Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence

In Central Africa, Britain created a Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953, joining Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. African nationalists opposed it as a device to extend white settler control, and it was dissolved at the end of 1963. Nyasaland became independent as Malawi and Northern Rhodesia as Zambia in 1964. Southern Rhodesia was different: self-governing since 1923, it had a white minority of around 5 percent of the population that controlled government and most good land.

Britain insisted on progress toward majority rule before independence. Refusing, Prime Minister Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front government issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965. Britain declared UDI illegal but ruled out military force. The UN imposed sanctions, its first mandatory economic sanctions, but Rhodesia evaded many with help from South Africa and Portuguese Mozambique. No country ever formally recognized Rhodesia, which declared itself a republic in 1970.