Contact Africa
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400211 |
| Author | Grant Dawson |
| Subject Matter | Over the Transom |
Grant Dawson
Contact Africa
Canadian foreign policy, the contact group, and southern Africa
| International Journal | Spring 2009 | 521 |
“Verona found Sam.”1This opening to a May 1977 telex helped further an
intense and genuine foreign policy engagement in southern Africa by
Canada and other western powers on the United Nations security council.
Canada and West Germany were months into two-year temporary terms and
were, along with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France,
participating in a diplomatic “contact group” (also called the “five”). Canada
had been included by the others because of its council seat.2The group, an
initiative of President Jimmy Carter, had come together in March to find an
Grant Dawson is deputy director of the David Davies memorial institute in the department
of international politics, Aberystwyth Universit y, Wales, and the author of Here is Hell:
Canada’s Engagement in Somalia (2007). The author wishes to thank the IJ’s peer
reviewers, as well as William Barton, Mihaela Ciocarlan, Verona Edelstein, Robert Fowler,
Steve Harris , Paul Lapointe, Donald McHenry, Henry Miller, and the DFAIT historical
section for their kind support and assistance.
1 Author’s interview with Ambassador Verona Edelstein, former counsello r and
alternate representative on the UN security council, 16 April 2008.
2 J.R. Francis, External Affairs memorandum to Anglophone Africa division, “Canada
and the security council: The first six months,” 28 July 1977, 4, DFAIT file 10794, part 7.
| Grant Dawson |
| 522 | Spring 2009 | International Journal |
internationally acceptable solution to the problem of Namibia, which South
Africa was administering in defiance of world opinion—as defined by a 1966
United Nations general assembly resolution revoking South Africa’s League
of Nations mandate over the territory, and a 1971 International Court of
Justice advisory opinion that found its presence to be illegal. The solution,
embodied in council resolution 385, 31 January 1976, called for Namibia’s
transition to independence and majority-rule after United Nations-supervised
and -controlled elections.3The group was not formally a part of the security
council or the United Nations, but its members planned to ask the
organization to deploy peacekeepers to handle implementation.
To get to that point, the group needed to find Sam. The president of the
South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), Sam Nujoma had
avoided meeting the group and could not be found in April or May when
they s ought to give him a n initial working paper. Nujoma’s support was
crucial because SWAPO was Namibia’s leading liberation movement. The
general assembly had recognized SWAPO as the sole and authentic
representative of the Namibian people.4And suddenly, there he was, in the
VIP lounge of Maputo airport, Mozambique. Nujoma was in Maputo for the
United Nations international conference in support of the peoples of
Zimbabwe and Namibia, 16-21 May, and Verona Edelstein of Canada’s
permanent mission to the United Nations had found him. She received
instructions from all five governments to convince Nujoma to meet the group
in Map uto. With th e help o f Salim Sali m, Tanzania’s ambassad or to t he
United Nations, who took a great personal risk as a representative of a
socialist state in encouraging the western initiative, she managed to do so.
3 United Nat ions general assembly resolution 2145 (XXI), 27 October 1966, para. 4;
International Court of Justice, “Legal consequences for states of the continued presence
of South Africa in Namibia (S outh-West Africa), notwithstandin g security council
resolution 276, 1970,” advisory opinion of 21 June 1971; and United Nations, S/RES/385,
31 January 1976, paras. 7-8.
4 Canadian diplomats had resisted this idea in the past. See United Nations general
assembly resolut ion 3295 (XXIX), 13 December 1974: para. 2; and P.A. Bissonnette,
“Canada on the security council,” telex UNO-358 to permanent mission in New York,
24 February 1977, and its attachment: “Canada and the security council: Major issues
likely to come before the security council of the United Nations in 1977,” 6-7, cited in
DFAIT file 10794, part 5.
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