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37 chapter 2 Neto, Castro, and Carter A New Beginning? Carter and Southern Africa Jimmy Carter assumed office in January 1977 determined to reestablish the prestige of the United States in Africa, shattered by the Angolan fiasco. The appointment of civil rights leader Andrew Young as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations with cabinet rank—the first African American to be appointed to a senior foreign policy position in the U.S. government—was a symbol to Africans of the new administration’s priorities. In no other region of the world did U.S. interests appear as threatened as in southern Africa. One of the first Presidential Review Memoranda of the new administration (PRM 4) was devoted to Rhodesia, Namibia, and South Africa. “Violent resistance by blacks against efforts by whites indefinitely to maintain their domination in Rhodesia, Namibia or South Africa,” it warned, “would increase the chances of increased Communist influence, major power confrontation in the area and a kind of involvement on our part which the American people do not want and do not support. Our policies for southern Africa . . . will have a major impact on our relations with Africa and will affect our position in the United Nations and other international forums.”¹ Carter and his principal advisers intended to push Rhodesia toward majority rule, help achieve independence for Namibia, and “promote a gradual transformation of South African society”² that would lead to the end of apartheid. “In terms of urgency, the Rhodesian problem is the highest priority,” PRM 4 stated.³ It was there that the guerrillas were strongest, and they faced an intrinsically weak regime (fewer than 300,000 whites among more than 6 million black Africans). Rhodesia received the immediate attention of the president, and his point man for Rhodesia was none other than Young himself. 38 Neto, Castro, and Carter Namibia, on the other hand, had a weaker insurgency, and it faced the South African Defence Force, not the Rhodesian army. But, as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance wrote, “Even though the Namibia conflict was not as urgent or inflammable as the escalating war in Rhodesia, there were important reasons for revitalizing the flagging negotiations.” One reason was to forestall a South African fait accompli. “The South Africans,” PRM 4 noted, “have given increased priority to an ‘internal solution through the Turnhalle framework.’”⁴ The committee appointed by the Turnhalle conference to draft a constitution had almost completed its work by the time Carter was inaugurated. The next step would be countrywide elections under South African control followed by the establishment of a government that would lead Namibia to independence in name only. This was Pretoria’s “internal settlement”: elections and independence under South African, not UN, supervision. It “would preserve white control,” Vice President Walter Mondale said, “and in our view result in prolonged civil war.”⁵ It would also, U.S. officials feared, lead to greater Soviet and Cuban involvement in the war and heighten international pressure on Pretoria’s major commercial and financial partners—the United States and its West European allies—to impose sanctions on South Africa. Sanctions would hurt important Western economic interests and anger many Americans and West Europeans. Opposing sanctions, however, would precipitate “an early confrontation between Western countries and black African governments.”⁶ In order to escape this dilemma the United States needed to devise a Namibian solution that would be acceptable to both South Africa and SWAPO and that would also provide for free elections under UN supervision. At a March 3, 1977, National Security Council (NSC) meeting, Andrew Young offered a proposal: the representatives of the five Western members of the UN Security Council —West Germany and Canada in addition to the United States, France, and England—would begin meeting to “develop a common strategy and set up a committee to talk to the South Africans about Resolution 385.”⁷ Thus was born the Contact Group, also known as the Western Five or, more simply, the Five. Young’s deputy, Ambassador Donald McHenry, became the group’s de facto chairman. The Contact Group negotiated with Pretoria, with SWAPO, and with the Frontline States (FLS)—Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, and Botswana, plus Nigeria. “We wanted to keep them [the FLS] informed and to enlist their support to apply pressure on SWAPO,” McHenry recalled.⁸ The administration also intended to move toward establishing diplomatic relations with Angola. It was part of a more general approach that included establishing relations with Vietnam and Cuba. Vance...

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