Chapter I Chapter I The Origins of a Special Relationship: Norway and Southern Africa 1960-1975 Tore Linn6 Eriksen Introductioni Although the period from 1960 to 1975 only covers fifteen years, it is a period which is marked by great changes in the Norwegian political attitude towards Southern Africa. In the course of these years the Norwegian antiapartheid movement emerged and saw to it that Southern Africa had its place on the political agenda. It is also in this period that the liberation movements made their first bonds with the Norwegian solidarity organisations and the official authorities in Norway (in that order). The result of this was that in the early 1970s the more sporadic forms of aid extended to refugees and "victims of apartheid" developed into a regular and organised form of support and co-operation. Even though in financial terms the amount of the aid given in this period should not be exaggerated, and although the support given to the liberation movements in Namibia and South Africa in the main belong to the period after 1975,2 there is no other Western country-apart from Sweden-which had such close relations to the struggle for liberation in Southern Africa. However, in other fields such as the question of economic sanctions, a long period of time was yet to pass before the calls of the liberation movements were complied with. And even then, as we shall see in chapter 5, the sanctions law adopted in 1987 had its loopholes. The aim of this chapter is to give a sketch of the main features both of the Norwegian official policy and that of the development in the general climate of opinion in Norway. Within the scope of a limited number of pages there will, of course, be many important aspects, actors and nuances which will have to be omitted. Instead of including a little about all sides of 1 Although the author of this chapter is a historian and therefore attempts to adhere to the methodological principles laid down by his profession, it should also be stated-as a matter of transparency-that he has since the middle of the 1960s been closely involved with the Norwegian Council for Southern Africa and other solidarity organisations supporting the liberation struggle. 2 See chapters 2 and 3. the subject, only those themes have been chosen which throw interesting light on some of the conflicting choices that had to be made, and on some of the most important changes that took place. For this reason especially much space has been given to the important UN/ OAU conference in 1973, which marked a diplomatic breakthrough for the liberation movements on the international level. As attention is here directed primarily towards the official policy of the Norwegian authorities, with the richly stocked archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a main source, the reader is recommended to read this presentation together with the chapters dealing with the role of the solidarity movements, the churches and the trade unions (see chapters 6, 7 and 8). As most space is here devoted to describing the main developments, one would also refer the reader to the concluding chapter which employs a more analytical and critical approach. The silent 1950s Norwegian policies towards South Africa prior to 1960 (including the issue of the legal status of South West Africa/ Namibia) were not rooted in any profound interest or involvement in the struggle against racial discrimination and oppression. As is documented in a recent thesis from the University of Oslo, which is concerned with "Norway and the South African issue 1945-1961", the main reason why the question was put on the agenda at all, was the need for the Norway to decide how to cast its vote in the UN General Assembly.3 In the Norwegian Parliament, the South African issue was hardly raised when foreign affairs were regularly debated, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Halyard Lange, did not take any special interest in questions outside the main Cold War arena.4 The reports by the Norwegian Consulate General in Pretoria largely reflected the views of the white minority, and did not contribute to any profound understanding of the intensification of the apartheid system and the mass campaigns witnessed by South Africa in the 1950s. Based on a close reading of the consular reports, Ole Kr. Eivindson in his thesis diplomatically concludes that the Consul General in the period 1950-1959 tended to "gloss over the racial issue".5 (According to the Consul General, the best solution for South Africa would be a kind of "moderate apartheid" rooted in an amalgamation of the Nationalist Party and the 3Ole Kristian Eivindson, Norge og raseproblernene i Sor-Afrika, 1945-1961. Thesis, Department of History, University of Oslo, 1997. 4 Halyard Lange was-apart from a brief interval in 1963-foreign minister in the Labour Government from 1946 to 1965. 5 Eivindson, op.cit., p. 19. August Fleischer was the Norwegian Consul General in Cape Town from 1950 to 1959. United Party.)6 At the outset of the massive Defiance Campaign in the early 1950s, it was, to give an example, reported that the African majority "is so backward in political development that one does not hear much from them".7 When a new Consul General was appointed in 1959, he expressed the view that demonstrations and revolts were difficult to explain as "the natives act in a way which seems extremely illogical" and that "demonstrations among culturally backward people give rise to meaningless and hooligan-like forms of expression".8 Compared to Sweden, the apartheid system installed in 1948 did not attract any great attention in the Norwegian mass media or among the intelligentsia in the 1950s.9 There were no prominent public figures and newspaper editors who-like Herbert Tingsten-vigorously dissected the apartheid system and campaigned for the promotion of the human rights of the African majority. Nor were there any well publicised incidents like the "Lidman affair", in which the Swedish novelist Sara Lidman and a young leader from the liberation movement were arrested for contravening the socalled "Immorality Act". Although some church leaders with experience from South Africa voiced their opinion from time to time (see chapter 7), there was no Norwegian to compare with the indefatigable campaigner Gunnar Helander. Together with the other Nordic countries, Norway had always agreed to put the South Africa issue on the agenda of the United Nations, while South Africa itself argued that the UN-according to Chapter 2, art 7-had no right to intervene in internal matters. When this issue was raised for the first time in 1946, the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN-in opposition to the instructions received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo-voted in favour of a resolution stating that the treatment of the Indian minority in South Africa was not consistent with the UN Charter.10 When the General Assembly in 1952 for the first time discussed the apartheid system in general, Norway strongly argued that South Africa's racial policies were in violation of the UN Charter, and, thus, fell within the competence of the General Assembly. The fact that the United States sided against South Africa and the major colonial powers made the issue much easier for Norway to 6 Memo from August Fleischer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 22 April 1953, quoted by Eivindson, op. cit. 7 Memo from August Fleischer, 29 March 1952. 8 Erik Colban was Consul General in the period 1959-1963. The quote is from his memo to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 26 August 1959. For another view of the 1950s, see Torn Lodge. Black politics in South Africa since 1945. London: Longman, 1983 and Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. 9 The Swedish experience is outlined in great detail by Tor SenllstrSm: Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa. Vol. 1. Formation of a Popular Opinion (1950-1970). Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999. 10 Fivindson, op.cit., pp. 39-44. handle, since it could be regarded as being above the overriding Cold War dividing line which was so influential in determining the foreign policies of Norway. It could even be argued, as Norwegian politicians often did, that it was in fact in the true interest of the West not to confront the new nations by joining forces with colonialism and white supremacy in apartheid South Africa. With a few nuances, until the late 1950s the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN followed a consistent line in the 4th Committee and the General Assembly. The general position, which was reflected in the voting pattern, was to avoid denouncing the South African apartheid regime, since this was assumed to make the regime less willing to work with the UN in finding "constructive solutions" to the racial problems. In practice, this led Norway-with the other Nordic countries- to abstain when resolutions containing explicit references to South African discrimination and oppression were introduced. The basic assumption was obviously that the regime itself would only listen to friendly advice as to how to change its policies, and that nothing further than general recommendations to member countries to adhere to the UN charter was acceptable if this strategy of "dialogue" was to yield results. The only noticeable exception was in 1954, when the draft resolution introduced by India deliberately avoided expressing harsh criticism in order to enlist support from the Nordic countries and other Western powers.11 By abstaining, it could be argued that Norway was seeking to bridge the gap between the more radical Afro-Asian camp on the one hand and South Africa! the major Western powers on the other.