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Ad hoc multilateral diplomacy: the United States, the Contact Group, and Namibia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Margaret P. Karns
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Extract

In April 1977 the United States and four other major Western governments embarked on a unique diplomatic exercise in the hope of negotiating an agreement for the independence of the territory of Namibia, or South West Africa. The “Contact Group” as it became known (or Western Five), consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and the Federal Republic of Germany, functioned actively from April 1977 until mid-1982 as an ad hoc multilateral mediating and facilitating team in close proximity to but not directly linked with the United Nations. The five countries secured basic agreement in 1978 on a plan calling for UN supervised elections for a constituent assembly in the territory leading to early independence and the appointment of a UN special representative to ensure the necessary conditions for such elections.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , Winter 1987 , pp. 93 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1. The distinction of an ad hoc multilateral approach is introduced here to set such efforts apart from the multilateral mediating efforts under IGO auspices.

2. The plan was embodied in UN Security Council Resolution 435 (1978).

3. The interviews were conducted in 1982 and 1983, while I was a Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., under conditions that preclude attribution except in a few instances.

4. For the history of the UN's handling of the dispute see Faye, Carroll, South West Africa and the United Nations (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Solomon, Slonim, South West Africa and the United Nations: an International Mandate in Dispute (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and John, Dugard, ed., The South West Africal Namibia Dispute: Documents and Scholarly Writings on the Controversy between South Africa and the UN (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).Google Scholar

5. For assessments of those interests see the following: Branaman, Brenda M., “Namibia: United Nations Negotiations for Independence/U.S. Interests,” Congressional Research Service Issue Brief IB 79073 (1982)Google Scholar; House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Resources, Food, and Energy, Resources in Namibia: Implications for U.S. Policy, 94th Cong. 1st and 2d sessions, 10 june 1975 and 13 may 1976; House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, U.S. Interests in Africa, 96th Cong., 1st sess., 10–11 1979; Rene, Lemarchand, ed., American Policy in Southern Africa: the Stakes and the Stance, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America 1981)Google Scholar; Jennifer, Whitaker, ed., Africa and the United States: Vital Interests (New York: New York University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; and Rotberg, Robert I., ed., Namibia: Political and Economic Prospects (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983).Google Scholar Rotberg contends that strategic concerns no longer include uranium because ample supplies of the latter now exist worldwide. Personal communication, 15 11 1985.

6. Beginning with the Twentieth Session of the UN General Assembly, resolutions were routinely passed condemning Western financial interests for supporting South Africa and impeding Namibia's progress toward independence.

7. UN General Assembly Resolution 2145 (XXI). For more on the International Court of Justice case, see Slonim, South West Africa and the United Nations.

8. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa, 21 february 1974 and 4 april 1974, Hearings. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Resources, Food, and Energy, Hearing on Resources in Namibia, 10 june 1975 and 13 may 1976.

9. For the full text, see Department of State, Bulletin, 31 05 1976, pp. 673–77.Google Scholar Further information on Kissinger's efforts can be found in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Hearings on U.S. Policy toward Africa, 13 may 1976. Those efforts were directed at both the Namibian and Zimbabwean problems.

10. Roger, Fisher and William, Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving in (New York: Penguin, 1983).Google Scholar

11. Testimony by undersecretary of state for political affairs, Philip Habib, in Hearings on United States Policy toward Southern Africa before the House Committee on International Relations, subcommittee on Africa, 95th Cong. 1st sess., 3 march 1977, pp. 56.

12. Cyrus, Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America's Foreign Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 256.Google Scholar

13. Ibid, p. 20. This point was also underscored by former State Department officials whom I interviewed.

14. From interviews with several former State Department officials.

15. Former Secretary of State Vance credits Andrew Young with the suggestion in his autobiography, Hard Choices, p. 276.

16. Statement by Canadian Foreign Secretary Donald Jamieson to the Ninth Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Namibia, 24 April-5 May 1978 on behalf of the Contact Group in Department of State, Bulletin 78: 2015 (06 1978), p. 50.Google Scholar In this speech, Jamieson detailed the negotiation process up to that point and the elements of the proposal for a Namibian settlement.

17. Henry Miller, formerly Ambassador McHenry's assistant at USUN, provided many details on the Contact Group's operations. McHenry refers to him as the “Bible” in this respect.

18. Anthony Lake was a member of the National Security Council staff in the Nixon administration and author of The “Tar Baby” Option: The United States and Southern Rhodesia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

19. Interview with an official in the IO Bureau, Department of State, 1 12 1982.

20. Vance, , Hard Choices, p. 276.Google Scholar The point was also made by Charles William Maynes, assistant secretary of state for International Organization Affairs in remarks at the Maputo International Conference in Support of the Peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia, 16–21 may 1977. See Department of State, Bulletin, 11 07 1977, pp. 56–57.Google Scholar

21. For an excellent discussion of how the South Africans used the Turnhalle process as an effective “best alternative” to an internationally supervised settlement, see Vance, , Hard Choices, pp. 277–83.Google Scholar Indeed, Vance provides a great deal of detail about the substance of the negotiations.

22. See Canadian Foreign Secretary Jamieson's speech on behalf of the Contact Group, Department of State, Bulletin, june 1978, p. 53.

23. Letter dated 6 September 1978 from the minister of foreign affairs of South Africa to the secretary-general, UN Doc. S/12836.

24. Ibid.

25. Explanatory statement by the secretary-general regarding his report submitted pursuant to paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 437 (1978) concerning the situation in Namibia (S/ 12827), UN Doc. S/12869, 28 september 1978, p. 2.

26. The account of this period by Sir David Scott, then British ambassador to South Africa, is most instructive. David, Scott, Ambassador in Black and White: Thirty Years of Changing Africa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), pp. 215–19.Google Scholar

27. For more details on this debate, see Vance, , Hard Choices, pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

28. Statement of McHenry, Donald F. in Hearings on the Current Situation in Namibia before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, 96th Cong. 1st sess. 7 05 1979, p. 8.Google Scholar

29. Letter dated 20 February 1979 from the minister for foreign affairs of South Africa to the secretary-general, UN Doc. S/13105.

30. Ibid.

31. Scott, , Ambassador in Black and White, p. 232.Google Scholar

32. Statement by Prime Minister P. W. Botha, in the South African Parliament on 6 March 1979, circulated at the request of the South African government as UN S/13148 Annex.

33. The correspondence between Waldheim and Botha was initiated in February 1979 and continued intermittently to September 1980. It appears as Security Council Annexes: S/13083, S/13098, S/13143, S/13148, S/13156, S/13172, S/13173, S/13345, S/13935, S/14011, S/14139, and S/14184.

34. See S/14333, 19 January 1981, further report of the secretary-general concerning the implementation of Security Council Resolution 435 (1978) and 439 (1978) concerning the question of Namibia.

35. For an official summary of this review, see Crocker's statement before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, 17 June 1981. McHenry also testified at these hearings. His statement and answers to the followup questions provide a critique of the Reagan administration's approach to that point and an analysis of the obstacles to a Namibian settlement.

36. The three phases were as follows: (1) development of and agreement upon constitutional guidelines and an electoral system for an independent Namibia; (2) measures to assure South Africa of the UN's impartiality and the makeup of UNTAG; (3) transition period with elections to be held under UN supervision as provided by Security Council Resolution 435 (1978).

37. In Brzezinski's view the reason for this decision appears to be that “most of those at State, took an excessively benign view of the Soviet and Cuban penetration of Africa, underestimating its strategic implications … [and the corresponding need for] opposing the Soviets and Cubans and insisting that the Africans join us in that opposition.” Zbigniew, Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983), p. 143.Google Scholar

38. Senate, , Executive Report #97–8, Nomination of Chester A. Crocker, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 4 05 1981.Google Scholar

39. Robert Rotberg argues “that although South Africa spends $2 billion annually on Namibia, and that such an amount is about 9 percent of their yearly budget, that they would save little by pulling out of Namibia. The duplication of fixed defense installations would be very costly, and the terrain would in some (but not all) ways be more costly to patrol.” Personal communication, 15 November 1985.

40. Statement by McHenry, Donald F. in Hearings on the Current Situation in Namibia, before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, 56th Cong. 1st Sess., 25 06 1979, p. 7.Google Scholar

41. McHenry notes in his 25 June 1979 statement before the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs that the South Africans feared the Western Five were “susceptible to pressures from the Africans” and accused them, the UN Secretariat, and certain U.S. officials of “deceit, doubledealing, and a pro-SWAPO bias” (pp. 7–8). McHenry also noted that the Contact Group had to deal with SWAPO's distrust, which stemmed from its view that “South Africa's very dominance is dependent upon Western economic and political support” (p. 7). This distrust became manifested in SWAPO's refusal to accept the inclusion of contingents from any NATO nations in UNTAG. See Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Hearings on the Current Situation in Namibia, 96th Cong., 1st sess., 25 june 1979.

42. The reverse was also noted by a former top aide to the Callaghan government in Britain, namely, annoyance at the amount of top-level time and attention devoted to Namibia.

43. For an examination of the Contadora process which exemplifies the parallels to the Contact Group, see Susan, Kaufman Purcell, “Demystifying Contadora,” Foreign Affairs 64 (Fall 1985), pp. 74–95.Google Scholar