108. Telegram From the Department of State to the Mission to the United Nations and the Consulate in Cape Town1
62116. Cape Town for Embassy. Subject: Namibia: US Response to Botha’s March 5 Letter.2
1. (C–entire text)
2. The Acting Secretary met March 13 with South African Ambassador Sole to hand over US response to South African Foreign Minister Botha’s letter of March 5, 1978 [1979]. Our response rejects Botha’s allegations of bad faith and deception leveled at members of Contact Group and the UN Secretariat. The Acting Secretary advised Sole that Secretary Vance had asked him to respond to Botha’s March 5 letter and pointed out that the Secretary had approved the text of both the letter to Foreign Minister Botha and the annex.
[Page 289]3. After scanning the letter and the annex,3 Sole said he wanted to make the general comment that in his view the most difficult problem facing the world today is one of communication. He said that it was his impression that Foreign Minister Botha was persuaded that the UN had deceived South Africa. In this connection, Sole made a rather obscure reference to the fact that the Afrikaaners as a group tended to be somewhat naive. The implications of this remark were unclear. It might mean either that Sole believes Botha had been too trusting in the fairness of the Western negotiators or that, as a parochial people, the Afrikaaners did not understand the give and take of a difficult negotiation.
4. Sole noted that he had just returned from a meeting with Pik Botha in Zurich attended by South African diplomats from Western Europe and the Americas, and he reported that Botha feels very strongly that he has not been treated honestly. Botha also made clear, according to Sole, that the two issues in question, namely, effective monitoring of SWAPO bases in neighboring countries and the inadmissability of SWAPO bases in Namibia are “not negotiable for South Africa.” Despite this very firm statement, Sole then proceeded to imply that there could be some flexibility on the South African side. He recounted that during his October 1978 visit to Namibia, he had encountered grave suspicion of Western favoritism of SWAPO. As far as bases were concerned, he noted that if there were “200 or so armed SWAPO people in Namibia” the Five believe that they should be confined in the country. However, Sole pointed out that the local tribal forces must surrender all of their arms and be disbanded. These forces would feel discriminated against, if SWAPO were allowed to maintain its arms under UN monitoring. (Comment: Sole appeared to be implying that there could be some trade-off here between a small SWAPO base under UN monitoring and the maintenance of the ethnic forces, also under UN monitoring. End comment)
5. Turning to the question of monitoring SWAPO bases, Sole pointed out that Namibia’s northern frontier was 1,000 miles long and that you would need one man every ten meters to monitor it effectively, i.e., roughly 160000 men by Sole’s calculation, while UNTAG would have no more than 2,500 men on the border and would thus be unable to control SWAPO infiltration.
6. Sole said he reckoned that as many as 7,500 armed SWAPO personnel would come across the border into Namibia and then request to be restricted at bases there under UN monitoring. Both during the [Page 290] meeting, and during a subsequent discussion, we attempted to point out to Sole that this behavior by SWAPO would be a very serious breach of the cease-fire and that the United States and the other members of the Contact Group would surely not defend SWAPO should it behave in this manner. As usual, Sole appeared receptive to our arguments, but it remains to be seen whether we would be able to satisfy the SAG on this point.
7. The Acting Secretary pointed out that we provided a very detailed and careful response to Foreign Minister Botha’s charges both because of the seriousness of the charges themselves and because of the importance we attach to finding a solution to the Namibia problem. He explained that we see the proposed Proximity Talks as providing a forum for the resolution of the remaining problems, and stressed in this connection our view that it would be most desirable to put an end to public recriminations regarding alleged deviousness and duplicity. Sole said he could not agree more with the Acting Secretary as regards the latter point but then added that Nigeria’s participation in the Proximity Talks would not set well with South Africa. (See septel4 for discussion of this issue and timing of South African response to invitation to Proximity Talks.)
8. In conclusion, the Acting Secretary called attention to the unfair and highly personal attacks on Ambassador Donald McHenry which have appeared in the South African press. He told Sole that we do not regard these attacks as being only against Ambassador McHenry, but also see them as aimed at the United States Government. The Acting Secretary said that we were very concerned about these attacks and asked that Sole report his concern and that of the Secretary to Foreign Minister Botha. Sole agreed to do so and said he personally deeply regretted these attacks. He said that he had never had any doubt about the honesty of Ambassador McHenry, whom he said he had known for many years.
9. At the conclusion of the meeting, the Acting Secretary expressed to Sole our grave concern over developments in Rhodesia. Sole said that this concern was fully shared by the Government of South Africa and noted that during his meeting in Zurich with Foreign Minister Botha March 9, Botha had said that the “fullest possible pressures” had been put on Ian Smith to persuade him not to run in the April 20 elections. Smith’s decision to do so, despite South Africa’s views, had been the cause of a “deep disappointment” in Cape Town, Sole noted.
[Page 291]10. Text of Acting Secretary’s letter to Botha and annex will be sent to Cape Town and USUN. In view of length of document, we do not plan to send it to other addressee posts unless posts specifically request it.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790116–1158. Confidential; Immediate; Exdis. Drafted by Niles; cleared by John H. Trattner (D), and Paul Hare (AF/S); approved by Maynes. Sent for information Immediate to Bonn, London, Ottawa, Paris, Lagos, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Gaborone, and Pretoria.↩
- See Document 107.↩
- In telegram 62937 to Cape Town, March 14, the Department transmitted the letter from Christopher and the annex. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790118–0390)↩
- Telegram 61960 to USUN and Cape Town, March 13. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790116–0972)↩