The US Brokered Settlement of the Namibian Dispute, 1988
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE US It ROKERIED SETTLEMENT OF THE NAMIBIAN DISPUTE, 1988 It Y RAVEI,E I RAMAIMANA A SHORT DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MAS'ER ®-4 AR S IN HISTORY IN THE Y AR S AT THE RAND A -.4RIKAANS JNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR o PROFESSOR H. J. VAN ASWEGEN 15 FEBRUARY 1999 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION (i) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (ii)-(iii) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS (iv)-(v) SUMMARY 1 - 2 CHAPTER. 1 3 INTRODUCTION 3 - 8 1.1 NOTES 9 CHAPTER 2 10 BACKGROUND 10 - 14 2.1 NOTES 15 - 16 CHAPTER. 3 17 WHY THE US TOOK THE INITIATIVE TO MEDIATE THE ANGOLA - NAMIBIA CONFLICT IN 1988 17 3.1 INTRODUCTION 17 3.2 END OF REAGAN 'S PRESIDENCY 18 3.3 SOVIET UNION - UNITED STATES RELATIONS 18 - 20 3.4 SANCTIONS FRACAS 20 - 21 3.5 ECONOMIC INVESTMENTS 21 - 22 3.6 DESTABILIZATION 22 - 23 3.7 ANTI - APARTHEID ACTIVISM 23 - 25 Page 3.8 CONCLUSION 25 3.9 NOTES 26 - 28 CHAPTER. 4 29 WHY THE ACTORS IN THE ANGOLA - NAMIBIA CONFLICT ACCEDED TO US MEDIATION 29 4.1 INTRODUCTION 29 - 30 4.2 THE SOVIET UNION 30 - 33 4.3 CUBA 33 - 36 4.4 THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT 37 - 42 4.5 THE ANGOLAN GOVERNMENT 42 - 44 4.6 NOTES 45 - 49 CHAPTER. 5 50 THE EXCLUSION OF SWAPO FROM THE QUADRIPARTITE TALKS 50 - 54 5.1 CONCLUSION 54 5.2 NOTES 55 - 56 CHAPTER. 6 57 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF US MEDIATED TALKS 57 - 62 6.1 NOTES 63 - 64 CHAPTER 7 65 7.1 CONCLUSION 65 - 67 SOURCE MST 68 - 78 (1) DEDICATION Mailman!, Shonisani, Sedzesani, Dakalo and Zwonaka, this is yours. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Everyone uses history, and all of us use it in many ways. We use it, inner ans., to define who we are and to connect our personal experience with the history of a particular region, nation, and culture. The production of a work of this kind poses many problems. Above all it requires a high degree of cooperation on the part of contributors. After deadlines have been met , changes frequently have to be made to eliminate overlaps with other chapters, to remedy omission, or to maintain a measure of stylistic uniformity. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the cooperation of those who shared in the enthusiasm of this endeavour and made light of the difficulties entailed. Helpful assistance was received from the librarians and staff of the State Library in Pretoria, the Africa Institute (Pretoria), the University of the Witwatersrand Library, the Rand Afrikaans University Library, and Library Gardens both in Pietersburg and Johannesburg. As the reference and source list show, I am indebted to a large number of historians for the content of this work. In the process of summarising and selecting I hope that I have not offended them. In addition I am particularly grateful to them since they saved me from a number of factual and stylistic infelicities. None of them, needless to say, are responsible for the misjudgements which may remain. Professor H.J. van Aswegen, my supervisor, counts not just as my chastizing angel but as my torch-bearer, to him I owe the greatest of my debts. He knows more than I do, I have learnt much from him and have enjoyed doing so. I would also like to record my indebtedness to my confidantes, Rendani and Joe, who made very useful comments on the sections of this work and assisted in ways too numerous to mention. I am grateful, too, to my colleagues at Kolokoshani, they have, in the broadest sense, made the institution were I have the luck to work a tolerant and stimulating place, and I have benefited accordingly. Thanks are also due to Aaron Manenzhe, who helped in typing whilst this work was taking shape. My personal thanks go to Livhu and Lufuno for their unqualified support and hospitality. Livhu and Lufuno, my deep appreciation, as always. Makhado, Matodzi, Livhu, Phillip, Tshifhiwa and Tshilidzi you are and have been always my pillars of strength. Finally, my thanks go most of all to Sedzesani, to whom I owe a debt quite above and beyond that acknowledged on the dedication page. She encouraged me from the outset to write, was endlessly patient with me, and allowed me to renege shamefully on my commitment to equal shares in domestic and parenthood duties. She also performed a difficult but occasionally necessary duty of preventing Dakalo and Zwonaka from being other than a comfort and help to me. Neither she, nor they, nor anyone else, should bear any of the blame for whatever errors of judgement this work may contain. The facts, the inferences drawn from them, as well as any errors, are my own. (iv) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AIDS - Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. DTA - Detente Turnhalle Alliance. FAPLA - People 's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola . FNLA - National Front for the Liberation of Angola. GNP - Gross National Product. JMC - Joint Monitoring Commission . MPLA - Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola . OAU - Organization of African Unity . PLAN - People 's Liberation Army of Namibia . RSA - Republic of South Africa . RTZ - Rio Tinto Zinc. SADC - Southern African Development Community . SADCC - Southern African Development Coordinating Conference . SADF - South African Defence Force . SWAPO - South West Africa People 's Organization . SWATF - South West African Territorial Force . UN - United Nations . UNAVEM - United Nations Angola Verification Mission . UNITA - Union for the Total Independence of Angola . UNSCR - United Nations Security Council Resolution . (v) UNTAG - United Nations Transitional Assistance Group . 0 The term South African Defence Force (SADF) has been used in this study as this was the name by which it was known during the period under review . The name was however changed to the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in 1994. SUMMARY In January 1981 , the Reagan administration entered office . Its dominant trend of thinking focussed on Angola - not Namibia - as the Southern African issue that demanded urgent attention . It was against this background that the concept of 'linkage' was introduced . This elevated the question of Cuban forces in Angola to the centre stage of negotiations . This question , the removal of Cuban forces in Angola , became the pretext for preventing the implementation of UNSCR 435 , 1978 .The destiny of Namibia was caught up in a powerful legacy of East - West conflict . However , as early as March 1986 , the Soviet Union , under Mikhail Gorbachev , pronounced its readiness in finding a political solution to the Angolan conflict as part of a broader policy decision to seek negotiated solutions to all regional conflicts .The Soviet Union came to regard its involvement in distant regional conflicts as an unnecessary expensive luxury , in that they fuelled the arms race and deprived it of access to Western investment and technology . A window of opportunity for the settlement of Southern Africa 's problems was opened up by Gorbachev 's perestirofika. The Reagan administration took full advantage of this glorious development , since it wanted to wrap up the Namibia - Angola question before its time ran out . This was coupled with a desire to prove that 'linkage' had been a success . The Angolan war was unwinnable . No one was winning on the ground . Therefore , everyone wanted to win at the table . Each side had good reasons for wanting to see the war ended , but no one was prepared to admit it . Eight months of almost continuous negotiations between Angola Cuba and South Africa , with the United States acting as a mediator , on a regional peace settlement involving Namibian independence , culminated in the signing of the Tripartite Agreement on 22 December 1988. This finally established April 1, 1989 as the date of . starting the implementation of UN security council Resolution 435 of 1978 , involving a transitional phase leading to full independence of Namibia . CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The year 1988 marked a turning point in the history of Namibia . Nearly 28 years after the United Nations declared its occupation of Namibia illegal , South Africa finally ended its by-then-interminable delaying and accepted that the United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 , 1978 , be implemented . 1 ) At the same time , agreement for the simultaneous withdrawal of SADF and Cuban troops from Angola was entrenched . This ended a period of five years which was characterised by heavy SADF incursions into Angola and support for UNITA . US support for UNITA from 1986 onward , including the supply of strategically important weapons such as the stinger ground to air missiles and mercenaries , harassed SWAPO and confronted the Angolan army . 2) Although many studies on the Namibian independence dispute have been made , there has been no concerted effort to single out and concentrate on the factors that influenced the US to embark on mediation , and the belligerent powers to concede to this initiative . This work addresses itself to that issue . However the details of the behind - the - scenes- diplomacy and the successive meetings at which the final agreement was hammered out is not a subject of this study . According to Smith , S : Namibia : A violation of trust , Namibia is a small nation that was plucked from the shadows of history by calamitous fate . 3) If this is so , we would have to say that since 1990 , when it won its independence , the country was cast back into shadows again , while fate has moved on to pull other small nations , each is its turn , briefly into the limelight : Bosnia Burundi , Rwanda , Somalia , Democratic Republic of Congo and others . This formulation risks confusing history - what happened and what it means - with the constant attention of the media . It was not fate that brought Namibia out of the shadows of history , but the Namibians ' own obdurate refusal to remain there - their hundred year resistance to colonial rule .