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CU Rhodesian Transitional Government leader. Reverend ndabaningi Sithole walks from car and is greeted by crowd singing and chanting.
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SV ZANU supporters gather as Sithole walks to rostrum.
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LV & CU Sithole waves to crowd from rostrum.
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SV Group of male dancers perform to beat of drums. (3 SHOTS)
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CY Sithole addresses crowd in English. (8 SHOTS)
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SITHOLE: "I wish to call upon ZANLA and ZIPRA forces to come back home and participate in the April elections, based on one-man, one-vote, for which thousands of our men and women have paid the supreme sacrifice. They must now come back and exercise this precious right which has been purchased with the precious blood or our sons and daughters ZAPU, who don't understand the history of the liberation struggle, have said 'down with ZANLA forces, down with ZIPRA forces -- they don't understand. Some lunatics have said' down with all those who help the forces of freedom' -- the don't understand, they just came yesterday. We cannot afford at this moment to set one group of people against another with our embarking on an exciting adventure of reconciliation and we do not reconciliate black and white, ZANLA and ZIPRA by denigrating them. We must invite them to come home -- they are our children, they are our sons and daughters, they are our people."



Last month, Rhodesian whites noted overwhelmingly in favour of a black majority government. But across the border, in neighbouring Zambia, the Patriotic Front with its ZAPU army has pledged to disrupt the planned April elections.




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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In Rhodesia, a second major party in the country's transitional government has launched its campaign for one-man, one-vote elections in April this year. But the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole -- who is the leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union, or ZANU -- attracted a relatively small crowd of supporters at a rally cn Sunday (11 February). ZANU officials blamed the disappointing turn-out on Widespread intimidation by the United disappointing turn-out on Widespread intimidation by the United African National Council, or UNAC, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa.

SYNOPSIS: Chanting supporters greeted the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole when he arrived to address Sunday's meeting.

ZANU party officials originally expected a hundred thousand people to attend the Salisbury meeting. But police estimated that the crowd was, at most, only five thousand strong.

A week earlier, Reverend Sithole's rival in the transitional government, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, held a rally at the same venue. Then, the crowd was estimated at a hundred and twenty thousand. The Reverend Sithole appealed to guerrillas -- presently waging a war against the transitional government -- to return to rhodesia.