Cease-Fire Flop

A conference ends in disarray

The grim gray cold that assaulted delegates as they left Geneva's snow-covered Palais des Nations matched their spirits. After a week of deliberations, the United Nations-sponsored conference on the future of Namibia (South West Africa) had ended in acrimony. South Africa, which has administered the former German territory since 1920, once again rejected a Western proposal to end the civil war that has wrenched mineral-rich Namibia for more than a decade. Concluded Britain's Brian Urquhart, the U.N. Under Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, who ran the conference: "A great opportunity was missed."

A key participant in the talks was Sam Nujoma, president of the insurgent, Marxist-oriented South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), which the U.N. has recognized as "the authentic representative of the Namibian people." Nujoma was ready to sign a supervised cease-fire agreement that would end fighting between 7,000 to 8,000 SWAPO rebels and 20,000 South African troops in Namibia by March 31. U.N.-supervised elections, to be held seven months later, would lead to eventual independence. Despite the U.N.'s endorsement of SWAPO, he said that his organization would accept "equal status" in the election campaign with Namibian political parties sponsored by South Africa.

But even with Nujoma's concessions, the South African-led Namibian delegation rejected the cease-fire proposal on the ground that the U.N. was biased toward SWAPO. Dirk Mudge, chairman of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, the multiracial coalition that currently dominates Namibia's Pretoria-backed administration, contended that a cease-fire now would be premature. In fact, what really worried Mudge and the South Africans was that SWAPO would defeat the Turnhalle Alliance in a free and fair election.

As the conference ended, Nujoma declared, "We'll go back to our bases and resume our fight until final victory." By week's end the violence had claimed more lives: five civilians were killed and two wounded when their truck hit a guerrilla land mine 30 miles from the Angolan border. Nujoma also vowed to renew his demands that the U.N. Security Council follow up its 1977 arms embargo against South Africa with economic sanctions. Britain, which has opposed such extreme measures in the past, has indicated that it might vote for a sanctions resolution. That might leave a veto up to the U.S.--and thus provide the Reagan Administration with one of its first tough foreign policy tests. qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.