129. Memorandum From Secretary of State Muskie to President Carter 1

1. Namibia: South Africa yesterday accepted the U.N. Secretary General’s proposal for an all-parties “pre-implementation meeting” on the UN Plan for Namibian independence. The meeting would be held January 7–14. South Africa has agreed that if “trust and confidence” can be established among the parties, implementation of the U.N. Plan can start by March 1, 1981, with a view to independence by the end of the year.

Although we consider South African acceptance of the implementation date a significant achievement, representatives of the Front Line States in New York are skeptical about the South African linkage of implementation to the prior establishment of “trust and confidence.” These Front Line States envoys won’t block the meeting, but they apparently want to go ahead with the U.N. General Assembly debate on Namibia, scheduled to begin early next week. We have instructed our Embassies in the Front Line States to join their colleagues from the Western Contact Group in demarches urging delay of the debate. Although it is the Security Council and not the General Assembly which will supervise the U.N. plan, we fear that the inevitable hard-line African statements and resolutions in the General Assembly could prompt South Africa to withdraw its agreement to the pre-implementation meeting and the implementation date, on the grounds of U.N. partiality to SWAPO.2 (C)

[Omitted here is material unrelated to Namibia.]

  1. Source: Carter Library, Plains File, Subject File, Box 41, State Department Evening Reports, 11/80. Secret. Carter initialed the memorandum at the top of the first page.
  2. Carter wrote in the left-hand margin next to this paragraph: “South Africa has no intention of reaching an agreement re Namibia.”