represent the African in this country",^[57] which indicated the direction in which the Smith government was hoping to travel: an accommodation with moderate voices within Rhodesia was likely to be a better end than a capitulation to the Patriotic Front. Van der Byl was prepared to support this strategy and did not go along with the 12 Rhodesian Front MPs who formed the Rhodesian Action Party in early 1977 claiming that the Front had not adhered to party principles.

Although van der Byl was now prepared to say that he supported the transition to majority rule, he was quick to put restrictions on it when interviewed in April 1977. He insisted that majority rule would only be possible on a "very qualified franchise--that's what the whole thing is about", and also said that any settlement must be endorsed by a two-thirds majority of the existing Legislative Assembly (which was largely elected by white Rhodesians).^[58] Over the summer of 1977 he continued to warn that insistence on capitulation to the Patriotic Front would produce a white backlash and put negotiations back.^[59]

However, the Rhodesian government was forced to put its internal settlement negotiations on hold during a joint US-UK initiative in late 1977. van der Byl's public comments seemed to be aimed at ensuring this mission did not succeed, as he insisted that it had no chance of negotiating a ceasefire, described the Carter administration as "mindless", and the joint mission as being "Anglo-American-Russian".^[60] When a plan was published, he described it as "totally outrageous" and involving "the imposition of unconditional surrender on an undefeated people who are not enemies".^[61]

[edit] Internal settlement

The mission did fail and the internal settlement talks were resurrected, resulting in a deal on March 4, 1978. A transitional joint Council of Ministers was set up, with van der Byl having to work with Dr Elliott Gabellah as his co-Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Patriotic Front took no notice of this accord and the guerilla war continued; Lord Richard Cecil, a close family friend working as a photo-journalist, was killed by guerillas on April 27 1978^[62] after van der Byl had ensured he had full access to military areas denied to other reporters.^[63]

In May van der Byl greeted news of massacres in Zaire as "a blessing in disguise" because they might ensure that warnings about Soviet penetration in Africa were heeded.^[64] He denounced the British government the following month for refusing to recognise that a massacre of Elim missionaries was perpetrated by the Patriotic Front.^[65] As the date for the full implementation of the internal settlement grew nearer, van der Byl's profile decreased, but he remained active in politics: he was elected unopposed for the whites-only Gatooma/Hartley seat to the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia House of Assembly. He handed over power to his African successor on June 1, 1979, and became instead Minister of Transport and Power and Minister of Posts in the new government.

[edit] Lancaster House

When "the wheels came off the wagon" (as he put it)^[8] at Lancaster House in 1979, van der Byl greeted the event with amused detachment. He was not a member of any delegation at the conference and did not attend. The weekend after the agreement, he called on the Rhodesian Front to revitalise itself as the only true representative of Europeans in Rhodesia,^[66] and he ascribed the result of the conference to "a succession of perfidious British governments".^[67]

According to Ian Smith's memoirs, van der Byl organised a meeting between Ian Smith and Major-General Peter Walls, Commander of the Rhodesian Army, shortly before the first Zimbabwean elections in February 1980, where they agreed a strategy to prevent Robert Mugabe winning.^[68] They met again on February 26, the day before polling began in the Common Roll election. The consensus at this meeting was that Abel Muzorewa's interim government would win enough seats, when put together with the 20 seats reserved for whites which were all Rhodesian Front, to deny Mugabe victory. However, the early election results in March dented this confidence.

Smith asked Walls for details of his plan ('Operation Quartz')^[69] for using force to prevent ZANU-PF taking power (whether or not it won the election). Walls insisted that ZANU-PF would not win the election. When it did happen, both Smith and van der Byl believed that the Army should step in to prevent Mugabe taking over. Walls took the view that it was already too late, and while the others wished for some move, they were forced to concede to this view.^[70]

[edit] In Zimbabwe

Van der Byl had been elected unopposed to the new House of Assembly for Gatooma/Hartley and remained a close associate of Smith, becoming Vice President of the 'Republican Front' (later renamed the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe). At the 1985 general election the boundaries for the White Roll seats were altered and van der Byl fought in Mount Pleasant, opposing Chris Andersen.^[71] Andersen had broken with the Rhodesian Front to sit as an Independent and became Minister of State for the Public Service in Robert Mugabe's government. Van der Byl lost the election heavily,^[72] polling only 544 votes to 1,017 for Andersen and 466 for a third candidate. The Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe still controlled the election of ten white Senators and Smith agreed to elect van der Byl to one of the Senate seats.

Parliamentary seats reserved for whites were abolished in 1987. Van der Byl made his last speech in Parliament on September 10, in which he praised Robert Mugabe for the "absolute courtesy" he had shown since independence. He noted that he was the last surviving member of the 1965 government remaining in Parliament, and declared he hoped "I would have been cherished .. as a sort of national monument, and not flung into the political wilderness". His speech loudly denounced the former Republican Front and Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe members who had gone over to the government, describing them as "dreadful souls screaming in agony". The government minister Dr Edson Zvobgo responded with an ironic poem referring to the number of Africans killed by troops under van der Byl's command.^[73]

[edit] Retirement

In 1983, van der Byl had inherited from his mother a property described as 'the magnificent estate .. near Caledon in the Western Cape', and following the end of his political career had no need to keep a home in Zimbabwe. He left as a rich man, with an attractive young wife, and enjoyed his retirement. He frequently visited London where he was a good friend of Viscount Cranborne, who put him up for membership of the Turf Club.^[74] Both were members of White's Club and were often seen there when van der Byl was in town.^[75]

Four days after his 76th birthday, van der Byl died at Caledon. In his obituary,^[9] Dan van der Vat wrote "The arrival of majority rule in South Africa made no difference, and he died a very wealthy man. UDI had been a bit of a lark, to be enjoyed while it lasted and shrugged off when it failed. Despite the deaths of thousands of Africans at the hands of white Rhodesian troops and police resisting the inevitable, van der Byl, no less than Smith and their atavistic cronies, got clean away with it."

[edit] Notes & references