London - Margaret Thatcher banned her envoy to what was then Rhodesia from meeting Robert Mugabe in 1979, refusing to talk "with terrorists until they become prime ministers," files released on Wednesday showed.
At the time, Britain was debating whether to recognise the government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the first black-led administration in what subsequently became Zimbabwe, previously secret documents revealed.
Muzorewa was elected in 1979 after years of white minority rule led by Ian Smith, against which Mugabe's party and others waged a bloody 15-year guerrilla war.
But the election came after an internal settlement brokered by Smith and he remained in Muzorewa's government, so its result was bitterly opposed by other African nations and elsewhere.
As Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister in May 1979, officials in Britain, the former colonial power, were considering a quick recognition of the Muzorewa government and lifting sanctions.
"The people of Rhodesia have the right to decide themselves who shall be their govt. and whether they approve the internal settlement," Thatcher wrote on a letter she received from Australian premier Malcolm Fraser that month.
Former colonial power Britain soon sent an envoy, Lord Harlech, to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia to hold negotiations with African countries like Nigeria and Tanzania about the future, as well as developing contacts with Muzorewa.
But Thatcher was forcefully opposed to him meeting Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, leaders of the Patriotic Front rebels.
In a letter to Downing Street on May 25, a senior Foreign Office official wrote that then foreign secretary Lord Peter Carrington "considers that the emissary should offer to meet the co-leaders of the Patriotic Front."
* AFP
