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Afrika Spectrum 42 (2007) 1: 73-94
© 2007 GIGA Institute of African Affairs, Hamburg
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
Conflict mediation in decolonisation:
Namibia’s transition to independence
Summary
A long conflict in Namibia was resolved successfully by a mediation
process that enabled a de facto colony to become a sovereign state via an
internationally supervised election. This article reconsiders the relation-
ship between conflict mediation and decolonisation in this particular case,
which, while in many ways sui generis, nevertheless permits us to extract
some general lessons. We show how case confidence-building measures
were applied, how mediating agencies used different pressures, and how
important it was that all the parties to the conflict ‘owned’ the process.
Keywords
Namibia, independence, conflict mediation, decolonisation
his case study re-assesses how conflict was mediated in Namibia, in a
particularly complex milieu, and ends by drawing some lessons for
current debates on conflict mediation approaches.
1
It has been argued that
the way in which the conflict was resolved in Namibia had an ‘almost text-
book outcome’, which ‘fitted with a wider international optimism grounded
in the end of the cold war and a culture of democratic change’ (Macqueen
2002: 107). In this case, the conflict was not between internal forces, but be-
tween a neighbouring colonial power that occupied the territory and a lib-
eration movement representing the colonised majority. The mediating agen-
cies operated externally in the negotiating process and based their mandate
and legitimacy either on the United Nations (UN) system – for Namibia’s
decolonisation involved UN intervention on the basis of the special status of
the territory both historically and from the point of view of international law
1 The paper emerged from a project on ‘Mediation in African civil wars’, initiated by the
University of Cape Town-based Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR). We thank partici-
pants in a seminar at the CCR, especially Laurie Nathan and Guy Lamb, as well as Nina
Klinge-Nygård, David Simon and finally two reviewers for their inputs while preparing
and finalising the text for publication. All errors remain our responsibility.
T
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
74
– or on direct involvement in the local (Namibian) and regional (southern
African) dimension of the conflict.
For this analysis we use diverse sources on the negotiations by the
Western Contact Group (WCG) and the subsequent implementation of UN
Security Council (SC) Resolution 435 (1978) to explore the extent to which
the negotiations were guided by confidence-building initiatives and/or
coercive measures. Some of the sources we draw upon have not been used
before, such as interviews with key insiders and participants in the process
and material in the archives of the South African government, especially the
minutes of the State Security Council, the most important decision-making
body in the state for most of the period covered,
2
and the records of the De-
partment of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Pretoria.
3
A trust betrayed
Most parts of the territory known today as the Republic of Namibia were
declared a protectorate of imperial Germany in 1884. ‘German South West
Africa’ was shaped by violent means into a settler-dominated society, which
established strict racial segregation with lasting effects far beyond the period
of German rule. After World War I the territory was declared a C-class man-
date under the League of Nations and ruled on behalf of the British crown
by next-door South Africa. With the collapse of the League at the end of the
Second World War and the establishment of the UN, a long dispute with
South Africa began over the fate of the country, administrative and legal
responsibilities, and its future course in terms of international law and self-
determination. The ‘wind of change’ blowing from the late 1950s resulted in
the decolonisation of most African countries; once independent and mem-
bers of the UN, they influenced international policy. The establishment of
the Organisation of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement in the
early 1960s helped shift the policy debate, including the right to self-deter-
mination. Namibian independence became a global concern (Singham and
Hume: 1986).
2 The copy of these minutes that was consulted remains at the time of writing in private
hands, but it is hoped that it will soon be deposited in the South African History Archive at
the University of the Witwatersrand.
3 Saunders consulted the archival material, cited here as SSC and DFA; Melber inter-
viewed Ahtisaari (30 January 2002 in Helsinki) and Vergau (22 March 2002 in Berlin).
Others whom we would have liked to interview were not willing to talk. The ‘memory
literature’ – Crocker (1992), Nujoma (2001), Vance (1983) and to a lesser extent Vergau
(2002a, 2002b, 2006) reflects ambivalences and contradictions, as does the partial and selec-
tive recollection of events documented in Weiland and Braham (1994).
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
75
As the dispute over the territory escalated into open conflict, the UN
came to accept Namibia as a special responsibility, and the General Assem-
bly and then the Security Council took up the matter. A UN Council for
Namibia was established,
4
and after that the UN Institute for Namibia in
Lusaka, Zambia. The liberation movement established in the late 1950s and
known from 1960 as the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO)
was ultimately acknowledged by the General Assembly as the ‘sole and
authentic representative of the Namibian people’,
5
because it alone was con-
ducting an armed struggle, and it obtained observer status at the UN. But
the transition process to Namibian independence was deeply affected by
superpower rivalry in the context of the Cold War. Decolonisation was
blocked until the late 1980s, when Resolution 435 (1978) was finally imple-
mented more than a decade after its adoption. For the two decades between
the mid-1960s and the late 1980s one can speak of ‘war without victory, ne-
gotiations without resolution’ (Green 1995). On 21 March 1990 more than a
hundred years of foreign occupation were finally brought to an end.
From soon after it came into existence until Namibia became independ-
ent, the UN played a crucial if not decisive role in relation to the territory
(Melber 2004). A high point was the establishment of the UN Transitional
Assistance Group (UNTAG) in 1978 with supervisory powers for the transi-
tion of Namibia towards internationally accepted independence as a sover-
eign state under Resolution 435. But while the UN system was a midwife to
the independent Namibian state, UN positions and policies on Namibia
were represented in different ways, be it through support to SWAPO ex-
pressed in General Assembly resolutions, the role assumed by the UN
Council for Namibia, or the positions taken in Security Council resolutions.
The UN was more than a conflict mediator and power-broker, seeking to
reconcile the various interests operating within its own structures. There
was no one binding position on the Namibia conflict after it emerged on the
agenda of UN bodies. The UN created different platforms to negotiate the
decolonisation process and secure its implementation in the decades after
South Africa’s presence in the territory was declared illegal.
The WCG, composed of the then five Western member countries of the
Security Council, devised the plan for a transition to independence embod-
ied in Resolution 435. Despite differences on how to approach a lasting and
acceptable solution to the problem of the ‘trust betrayed’ and setbacks and
much scepticism during the course of its work, the WCG succeeded in pro-
ducing the guiding framework for Namibia’s transition to independence,
4 This was subsequent to UNGA Resolution 2145 (XXI) of 19 May 1967, which created an
entity representing the interests of the Namibian people within the UN agencies.
5 UNGA Resolutions 3111 of 12 December 1973 and 31/146 of 20 December 1976.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
76
and the WCG initiative ultimately paved the way for the settlement of the
dispute. The failure to implement Resolution 435 for a decade was in part
the result of an evasive approach by South Africa and the West that sought
to protect South African and Western interests instead of confronting the
continued illegal occupation of Namibia as a breach of international law.
Negotiated decolonisation: framework and result
SWAPO’s armed liberation struggle, launched in 1966, though not the deci-
sive factor in the achievement of independence, had a major impact on the
course of decolonisation (Brown 1995, Lamb 1998). Even Dirk Mudge, the
chairman of the main internal party, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance
(DTA), conceded in 1995 that ‘if there were no armed struggle, maybe noth-
ing would have happened’ (Sellström 1999: 81). Namibian independence,
when it came, was above all an achievement of the international community,
which, as the Cold War was winding down, managed to conclude success-
fully lengthy and complicated diplomatic negotiations that had long been
dominated by the strategic interests of the two dominant power blocks. The
internationally negotiated settlement resulted in a by-and-large peaceful
transition to independence with a decisive degree of UN involvement. This
paved the way for a government led by the liberation movement SWAPO to
take power.
The mandate implemented by UNTAG under Resolution 435 provided
for the supervision of free and fair general elections for a Constituent As-
sembly under a transitional authority composed jointly by the South African
Administrator-General and the UN Special Representative. Those competing
for political power did not operate on a level playing field: those who had
served in the South African-backed Interim Government could operate with
the massive material support from the de facto still existing colonial authori-
ties; SWAPO enjoyed the privilege and strategic advantage of being the only
recognized representative of the Namibian people internationally. The pos-
sibility of meaningful support for forces not aligned to the two sides was
essentially eliminated by the constraints imposed from the time increased
polarisation emerged in the 1970s.
Martti Ahtisaari, the UN Special Representative,
6
has drawn attention
to the problems involved in the selective and exclusive recognition of libera-
tion movements:
6 Ahtisaari was UN Commissioner for Namibia until appointed in 1978 by the Secretary-
General as Special Representative for Namibia. In charge of the UN Transitional Assistance
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
77
I don’t think it was the most democratic way of going about it but I think
the justification for that was to concentrate the efforts vis-à-vis the occupy-
ing power. That was the fact which we had to deal with. But it obviously
didn’t make life easier … in the end, I think, the mere armed struggle
would never have solved the problem; and if you go for a democratic so-
lution, then you have to give everybody the chance to participate and agree
to conditions so that they would be starting on a fairly equal basis (Soiri
and Peltola 1999: 185).
Political forces not affiliated to SWAPO ‘were eliminated from that political
opportunity and that of course diminished plurality and complicated mat-
ters’ (ibid.).
The UN was more a power broker in the transition to internationally
accepted independence as the solution to the Namibia conflict than an
agency promoting a particular requirement or option beyond the aspired
state sovereignty. That the transition took place via a free and fair election
provided the necessary legitimacy to the outcome and contributed decisively
to general acceptance of it. To that extent, democracy in practice offered
some essential ingredients to the success of the decolonisation process. But
the Namibian independence process was first and foremost an internation-
ally supervised and legitimated transfer of political power. That the political
power exercised should meet, by and large, the definitions and expectations
of a democratic political system was a desired result but not the main goal.
Logically, the democratically elected representatives of the Namibian popu-
lation should have had the discretion and power to decide the character of
the political system. However, as a study based on several fact-finding mis-
sions to Namibia during March to November 1989 concluded, the UN suc-
ceeded in redirecting a profound (also military) conflict into electoral com-
petition and provided a democratically oriented solution. The settlement
plan, then, was ‘not just a device for instituting independence; it also helped
Namibians develop a democratic system of government, where meaningful
elections are held periodically and where human rights are generally re-
spected’ (National Democratic Institute 1990: 84).
In the following section we explore in more detail the background, ef-
fects and results of the negotiated settlement initiated by the WCG and we
assess the different tactics and strategies applied in the negotiation process,
with particular reference to conflict mediation.
Group (UNTAG) in 1989/1990, he subsequently became Finland’s Foreign Minister and
President.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
78
The WCG and Security Council resolution 435 of 1978
Between January 1977 and December 1978 the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) assumed for the first time a temporary seat in the UN Security Coun-
cil.
7
With Canada, another elected member, and the permanent Western
member states (US, UK and France), the five consulted informally as a rou-
tine matter with each other concerning positions on relevant issues. As a
result of an initiative by the African states, the first Security Council debate
of the year concerned South Africa. Four draft resolutions circulated, de-
manding that sanctions be imposed on the apartheid regime. This was unac-
ceptable to the Western countries. In early March 1977, meetings between
the representatives of the five Western countries explored how to convince
the African states not to pursue a confrontational line but instead to agree on
a joint declaration of principles. This was in line with a previous reassess-
ment of positions on Namibia
8
and an earlier policy concession: afraid of
being isolated on the Namibia issue, the Western powers had supported
Security Council Resolution 385 in January 1976 which demanded the with-
drawal of South Africa from the occupied territory and UN supervised and
controlled elections. Not only did the FRG have a specific interest in con-
tributing to a solution of the Namibian issue, so too had – for reasons related
to the ongoing negotiations concerning Rhodesia/Zimbabwe – the British
Foreign Office, which rejected alignment with either white settler power or
radical black nationalism (Rich 1988, Saunders 2003). In David Owen, the
Labour government’s Foreign Secretary, and Genscher, the West German
Foreign Minister, the initiative had strong personal advocates. So the notion
of a ‘contact group’ initiated by and centred around the five Western states
7 The FRG and GDR (German Democratic Republic), admitted as members of the UN in
1973, were in competition to secure a recognized status in international policy matters but
shared a special affinity to Namibia for the same historical but different contemporary
political reasons. The FRG (and in particular leading members of its conservative parties)
retained a strong emotional and ideological affinity to the former colony and cultivated
personal ties to members of the German-speaking minority there. This relationship was not
entirely free from economic influence and interest (Melber and Wellmer 1988). The GDR
pursued political and practical international solidarity through direct support to the lib-
eration struggle by SWAPO (Engel and Schleicher 1998: 259-336; Schleicher and Schleicher
1998). On the role of the solidarity movement in the FRG with particular reference to
Southern Africa see Kössler and Melber (2002).
8 Du Pisani maintains that as early as 1974 ‘the West made the decolonization of Namibia
under UN auspices one of its preconditions for continued cordial external relations with
South Africa’ (1986: 280-281).
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
79
emerged,
9
and when the group met again on 16 March 1977 in Canada’s UN
mission, the WCG was born (Vergau 2002a and 2006: 13, Jabri 1990: 61-63).
The original emphasis was on the formulation of a common démarche
by the WCG, represented by their five ambassadors in Pretoria, to the South
African government. Its main message was to threaten consensus with pro-
posed ‘stern action’ (i.e. sanctions) in the Security Council if South Africa did
not soon agree to an internationally acceptable arrangement with regard to
Namibia. The démarche was conveyed on 7 April 1977 to South African Prime
Minister Vorster. According to Vergau (2002a: 229), the German member of
the WCG from 1977 to 1983,
10
an obviously worried Vorster agreed in princi-
ple to enter negotiations with the five on a solution of the Namibia issue.
This was followed by a series of intensive rounds of meetings and negotia-
tions within the ‘Gang of Five’ – as the Group was soon termed by those
suspicious of the initiative – during 1977/78. Vergau emphasises that there
were no chairpersons, and the task of making external presentations was
undertaken on a rotating basis. Though the WCG operated from the UN
missions in New York, the heads of missions did not contribute substantially
to the Namibia policy emerging from the WCG, and their roles were mainly
confined to organisational aspects and press conferences.
11
The WCG operated outside of the UN framework as a Western initia-
tive to seek an acceptable compromise solution among the stakeholders,
South Africa, SWAPO, the frontline states (FLS; Tanzania, Botswana,
Mozambique, Zambia and Angola, and from 1980 Zimbabwe), Nigeria and
the UN Secretary General. Most consultations took place in New York or in
Africa, and the WCG kept local groups in Namibia informed. The most criti-
cal issue was to avoid the implementation of a South African manipulated
and orchestrated ‘internal solution’ without SWAPO. Other sensitive issues
were the administration of the territory during the preparations for UN-
supervised elections, and UN competence. The size of the UN personnel and
9 At a meeting between the West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and
the West German Ambassador to the United Nations in New York in mid-March 1977,
Genscher instructed the delegation to support such an initiative irrespective of the outcome
of the Security Council debate.
10 Nicknamed by his colleagues ‘Mr Namibia’, Vergau was based at the diplomatic mis-
sion of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN in New York between 1976 and 1980,
and from 1980 to 1985 was head of the Southern Africa Department in the Foreign Ministry
in Bonn. Until 1990 he was an active participant in almost every stage of Western involve-
ment. He provided helpful comments on a draft of this paper.
11 Vergau denies that Andrew Young played a substantial own part in the formation and
consolidation of the group and criticizes notions suggesting an almost exclusive role of US
policy under the Carter administration (Vance 1983: 272-313). There are full transcripts of
all these meetings in the DFA archives.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
80
of the remaining South African troops, the timing of their withdrawal, the
bases allocated to SWAPO and the control of these, were other questions
that required agreement and an accepted modus operandi.
Four rounds of discussions with South Africa on the one hand, and
SWAPO on the other were conducted in 1977/78 and complemented by an
intensive shuttle diplomacy with the neighbouring countries in southern
Africa and Nigeria. This was a crucial phase of confidence-building, espe-
cially with regard to the group of African countries, who turned out to play
an essential role in bringing a reluctant SWAPO (and in particular, its Presi-
dent) on board.
12
SWAPO rejected direct negotiations with the occupying
colonial power, which was considered to be illegitimate. While progress was
made, no decisive breakthrough was achieved. A first round of ‘proximity
talks’ was held in February 1978 in New York to bring about the necessary
concessions in separate mediations between the Foreign Ministers of the
WCG and the parties. These meetings were abruptly ended by South Africa
when Roelof ‘Pik’ Botha, the South African Foreign Minister, left New York
saying he must consult with his government.
13
Vergau suggests that he did
this not because of unacceptable demands but because SWAPO seemed
willing to consider the acceptance of a compromise as a result of peer pres-
sure from the African states. According to Vergau, the South Africans be-
lieved that the negotiations would ultimately fail because of SWAPO’s re-
fusal to accept the compromises involved, including entering into direct
negotiations with the occupying power (Vergau 2002a: 231-232).
In April 1978 the WCG tabled a proposal for the solution of the Na-
mibian situation to the chairman of the Security Council,
14
which South Af-
rica agreed to, expecting that SWAPO would not consent. In its efforts to
12 See transcripts of the discussions between the South African government and the WCG
in the DFA archives in Pretoria. The quality and degree of integrity of Africa policy under
US President Jimmy Carter contributed to a relatively favourable environment. Genscher’s
meetings with President Nyerere of Tanzania (May and August 1977, February 1978),
President Kaunda from Zambia (June 1977) and with President Mugabe from Zimbabwe
immediately after he came to office (April 1980) played a supportive role (cf. Vergau 2002a:
230-231). On the initiative by Genscher, and despite furious protests by his opponents in
the conservative parties (cf. Brenke 1989: 119-123), the West Germans closed their consular
mission in Windhoek at the end of October 1977, after SWAPO refused to attend the sec-
ond round of discussions with the WCG scheduled for mid-October 1977 in the West
German UN mission.
13 The talks were held in the same building but separately between the five Foreign Minis-
ters of the WCG, the South African Foreign Minister Roelof (‘Pik’) Botha, the President of
SWAPO, Sam Nujoma, and the group of Foreign Ministers of the FLS. For Botha’s inter-
pretation of what happened see documentation in the DFA archives. A second round of
‘proximity talks’ took place in March 1979.
14 Proposal for a Settlement of the Namibian Situation. UN. Doc. S/12636, 10 April 1978.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
81
make it impossible for SWAPO to accept the proposal for a negotiated settl-
ement, South Africa attacked the SWAPO camp at Kassinga in southern
Angola on Ascension Day (4
May) 1978, perpetrating the largest single mas-
sacre in any of the liberation struggles in the region. After this, strenuous
efforts had to be made to convince the FLS to persuade SWAPO to agree.
Under intense pressure, the SWAPO President was persuaded in late July
1978 to announce the organisation’s agreement to the proposed plan sub-
mitted by the WCG.
15
He did this after the Security Council had unani-
mously agreed, in Resolution 432 of 27 July 1978, ‘to lend its full support to
the initiation of steps necessary to ensure early reintegration of Walvis Bay
into Namibia’. The UN therefore denied South Africa the right to continued
occupation of the enclave as an integral part of South Africa, and that was
sufficient to win support from SWAPO and the African states (cf. Berat
1990).
On 29 September 1978, Security Council Resolution 435 introduced the
plan submitted by the WCG as the official UN position for the solution of
the Namibia issue.
16
Due to the explicit approval of this by SWAPO, docu-
mented in a letter from its President to the Secretary General on 8 September
1978 (UN. Doc. S/12841), the two permanent members who were uneasy
with the Western initiative, which they perceived to be an imperialist con-
spiracy in the Cold War scramble for expanded control or at least influence
over the strategically important southern African region, felt unable to veto
the resolution. The People’s Republic of China did not attend the meeting,
and the USSR (and Czechoslovakia) abstained on the resolution. Vergau
(2002b: 49) points out the irony that South Africa had decided not to turn
down the Western proposal because it assumed that SWAPO would find it
impossible to accept the compromises and hence would be blamed for ob-
struction, and the Soviet Union had not objected to the Western initiative
assuming that SWAPO would not accept a compromise offered by the impe-
rialist camp. After SWAPO announced its approval of the plan, South Africa
could not withdraw its assent and the Soviet Union could not object to the
plan. Some eighteen months after its constitution, the WCG had achieved a
way to settle the Namibia dispute via an agreed framework for a transition
to independence.
Caught by surprise by SWAPO’s acceptance, South Africa reacted with
obstruction. The outgoing South African Prime Minister, John B. Vorster,
15 Vergau is convinced that without the role of the FLS and Nigeria SWAPO would not
have agreed to the proposed plan by the Western initiative. He believes that the influence
of President Julius Nyerere and even more so of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo
was decisive (cf. Vergau 2002a: 232, 2002b: 49 and personal interview).
16 Documented i.a. in Dreyer (1994: 275-276).
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
82
announced that an internal election would be held in Namibia for a Con-
stituent Assembly in December 1978. The concerned and embarrassed For-
eign Ministers of the Western countries then decided to seek a direct ex-
change with the new South African Prime Minister P. W. Botha. In mid-Oc-
tober 1978 they met him and Foreign Minister Pik Botha, assisted by a team
of experts, in Pretoria. David Owen suggested that the Foreign Ministers
should conduct the meeting on their own without any assistance by advisers
or members of the WCG, to the amusement of their South African colleagues
(Vergau 2002a: 233). The US representative on the WCG at this time, Don
McHenry, commented retrospectively on the disastrous result of this mis-
guided initiative:
The Foreign Ministers did what Foreign Ministers always do: they act on
the basis of very little knowledge. They do not get themselves fully briefed
and are inclined to consider what staff say as bureaucratic nit-picking
when in fact it often involves fundamental issues … What you had were
five Ministers and the South African team, who took them to lunch
(Weiland and Braham 1994: 35).
The meeting resulted in some common ground on technical issues related to
UNTAG, but to the surprise of the members of the New York-based WCG
the Ministers did not categorically demand the withdrawal of the planned
internal elections in Namibia.
17
This risked a loss of confidence and trust in
the WCG by the other stakeholders to the UN Plan, SWAPO and the FLS,
and it encouraged the South African side to stick to the planned elections
without compromises. This should have provoked a warning of sanctions or
at least a threat of ending the discussions, but the five Ministers did not
respond to Botha’s confrontational strategy with the necessary counter ar-
gumentation. They finally declared that they would consider the election
results of December 1978 ‘null and void’, which implied acceptance of the
fact that the election would take place (Vergau 2002a: 233-234). It was obvi-
ous to the two Bothas that there was no real threat of sanctions. There was
no repetition of the ‘stern action’ warning which one and a half years earlier
had forced South Africa into the process resulting in Resolution 435.
The result was a grave lack of confidence in the ability of the ‘Gang of
Five’ to bring about any meaningful changes paving the way to Namibian
independence. Vergau comments on this turning point as follows:
There is no way to play down the role of sanctions in the initiative. The
1977 statement of stern action was a necessary condition for gaining a
hearing with … Vorster. The Contact Group did not advise the Foreign
17 Transcript of the meeting in DFA archives.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
83
Ministers to go to Pretoria, especially since we learnt more and more from
our governments that the threat of stern action was not serious. Before the
Foreign Ministers’ visit we had actually worked out a text that would have
strengthened this credible threat, but the Ministers had no mandate to use
it. Therefore their visit was bound to fail from the start (Weiland and
Braham 1994: 36).
Resolution 435, then, did not begin a process leading to a solution, but be-
came a blueprint pending another decade. By the end of 1978 the WCG
looked more of a toothless tiger than ever before. While the results of the
internal elections in December 1978, boycotted by SWAPO, were recognised
only by South Africa, they served as the basis for creating a platform for the
internal forces allied to South Africa, who constituted themselves on the
basis of the results as a Constituent and subsequently National Assembly. So
the ‘soft’ response by the governments of the five Western countries (not
identical with the view held among their representatives in the WCG) con-
tributed to another stalemate. While international pressure remained on
South Africa and SWAPO to seek a negotiated settlement via Resolution 435,
and while both parties sought to appear reasonable and accommodating,
and to place on the other the onus for any breakdown in the negotiations,
both seemed to have written off serious negotiations, Pretoria in favour of an
internal settlement, SWAPO of intensified guerrilla warfare. An internation-
ally acceptable solution hardly seemed any closer than it had been a year
before (Du Pisani 1986: 426).
Notwithstanding this setback, however, it was now common ground
between the parties, due to the diplomatic efforts of the WCG that South
Africa was prepared to accept the notion of a unitary independent Namibian
state on the basis of general democratic elections with universal suffrage and
an involvement of the UN in the transitional phase. SWAPO accepted elec-
tions as a necessary step to confirm the legitimacy of its claim to be the rep-
resentative of the people. The role of a UN and a South African (even mili-
tary) presence in the transitional process was confirmed, and Walvis Bay
was to be treated as a separate issue and excluded from the terms of settle-
ment. This provided the basis and framework for more negotiations aiming
to reach agreement on several issues that had not been settled within the
general guiding framework of Resolution 435. Prime among these were the
role, size and composition of UNTAG, and where the bases of SWAPO’s
military wing should be in the transition period.
18
As SWAPO and South
Africa deployed a dual track strategy of negotiating on the one hand and
18 For the South African government’s attitude to these questions see esp. minutes of the
State Security Council meetings of 12 February and 12 November 1979.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
84
acting in ways that furthered confrontation on the other, the WCG resumed
its efforts to contribute to a solution by means of what were now explicitly
termed ‘confidence-building measures’ (Vergau 2002a: 236).
Negotiations around the establishment of a de-militarised zone in
Southern Angola and Northern Namibia culminated in a UN conference in
Geneva in November 1979 that failed to achieve sustainable results. By 1980
there was no concrete evidence of progress on implementing Resolution 435,
in part because of the successful transition under the Lancaster House
Agreement to independence in Zimbabwe. UN officials believed that the
outstanding issues should without any further delay be settled among the
various stakeholders in direct interaction and communication. With the UN
eager to pre-empt South African accusations of UN partiality by resolving all
outstanding matters of dissent between the parties in face-to-face talks, a
‘pre-implementation multi-party meeting’ took place in January 1981 in
Geneva.
19
The name of this conference suggested that Resolution 435 might be
implemented after some outstanding technicalities were solved. But by the
time the conference took place, South Africa had made up its mind not to
offer any compromises that would permit a settlement. This was after the
election of Ronald Reagan as the next US President, and the unexpected
results of the elections in Zimbabwe. South Africa left it to the members of
their delegation representing the internal parties in Namibia, who attended
as part of the South African contingent, to destroy the prospects of imple-
mentation. This became obvious at a press conference, at which the ‘internal
politician’ Katutire Kaura from the DTA, a highly educated and articulate
Herero, claimed that if it had not been for the moderating South African
influence, ‘they’ would have solved the problem ‘the African way’, sug-
gesting that SWAPO supporters would have been eliminated in Namibia if
the South Africans had allowed them to do so (Melber 1981).
20
The meeting provided for the first time an opportunity for the internal
Namibian parties operating in alliance with South Africa to present their
case internationally. These parties included the DTA, the Action Front for
the Retention of Turnhalle Principles (AKTUR) and smaller political group-
ings. The NNF and SWAPO Democrats refused to participate, since they
19 This initiative was mainly pursued by Brian Urquhart, UN Under-Secretary–General
for Special Political Affairs, who headed a UN mission to South Africa in October 1980,
which included the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Questions (Abdulrahim
Farah), the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Namibia (Martti Ahtisaari) and
the Commander-Designate of UNTAG’s military component (Indian Lieutenant-General
Prem Chand).
20 Kaura has since independence been an opposition member of Parliament in the Na-
tional Assembly, who occasionally shares jokes with those on the SWAPO benches.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
85
would not be present under the South African-appointed Administrator
General. One who was present remembers how members of the DTA at-
tacked the UN and SWAPO ‘with the express intention of creating an emo-
tional and explosive situation’. This was ‘certainly not conducive to the
creation of a climate of confidence and understanding, the expressed pur-
pose of the talks’. After much talk of the partiality towards SWAPO dis-
played by the UN, the talks ended on 13 January when the Administrator-
General stated that ‘in the light of the proceedings thus far, it is clear that the
question raised in the report of the Secretary-General (i.e. overcoming the
obstacles to progress in the form of acute mutual distrust and lack of confi-
dence) had not been resolved. It would therefore be premature to proceed
with the discussion of the setting of a date for implementation’. SWAPO
emerged from the talks with considerable credit, for its President had made
it clear that his party sought only an immediate cessation of hostilities and
implementation of Resolution 435.
21
If there was a positive side effect to this abortive conference, it was that
it contributed towards a greater amount of critical sensibility by some of the
smaller internal parties towards the ultimately destructive aims of South
Africa and its local allies. The more liberal elements of the white (and in
particular English and German speaking) communities were gradually con-
vinced of the need to seek Namibian independence by implementation of
Resolution 435. This led to the formation in 1987 of Namibia Peace Plan-435,
an internal pressure-group that participated in consultations initiated by
SWAPO (supported financially by the Swedish government) in June 1988 in
Stockholm, and in October 1989 in Kabwe/Zambia (Dobell 1998: 84-87, Sell-
ström 2002: 380). In 1981, however, it seemed that Resolution 435 was fur-
ther from implementation than ever before. The South African government
hoped that the advent of the Reagan administration would open new dip-
lomatic avenues for settlement of the Namibian issue, perhaps even outside
the framework of the UN transitional plan. It therefore sought to delay UN-
supervised elections as long as possible ‘in the hope that further and more
aggressive military strikes against SWAPO, coupled to continued de facto
government by the moderate Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, would turn the
tide…’ (Du Pisani 1986: 454).
Despite the breakdown at Geneva, negotiations continued and achie-
ved, step-by-step, what was necessary for the eventual implementation of
Resolution 435 (Vergau 2002a: 237). For Vergau, the continued negotiations
21 Report back from the 1981 Geneva Conference by J. S. Kirkpatrick, chairman and repre-
sentative of the Federal Party of Namibia, who attended the talks in the South African
delegation (Namibia Peace Plan 1987: 67-68 and 69). For the South African government’s
confidence that the US would veto any resolution on sanctions in the Security Council see
esp. State Security Council minutes, 2 February 1981.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
86
of the WCG during 1981 and 1982, which included frequent visits to south-
ern Africa and Nigeria, were a ‘proved method’ of intensive diplomacy. The
achievement in July 1982 of agreed Constitutional Principles and a UN ‘im-
partiality package’
22
might have been a turning point, had concentrated
political pressure been applied by the Western Five. Instead, much of the
1980s was influenced by the South African-backed US demand that only a
withdrawal of Cuban forces from neighbouring Angola would allow for a
transition to independence in Namibia. ‘Linkage’ effectively translated un-
der the given circumstances into ‘blockage’, and ‘constructive engagement’
as advocated by the Reagan administration meant that ‘the United States
became the defender of South African interests’ (Sparks and Green 1990: 45).
As a result of its disagreement with the imposition of the ‘linkage’ on the
Namibia issue, France announced in December 1983 its suspension of mem-
bership in the WCG while emphasising its continued support for imple-
mentation of Resolution 435.
23
Linkage helped delay Namibian independence for six years. Vergau
(2002a: 237-38) believes that the agreements ultimately achieved in New
York on 22 December 1988 between Angola and Cuba and between Angola,
Cuba and South Africa, were less a result of ‘linkage’-policy as of decisive
changes in Soviet policy and increased external pressure, as well as the in-
ternal legitimacy crisis of the Apartheid regime. This is in sharp contrast to
the view that Chester Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African Af-
fairs from 1981 to 1989, ‘patiently mediated an agreement’ after years of ‘a
mutual hurting stalemate, and hence productive negotiations, had eluded
the parties’ (Zartman 2001: 11). In the negotiations leading to the decision to
implement the plan, SWAPO was not directly involved as a signatory to the
documents. Negotiations and ultimate agreements were officially confined
to the Angolan, Cuban and South African governments, the parties consid-
ered to be relevant for a regionally oriented conflict solution at that time.
In its efforts to underscore its claim to have been the ultimate force of
liberation through the barrel of a gun, SWAPO maintained that ‘the intensi-
fication of the armed liberation struggle for the last 22 years has finally made
South Africa seek a negotiated solution to Namibia’s independence problem
and avert a humiliating military defeat that would shatter its dreams of
being the so-called regional superpower’.
24
In fact, the emphasis on the mili-
22 As documented in UNSC documents S/15287 and S/20635 respectively.
23 As Vergau (2006, 80-81) insists, this was more a tactical and temporary retreat, which he
calls a ‘policy of the empty seat’, but not a complete withdrawal from the WCG.
24 The Combatant, 10, 5 (1988): 7. This was the last issue of the organ of the People’s Libera-
tion Army of Namibia (PLAN), which for ten years published news from the battlefield on
a regular basis.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
87
tary dimension attached to the liberation struggle almost derailed the final
transition to independence. Following 1 April 1989, the day of the imple-
mentation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 (1978), over
three hundred SWAPO combatants gathered in Northern Namibia were
massacred, many of them in cold blood, by South African troops in spite of
the ceasefire agreement.
25
A crisis meeting was held at Mount Etjo, north of
Windhoek, at which a solution was agreed. This signalled once again that
the implementation of a process of decolonisation in Namibia was as much
the responsibility of regional and international actors as it was the decision
of the direct opponents.
26
Conflict mediation in the Namibian case
For the WCG’s efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement between the parties
in conflict between 1977/78 and 1982 the term ‘coalition intermediary’ seems
valid. As Jabri points out, third parties taking up the intermediary role may
be interested in the substantive content of the conflict and may even be biased
towards one of the parties. The primary aim of an intermediary is finding a
way to settle the conflict acceptable to all parties. In pursuance of that goal,
the WCG adopted ‘tactics primarily at the bargaining end of the spectrum’,
but also used threat and reward tactics to gain concessions. By making ‘link-
age’ a precondition for the implementation of Resolution 435, it used the
intermediary role to promote its own interests (Jabri 1990: 9-10, 174-56). But
coalition mediation as an intervention had a different meaning and purpose
after 1982, when all essential pieces for implementation of Resolution 435
were effectively in place. The United States became dominant in the process
and the US-motivated ‘linkage’ was clearly not based on consensus in the
WCG. While Crocker essentially ignored SWAPO, the West German gov-
ernment maintained contact with it, and tried to mediate between it and the
United States. Genscher’s support for a solution under the originally defined
framework motivated him, for example, to promote contact between
25 Only the Kassinga massacre took a higher toll of Namibian lives as a single event in
SWAPO’s struggle for the independence of Namibia. For an unashamedly biased pro-
South African description of the events see Stiff (1989); for a more objective account see
Lamb (1992: 135-144). We will address this episode in detail in another paper, which will
highlight the ambiguities reflected in this tragedy, which did not leave anyone ‘innocent’
except the killed combatants.
26 The Mount Etjo Declaration of 9 April 1989 is reproduced in Dreyer (1994: 284-286). The
United States, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Cuba, Angola and the other frontline states
all participated in the meeting, but notably not SWAPO (see also Vergau 2006: 86-89).
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
88
SWAPO and the German speaking community in Namibia, a valuable con-
fidence-building measure.
27
As Jabri says,
the European members of the Contact Group became primarily mediators
between the United States administration and the parties directly involved
in the conflict. […] The lack of consultation between group members meant
that the Contact Group had essentially ceased to function as a collective
mediator by the end of 1982 and into 1983. As such, later negotiations
which finally led to agreement on the linkage issue were primarily a result
of Chester Crocker’s activity as opposed of being the outcome of the me-
diation led by the WCG (Jabri 1993: 68-69).
‘Linkage’ almost derailed a process of mediation through a method of miti-
gating the concerns by an intermediary who is not party to the conflict: the
intermediary serves as both a buffer and a bridge between the antagonists,
ameliorating the anger and suspicion that prevent them from addressing, in
a co-operative manner, the substantive issues in dispute. The parties’ com-
mon trust in the mediator offsets their mutual distrust and raises their confi-
dence in negotiations. As has been suggested on the basis of the political
settlement in South Africa,
the importance of having negotiators who can negotiate both general prin-
ciples and detailed implementation cannot be emphasized enough. Nego-
tiating teams should be made up of both ‘technicians’ and ‘diplomats’.
‘Diplomats’ are negotiators who have a special capacity to secure broad
agreement on matters of principle. The problem of ‘diplomats’, though, is
that they are often not the appropriate people to hold the ground won in
negotiations on matters of principle. Ultimately, it is details that ground an
agreement and secure its implementation (Haysom 2002: 36).
28
27 This was done mainly through the Interessengemeinschaft Deutschsprachiger Südwester (cf.
Vergau 2006: 81-83). Genscher’s commitment to Resolution 435 was harshly criticised by
the more conservative coalition partners in the FRG government (in particular Franz Josef
Strauss, leader of the Bavarian CSU) and by some German-speaking ‘South-Westers’.
Hadino Hishongwa, SWAPO representative for the Nordic countries, West Germany and
Austria in the late 1970s and early 1980s, called Genscher ‘a good man. He was able to meet
and discuss with me. First privately and later – I think that it was in 1980-81 – we finally
discussed officially. His interest was to connect German citizens in Namibia with SWAPO.
He realized that the support to DTA and other elements was not to bear fruit. Genscher
was really generous’ (Sellström 1999: 69). Genscher is the only WCG politician to have had
a street named after him in Namibia: Hans Dietrich Genscher Street runs past parts of the
former township and SWAPO headquarters.
28 Vergau repeatedly emphasized a similar view in the interview with him, according to
which the politicians were at times more part of the problem (as ‘unguided missiles’) than
contributing to its solution.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
89
The Namibian case is used by I. W. Zartman and others as an example for
the ‘notion of ripeness’ in regard to negotiations. Zartman follows rather
uncritically Chester Crocker’s account to substantiate his view (Zartman
2001: 8-18, Crocker 1992) and does not consider if ‘ripeness’ might have been
applicable at a much earlier moment in time, in this case, say, prior to the
introduction of ‘linkage’. As we have tried to suggest, the compromising
attitude of the WCG (or actually its governments’ foreign policy preferences
as represented by the ministerial level) vis-à-vis South Africa encouraged the
Botha government to pursue a double track strategy and allowed it to play
for time by applying delaying tactics again and again. After an initial period
of coercion (to commit South Africa at least formally to negotiations over the
independence of Namibia to avoid ‘stern action’), the ‘carrot and stick’
method did not work, because the stick was abandoned by late 1978. How
confidence-building could have fulfilled a more constructive function re-
mains speculative, however, for given the character and nature of South
African politics of the time, it is doubtful whether any non-coercive media-
tion would have achieved more compromises.
29
Laurie Nathan has defined mediation as a process of dialogue and ne-
gotiation in which a third party helps disputants, with their consent, to
manage or resolve conflict. Through confidence-building measures, the me-
diator facilitates dialogue and joint problem solving, and does not pressure
the disputants to reach a settlement. On the other hand, state mediators
‘focus more on solutions than process. They endeavour to win the parties’
consent to their proposals and press for rapid results. The most extreme
version of this approach entails the applications of sanctions or military
force.’ (Nathan 1999: 3, 12) In the Namibian case, however, it is doubtful that
South Africa could have been forced to compromise in the early 1980s by
either the threat of sanctions or the application of sanctions if it had not
complied.
The way Namibia was decolonised did help promote a process of con-
trolled change in South Africa itself. Had Resolution 435 been implemented
earlier, this might not have been the case. By the time President de Klerk
delivered his February 1990 speech, he knew that the Namibian transition
had produced a result that his government could live with, that Namibia
would have a liberal democratic constitution that would provide guarantees
for minorities, and that there would not be a mass exodus of whites to South
Africa. If the Namibian transition had become unstuck, he would not have
acted so boldly, signalling a readiness to negotiate a new democratic order
(Saunders 2001: 7). The lesson drawn by the South African government, once
29 On the other hand, SWAPO managed to considerably strengthen its image among some
WCG members (cf. Green 1995: 211, also Vergau 2006).
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
90
the UN Special Representative permitted South African troops to act against
the combatants in April 1989, was that the international community would
be likely to be even-handed in relation to future change in South Africa it-
self.
Mediation style and strategy
The Namibian example provides evidence for the argument that the process
of decolonisation was first and foremost a case of power brokerage, with
partial elements of confidence-building. This had several negative conse-
quences, which can be summarised with explicit reference to the proposi-
tions presented by Nathan, which we now relate to the Namibian case.
Firstly, the UN as a multinational body is vulnerable to partisan inter-
ests articulated within its structures and operations. Differing interests can
impede mediation efforts, especially if these are guided by and a result of
decisions by its member states in the General Assembly and – more impor-
tantly – the Security Council. If the UN is a diplomatic arena in which the
conflict is played out in an adversarial fashion, decisive initiative and action
is limited, and the danger of paralysis by divisions enhanced. The formal or
informal veto of a permanent member state of the Security Council can block
a rigorous pursuance of a certain course. The existence of disparate interests
within the mediating body can be exploited by the different parties in the
conflict for their own interests and can consequently contribute to an exacer-
bation of the conflict.
Secondly, any sign of bias by a mediating agency adds to the lack of
confidence and strengthens the refusal to cooperate with the mediator. The
South African government and its local allies in Namibia resented the UN’s
claim of being an impartial body, on the grounds, among others, that the
General Assembly had passed a series of resolutions perceived to be in fa-
vour of SWAPO and culminating in the recognition of the liberation move-
ment as the exclusive agency of the Namibian people. On the other hand, the
WCG was originally perceived by SWAPO not as a legitimate UN initiative,
but a diplomatic manoeuvre to maintain the group’s particular interests,
which were considered to be close to those of the South African government.
Thirdly, any sign of partisan support by a mediating agency for one of
the parties encourages that party’s tendency towards non-cooperation. Its
intransigence grows with the power of the allied actor within the mediating
agency. US policy under the Reagan administration represented South Afri-
can interests in a way that encouraged South Africa non-compliance with
the overall expectations created by the WCG on behalf of the UN. This re-
sulted in a considerable delay in the implementation of a process agreed
upon in principle.
Conflict mediation in decolonisation: Namibia’s transition to independence
91
Fourthly, the direct parties in the conflict ought to own the settlement
and need to be directly involved at all stages. Otherwise the lack of clarity
and the missing degree of ownership in agreements, which are shaped for
but not necessarily embraced by the disputants, might contribute to grave
misunderstandings with serious consequences, including the risk of being
breached. SWAPO was not a signatory to the protocols concluded in 1988,
paving the way for the implementation of Resolution 435 (1978). The incur-
sion into Namibian territory immediately before the Peace Plan became
effective – which threatened to derail the transitional process before it had
really started – was at least to a certain degree the disastrous consequence of
keeping one party in the conflict to some extent ignorant (or able to claim
ignorance) of developments.
Could a stronger confidence-building approach to mediation or greater
coercive pressure have been more successful? Was the long delay in reach-
ing a settlement mainly the responsibility of the mediators? Although, as in
most cases, the lack of success was at different stages attributable to different
parties involved, the ultimate responsibility must lie with the South African
government for its refusal to agree to the implementation of Resolution 435.
What can be asserted with some degree of confidence is that mediation re-
quired as a necessary pre-requisite the parties’ consent and acceptance of the
mediators. As a result of the earlier negotiations, UNTAG succeeded be-
cause the basic elements of ‘host-state consent’ and prior commitments by
the parties to the maintenance of a peace they had already established were
fully present. In this setting the purpose of a UN presence is clearly pre-
scribed and fairly easily carried through – even when its role is as complex
and multifunctional as it was in Namibia (Macqueen 2002: 121). In such
ways, the Namibian example may have lessons for other cases of conflict
mediation.
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Zusammenfassung
In Namibia wurde ein langwieriger Konflikt erfolgreich durch einen Vermitt-
lungsprozess gelöst, der die Möglichkeit eröffnete, dass eine faktische Kolonie
durch eine international überwachte Wahl zu einem souveränen Staat werden
konnte. Die Autoren des vorliegenden Beitrags betrachten das wechselseitige
Verhältnis zwischen dem Vermittlungsprozess und der Dekolonisation in die-
sem speziellen Fall, der zwar in vielerlei Hinsicht Besonderheiten aufweist, aber
dennoch einige generelle Schlussfolgerungen zulässt. Sie vermitteln die fallweise
Anwendung vertrauensbildender Maßnahmen, die unterschiedlichen Methoden
von Vermittlergruppen, Druck auszuüben, und wie wichtig es war, dass alle
beteiligten Konfliktparteien den Verlauf als von ihnen selbst bestimmt ansehen
konnten.
Henning Melber / Christopher Saunders
94
Schlüsselwörter
Namibia, Unabhängigkeit, Konfliktmediation, Dekolonisation
Résumé
Le long conflit en Namibie a été résolu grâce à une médiation réussie qui a per-
mis à une colonie de fait de devenir un Etat souverain via des élections soumises
à un contrôle international. Les auteurs de cet article analysent la relation entre
médiation du conflit et décolonisation dans ce cas particulier qui, bien que
contenant de nombreuses spécificités, permet néanmoins de tirer des conclusions
générales. Les auteurs montrent comment des mesures de rétablissement de la
confiance ont été appliquées, étudient les différentes méthodes utilisées par les
médiateurs pour faire pression et soulignent combien il a été important que
toutes les parties du conflit puissent s’approprier le processus de résolution du
conflit.
Mots clés
Namibie, indépendance, médiation de conflit, décolonisation
____________________________________________________________________
Henning Melber (Ph.D. Bremen) joined SWAPO in 1974 and was banned from re-entering
Namibia until mid-1989. He was Director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit
(NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992 to 2000), Research Director of the Nordic Africa Institute
(2000 to 2006) and is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation since then.
Christopher Saunders (D.Phil. Oxon) grew up in Cape Town, where he teaches at the
Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town. He has written widely
on South African history and politics, and is preparing a monograph on the way in which
Namibia moved to independence.
