”A situation where you could show some decency”: Nordic relations to liberation in Southern Africa

By Reinhart Kössler

 

 

Review of the Nordic Africa Institute’s book series on solidarity history

Tore Linné Eriksen (ed.), Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Uppsala, Nordiska Africa Institutet, 2000, 416 pp.

Christopher Munte Morgenstierne, Denmark and National Liberation in Southern Africa. A Flexible Response, Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet,2003, 142 pp.

Tor Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Vol. I: Formation of a popular opinion 1950-1970, Uppsala, Nordiska Africa Institutet, 1999, 541 pp.

Tor Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Vol. II: Solidarity and Assistance 1970-1994, Uppsala: Nordiska Africa Institutet, 2002, 912 pp.

Tor Sellström (ed.), Liberation in Southern Africa. Regional and Swedish Voices, Uppsala, Nordiska Africa Institutet, 2002 (1999), 365 pp.

Iina Soiri, Pekka Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Uppsala, Nordiska Africa Institutet, 1999, 213 pp.[1]

 

Whoever had reason, during the past few decades, to deal somewhat more closely with solidarity work related to southern Africa, could hardly escape the impression that the situation was very uneven across the various Western countries. From a (West) German perspective, the experience was that taking sides against colonialism and apartheid and advocating national liberation may have been a position that commanded a certain perfunctory respect in some quarters, while generally, the solidarity movement remained marginalised and was even criminalised in certain instances. Definitely, this state of affairs was by no means a foregone conclusion. This was brought home to the world at large as early as the mid-1960s when a life cabinet minister participated in a demonstration against the war in Vietnam which was staged in the streets of Stockholm.

Conversely, the contrast between Sweden and, say, West Germany should also be seen as a reminder that the fact of massive, state-sponsored support given to the liberation movements in southern Africa by Nordic countries from between the beginning and the middle of the 1970s may be indicative of the range of political culture present in various Western societies during this period. It is a task for social science curiosity to enquire into the causes of such clear divergences, where in a case like West Germany, to secure legitimacy for “development aid” has always been a problem, while inversely, an adequate funding of support for liberation movements seems to have been a basis for legitimacy for successive Swedish governments of varying party affiliation. Furthermore, co-operation and interaction with all the representative organisations and most of the political leaders of liberation movements and majority governments in southern Africa during the last few decades forms an important background for understanding the upheavals which led to the final defeat of attempts to defend colonial and racist rule in the south of the continent. Moreover, the trajectories that can be mapped in this way may also yield hints for a better understanding of developments under independence and majority rule dispensations.

While all publications to be reviewed here stress that the actual task of writing the histories of liberation movements will be incumbent on African historians in each of the countries concerned, this cannot reasonably expected to happen in the near future in the depth and breadth presented here. Thus, the studies on the roles played by Nordic countries will be of great importance also in this respect. This is the case all the more since not only have the research projects been officially funded, but researchers also had access to official, formerly classified material before the lapse of the conventional blocking period. Further, many of the authors themselves have been involved in solidarity work for many years and thus can also draw on their own experience.

 

The overall project has been co-ordinated by Tor Sellström, but the formats vary rather widely, as does the volume of the contributions. Sellström, himself actively engaged in southern Africa for many years as an official of SIDA, has supplied the core of the entire enterprise in two truly monumental volumes. These are supplemented further by a volume of 82 interviews conducted with a broad range of political actors from southern Africa and Sweden. The Norwegian contribution is organised as an edited volume, which also makes for important topical complements, and the Finnish contributions also opens a few additional perspectives. In this way, the Nordic countries are presented not as uniform, but rather as individual actors with clear nuances in emphasis and also in the trajectory leading up to a widely shared public consensus about supporting the liberation movements. This applies both to the point in time when support was initiated and to the intensity of commitment by the public; further, emphasis on particular countries as well as co-operation with and support for particular organisations within the liberation movements shows clear variations.

 

Consistent Swedish support

The two volumes on Sweden authored by Sellström also supply a frame of reference for the other studies. In stunning detail which at times makes some difficult reading, he recounts first, the strong public interest that existed in Sweden for southern Africa, and for South Africa in particular, during the 1950s and 1960s and which was linked to a consistent rejection of and growing against the apartheid system. In this, reports by missionaries and a few journalists who had travelled to the region were particularly important. The Sharpeville massacre and stiffened up repression in South Africa and Namibia during the early 1960s further turned public attention to what happened in this seemingly far removed region. The same is true of the arrival of some students from the region who, on Swedish initiative, had been given scholarships and at the same time, acted as representatives of their organisations in Sweden and also generally in Western Europe. Even before that, when blacks in South Africa had been stripped of opportunities to study this had led a few circles in Sweden, chiefly among student representatives, to initiate some supportive action on a modest scale. On a rather different level, experiences by Swedish sailors who in South African ports got into conflict with the Immorality Act, and a similar case involving the well-known author Sara Lidman, all exerted a strong influence on public opinion.

Boycott action set in from the early 1960s, with the important participation of consumer co-operatives. At May 1 rallies, representatives of liberation movements, initially from Namibia and South Africa, came to be frequent speakers. There were also first initiatives for support committees specially geared to the region. These early departures received a considerable boost when, on Swedish initiative, the Peace Nobel Prize of 1961 was awarded to Albert Luthuli, at that time the president of the ANC of South Africa. There were also the first visits of prominent representatives of liberation movements, such as Oliver Tambo of ANC or FRELIMO’s first president, Eduardo Mondlane. Such contacts resulted in first requests for state-sponsored support, over and above existing scholarships for students seeking asylum. One particularly important target of such early support was the Moçambique Institute in Dar es Salaam, headed by Janet Mondlane. At its inception, the Institute had been funded by the Ford Foundation, but this was discontinued due to political pressure from inside the US. Here, Sweden stepped in.

 

Overall, there was a marked shift of emphasis during the mid-1960s. On the one hand, the war in Vietnam increasingly absorbed attention and commitment, and on the other, this created and re-enforced an image of a liberation movement in control of at least some ”liberated areas” in which it purported to anticipate social relations of a more just, liberated society that after military would spread to the entire country. In Africa, there were mainly the movements in the countries then still occupied by Portuguese colonialism, where besides FRELIMO it was in particular PAIGC who, despite the very limited size of Guinea Bissau on the fringe of West Africa stood out, not least in account of the stature of its president Amilcar Cabral, who was instrumental in projecting the image of a self-conscious, theoretically sophisticated African revolutionary leader. This shift in emphasis resulted in the dissolution of some of the fledgling organisations that had sprung up in Sweden during the preceding years, before a ”new generation” of the solidarity movement set in from about 1970 onwards. At the same time, the struggles against Portuguese colonialism received most of the spotlight at a time when in South Africa the apartheid regime was able to consolidate its hold by brutal repression and considerable economic expansion, in co-operation with many Western countries. Also, the kind of liberated areas many members of solidarity movements where looking for as an authenticating proof of bona fide liberation movements could hardly appear as a feasible proposition in the south of the continent, both for geographical reasons and on account of the much higher degree of urbanisation which prevailed in South Africa already at this time. Further, Swedish government policy towards the problem of liberation in southern Africa was informed decisively by the basic strategic orientation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which favoured a kind of domino theory where first, Portuguese colonial rule would have to be overcome, to be followed by the liberation Zimbabwe, Namibia and lastly, South Africa.

 

However, all this can not shroud the main theme of Sellström’s first volume: the forging of a largely unquestioned societal consensus concerning the need to act in solidarity with liberation struggles in southern Africa. As is stressed, not least by some of the materials included in the separate interview volume, these processes shun, to a large extent, any interpretation along a simplistic pattern of Right and Left. Rather, within the party political spectrum, quite a few initiatives originated from Liberal and Centrist opposition parties rather than from the governing social democrats. This is true for the call for sanctions against South Africa the same way as it is for early initiatives for official and direct support of liberation movements. In addition, an important demand on this political level was the call for Portugal’s expulsion from the free-trading zone of EFTA, at that time still a regional rival to the future EU. Again, it seems that social democrats at the time still confronted the task to emancipate themselves from the role model of the Labour Party in Britain while at the same time, to evaluate the consequences sanctions and boycotts might have for Swedish jobs. The broad political consensus that was emerging at the time did not preclude militant action such as the successful disruption in 1968 of a Davis Cup tennis match between the teams of Sweden and Rhodesia, the future Zimbabwe, then under the illegal UDI dispensation of 1965. There was also heated domestic political controversy which during the late 1960s kindled on the issue of the Cabora Bassa dam project in Moçambique, where participation by the Swedish ASEA corporation could eventually be thwarted.

 

The second volume of Sellström’s documents, in great detail, the support given by Sweden to individual organisations up to the attainment of majority rule in South Africa in 1994. At first sight, it might seem that there is a plethora of individual developments and occurrences presented that may seem confusing and at times also superfluous. Comparison with the volumes from Norway and Finland however, which are much more sparing in documentation, will also show that a more abstract approach foregoes some of the vital and intriguing aspects, such as authentic testimony by participants and also more ambivalent evaluations of sometimes highly problematic developments on the ground. Over the years, very impressive sums have been mobilised, in current prices, more than 1.7 billion Swedish crowns alone via SIDA.[2]

More importantly however, a picture of intensive political as well as societal interaction emerges from Sellström’s account. The volume is organised according the emphases of co-operation that followed upon each other in rough chronological order. After PAIGC, FRELIMO and MPLA, the liberation movements in the former Portuguese colonies that occupied centre stage during the early years, there followed ZANU and ZAPU of Zimbabwe, SWAPO of Namibia and finally, the ANC along with a range of other South African organisations. There are long accounts about matters relating to the administrative and material form support for the liberation movements took on: Issues concerning support in kind and hardware in opposition to cash disbursement, procurement procedures, the modalities of bookkeeping and laying account, and also negotiation procedures concerning suggestions and applications by liberation movements are treated at great length. Such formal matters are extremely important in that their evolution can demonstrate the gradual formation of relations of trust, but also the step by step recognition, by the Swedish side, of their partner organisations as ”governments in waiting”, as put in the interview volume by the present President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki.[3] Such a process included not least a training in administrative routine which again forms an indispensable aspect of democratic forms of procedure and accountability, as stressed in the same place by Bengt Säve-Söderbergh from his long years of practical experience.[4]

Accordingly, it was specifically accounting where various tensions cropped up between Swedish agents and institutions on the one hand and representatives of the organisations in exile on the other. Apparently, this did not undermine mutual trust which also has contributed to the very differentiated approaches employed in each individual instance. Thus, on account of the immense logistic problems of conveying goods to the areas in eastern Angola controlled by MPLA during the early 1970s, which had to be moved from Dar es Salaam harbour on the East African coast, transport played a pivotal role. The same applied later to the provisioning of SWAPO’s refugee camps in Angola and Zambia. This entailed large consignments of motor vehicles, ranging from heavy lorries to Range Rovers. Later, a repair workshop for SWAPO was erected near the Angolan Capital of Luanda, and an appropriate training programme devised. As refugees from South Africa who had joined the ANC, in contradistinction to the position with SWAPO or the Zimbabwean organisations, did not live in camps other problems were encountered relating to their support and provisioning. These were administered vial Swedish diplomatic missions in the relevant countries which, when South Africa during the 1980s forced its neighbours into limiting the freedom of movement if the exiles or into evicting ANC altogether from their territories, came to act frequently at the margins of formal legality, or indeed, beyond. Such problems emerged, in aggravated form, in relation to the ”home front component” which was granted only to the ANC and which, with the consent of the exile leadership, channelled support to groups inside South Africa. The importance of this aid can hardly be overestimated, in particular during the steep rise of the United Democratic Front and also of the union movement to culminate in the formation of COSATU, during the 1980s. Comparable initiatives in Namibia were channelled mainly through church bodies, above all the ecumenical Council of Churches of Namibia.

There evolved a fashion of Nordic division of labour in the support for training facilities and farms run by the ANC in Zambia and Tanzania, were support for the building activities was taken over by and large by Norway. In South Africa, this phase was followed by the protracted period of transition towards majority rule with its complex negotiation processes and the explosion of violence, largely orchestrated by the apartheid regime and its surrogates. Sweden steadfastly continued supporting the ANC even though the end of apartheid was now proclaimed as an imminent or even accomplished fact, but support activities were now transferred progressively onto the internal South African scene. At the same time, similarly as in the case of SWAPO only a few years before, if for different reason, there was a deplorable, swift decay and dilapidation of material infrastructure that had been built up for use in exile.

 

These glimpses of some of the aspects of how co-operation actually worked point to some features of the basic set-up of Swedish support for liberation movements in southern Africa: Wit the significant exception of Zimbabwe, such support was directed to one organisation only, regarded as the most authentic and promising representative of the liberation movement in each country or, indeed, being equated with the liberation movement as such. OAU policy and recognition by the OAU of particular organisations as authentic ones played important roles in this approach.

Thus, SWANU, an early Namibian organisation which now later became rather marginalised within the Namibian context, was able to build up considerable presence in Sweden during the early 1960s when representatives of the group began their studies there who are still well-known personages even today; the organisation was stripped of official OAU recognition a few years later on account of not being able to show a perspective of armed struggle. Thereafter, SWAPO remained as the only credible partner and address for Swedish support in Namibia.

For South Africa, the OAU had recognised, besides ANC, also PAC which however, soon after 1960 largely disqualified itself from serious consideration for support by internal power struggle which partly took on violent forms in exile, and also by its unreliable behaviour regarding financial matters.

Things were much more complicated than that in Angola. Here, there were strong tendencies amongst Swedish parliamentary parties of the non-socialist camp to support, besides MPLA, also the rival FNLA, and this lead to public debate; on the other hand, UNITA, the third organisation which later earned spotlight particular in the context of South African destabilisation drives against the MPLA government in power after 1975, never managed to claim credibility in Sweden.

In Zimbabwe alone, two organisations were actually supported and thus recognised as credible representatives of the country’s liberation movement. However, the Swedish partners also pushed both ZANU and ZAPU to overcome their differences in the interests of a broad unity of action. Bishop Abel Muzorewa and his UANC never succeeded in securing Swedish support, nor did the groups that splintered from ZANU during the late 1970s to participate, along with Muzorewa, in the abortive internal solution sponsored by the UDI government.

 

This certainly beckons a question which is aired extensively in the interview volume, namely why Sweden mainly chose to support organisations that, to the exclusion of ZANU, also enjoyed recognition as authentic liberation movements from the side of the Soviet Union and its allies. The main and decisive reason given here is that these organisations have been anchored solidly in their societies, at any rate during the period of time when they were given intensive assistance. At the same time however, the more fundamental question has to be raised here about the concept of liberation movement as such. Thus, the conceptual framework upon which the Swedish approach towards the entire support drive was based did not only adopt the pegging of authenticity as a liberation movement to armed struggle, according to the OAU concept; overall, this could be justified convincingly by pointing out that it was not up to outsiders to make prescriptions about the means employed by those struggling for national self-determination, while supply of military materials remained strictly excluded from governmental support by Sweden. Still, in connection with the initial OAU sponsored criterion of liberated areas in particular, this has generated a tendency towards privileging, in conceptual as well as in political terms, the component of armed struggle within the liberation movement, to the detriment of a broad range of social struggles which did not only form the indispensable basis of the armed struggle but also held out chances for forming the future foundations of a vibrant civil society. As has been noted, there was a certain digression from the general line in the sense of supporting such groups as UDF or civics in general in South Africa. Reflecting on developments in southern Africa after the advent of liberation organisations to power, some consequences of the high profile of military struggle and military thinking especially amongst the exile leadership seem all too obvious.

 

From the Swedish perspective, however, which forms the main focus here, two interlinked dimensions deserve particular highlighting. On the one hand, solidarity with the liberation movement and ”an essentially unitary anti-apartheid opinion” as part of ”the broad Swedish liberal consensus“ were largely undisputed, in spite of party political differences.[5] Thus, support for the liberation movements outlasted altogether three changes of government, and remained unabated as an essential plank of legitimate practice of governance.

At various times, Sellström stresses that this was not a question of government policy as such in the first place, but an outflow from a strong current of social thinking and activity articulating itself and sustained from below. On the other hand, such continuity formed the basis for a special relationship of trust between Swedish officials and representatives of liberation movements, usually based on long personal acquaintance and also friendship. This extended up to consultations at critical turning points such as the MPLA crisis of the early 1970s or the difficult position the ANC found itself in after the Nkomati accord between South Africa and Moçambique in 1984, i.e., in situations where the survival of an organisation or the future of the liberation struggle seemed at stake. This close relationship was reinforced by the fact that many of the representatives sent to Stockholm by liberation organisations where particularly outstanding personalities. As is shown by special chapters devoted to these matters, the state-sponsored dimension was in turn embedded into a host of variegated civil society based initiatives: religious communities conducted huge collections of clothing, there were extensive labour union contacts and broad cultural activities, while from the early 1970s, a newly formed solidarity movement acted as a continuous sting to move the government into action. The latter aspect applies in particular to the one topical area where the picture of an overall societal consensus about solidarity with liberation in southern Africa is in need of some qualification – the debate over economic sanctions against South Africa. For a long time, the Swedish government followed a line of making such a decision dependent on mandatory resolutions by the relevant UN bodies, and only after a trade boycott was finally decided on in 1987, such sanctions were imposed in a number of batches. A similar process followed with respect to the lifting of sanctions when Sweden, under a conservative led government followed, to a large extent, requests by the ANC against too hasty a procedure in dismantling the international punitive apparatus against the apartheid regime before even transition would be secured.

 

The composed picture of Norwegian solidarity

As has been indicated, the volumes on Norway and Finland are structured quite differently, but they also relate to specific and clearly divergent starting points. In the case of Norway, there is on the one hand the experience of Nazi occupation of the country during Word War II which eased people into seeing parallels to the situation under apartheid, while on the other hand, the country’s membership in NATO made it more difficult initially to side with movements opposing colonial rule of another NATO member, Portugal. Generally, concern with the situation in southern Africa in Norway got under way appreciably later than in Sweden; here also, the Nobel Prize award for Albert Luthuli marked an important stage. A further factor was, as in the cases of other Nordic countries as well, challenges thrust at the government as a consequence of its membership in the UN and periodically, also in the Security Council. In similar ways as in the Swedish case, direct assistance to the liberation movements came after a kind of preparatory period when aid was given to refugees and students from southern Africa. However, in contradistinction to Sweden, Norwegian activities were centred and controlled at the foreign ministry. Increasing participation in direct support for liberation movements followed, in many ways, the Swedish example, also in the sense of a division of labour in realising joint projects such as the ANC school near Morogoro, Tanzania. However, Norway did keep a strict distance from the more risky Swedish ventures, particularly from those on the ”home front” in South Africa. Again, Norway partly emphasised other areas of action and for a prolonged period, she supported the South African PAC as well as ANC. Overall, accounts stress, in various contexts, close Nordic co-operation, along with a certain amount of rivalry in the relations of particular countries to the liberation movements and their representatives. In the formation and reproduction of the internal Norwegian consensus over policy towards southern Africa, the Peace Nobel Prizes awarded to Chief Luthuli, Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela were of considerable importance. Another important vector were various international conferences on southern Africa, hosted by Norway as a state or by Norwegian organisations. These produced vital spin-offs to enhance awareness and inform debate within Norway itself.

Rather yet more forcefully than Sellström, several contributors to the Norway volume point to the interaction between civil society and state agencies, foremost amongst these the foreign office. This applies, in particular to the rather detailed analysis of the Norwegian Council for Southern Africa (NOCOSA), a body that performed continuous lobbying in an impressive array of directions, including the trade unions. Here, the issue of trade sanctions was much more controversial than in the Swedish case, because influential Norwegian shipping companies and shipowners’ organisations saw their business in danger, in particular in supplying petroleum to South Africa. Therefore, time and again they successfully exerted their influence with government and political circles to frustrate efforts at securing sanctions or to water down relevant decisions. The importance of civil society based commitment is also highlighted in a brief analysis of the local initiative for solidarity with Namibia that evolved in the town of Elverum in southern Norway. Still, many aspects are reported in a rather sketchy manner, and it is often felt that authors of individual contributions have condensed much longer and detailed studies for this occasion. The editor’s endeavour to stress, in his conclusion, more analytical arguments, remains little more than a decent summary of the overall argument. Thus, many individual aspects can be appreciated adequately only in the light of Sellström’s detailed account which in this way, takes on exemplary meaning much beyond the status of a mere case study.

 

The story of the Finnish position

These observations apply even more to the Finnish study which is conceived as a monograph, but in volume is less than half than the Norwegian one, since there is a large appendix of interviews, i.a. with Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish President at time of publication and formerly, UN commissioner for Namibia during the long time of struggle for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution Nr. 435 of 1978. Similarly as the others, the study takes as its point of departure the specific international position of Finland. After participation in World War II as an ally of Germany, the country had been bled white economically, and its government was constrained to strictly observe the imposed neutrality in foreign relations. Not only did this afford but little manoeuvring space, but at the same time, the situation furnished a plethora of arguments to conservative officials and diplomats who warned against any ”meddling” into the internal affairs of foreign nations and the hazards such behaviour might entailed for Finland’s own shaky sovereignty.

As in the case of the other country studies, for the time period reaching up to the mid-1960s, an impressive wealth of statements and reports to this effect are cited here, which also conveyed the views of colonial masters and apartheid politicians. On the other hand, there was an important point of reference in southern Africa in which the Finnish took considerable interest, namely the Finnish Protestant mission in northern Namibia (Ovambo). Apparently, this played an even more prominent role than did missionaries and their reports in the case of Sweden or Norway. In similar ways as their Norwegian counterparts, Finnish diplomats edged towards a more active role while confronting the challenges posed to them within the framework of the United Nations. This process culminated in the elevated role played by Ahtisaari and which may certainly be seen, i.a., within the framework of national pride. Up to about 1970, support for liberation movements had remained mainly a topic of interest relegated to the concerns of the student movement and political left, it was possible finally to reach a comprehensive reorientation that was made possible only by ”pressure from all sectors of Finnish society, an alliance from right to left”.[6] Thus, also in the Finnish case, direct co-operation of state agencies with national liberation movements was based on a national consensus which certainly also owed something to the principle of ”Nordic cooperation” (122).[7] As in Norway, the boycott issue in Finland was subject of fierce controversy where the autonomous initiative of the transport workers’ union deserves particular mention who in 1985 broke the existing deadlock by taking unilateral action.

This experience is seen here as a proof for the feasibility of idealist positions taken up by sections of civil society and which usually at least modify the dominant realist orientation of official, state centred foreign policy. In this, focus on civic and human rights of necessity takes on a very important role. However, a clear methodological weakness of this volume consists in the fact that in too many instances, factual assertions are backed up merely by quotations from interviews where proper reference would have required rather citation from official files, which have been accessible in this case as well, but were used rather sparingly from what appears from the text. In other respects as well one gains the impression that the various discourses referred to—those of churches, trade unions, NGOs etc.—have merely been reproduced here rather than analysed in a strict sense.

Orientation towards general, overarching values such as human rights or the right to self-determination, however, is naturally a more general theme of all these endeavours. This emerges with particular force from the interview volume which already has been referred to. This volume is immediately startling by the broad range of people who are given a voice here, many of whom give their views in an unusual open, self-reflexive and extensive fashion. The mere mention of the names of ”Pik” Botha, the long-term foreign minister of apartheid South Africa; Dirk Mudge, chief architect of the abortive ”internal solution in Namibia”; Holden Roberto, leader of the FNLA in Angola; and Abel Muzorewa, who formally presided over the failed attempt at an internal settlement in Zimbabwe in 1979, my serve as proof that this venture has proceeded in a refreshingly inclusive way without blinkers – even though the majority of those interviewed have been partners within the context of Swedish support co-operation, both as recipients and as actors on the Swedish side. This has produced an unique volume of source material, certainly worthy of note by itself. Further, these interviews give the impression of a much broader consensus than would possibly be surmised from the more recent rhetoric of some of the presidents in southern Africa who are rooted in the national liberation movements. Even though this is not constantly referred to, what emerges is a plain common ground of dealing together and a starting point of collaboration based on trust – by no means an imperialist construct as has been asserted more recently in the context of a clearly legitimatory agenda. Consistent with this basic approach, the more painful aspects of co-operation, in particular consequences of ”struggle within the struggle”, that is in particular factional strife and associated, partly severe violations of human rights, are addressed here explicitly. Sellström gives an entire chapter to the so-called Shipanga affair of 1976 and to the ”spy drama” of the 1980s, both of which have seriously impinged on SWAPO’s long-term credibility in the field of human rights, and this problem is mentioned in other contributions as well. In this case in particular, the advantages of a detailed account, based on citations from official files, is borne out. What emerges on the one hand is considerable discretion and reticence on the part of the Swedish actors during the actual events, yet on the other hand, dissidents at least are given a voice here to put their case here extensively.

Still, it is disconcerting when on the one hand, Sellström quotes Finnish co-author Peltola to the effect that ”from 1983 onwards a paranoic atmosphere prevailed in Kwanza Sul”, SWAPO’s largest camp in Angola,[8] and on the other, the Finnish contribution simply rehearses the reasoning given by SWAPO, that the victims had been South African spies.[9] Such an approach is even backed up by Ahtisaari who summarily refers to the war situation with its constraints that prevented actors to be too particular in their judgements and deeds. Probably, in this context it is also necessary to critically consider the basic decision, which was to come to the aid of organisations that laid claim to be ”sole and authentic representatives” of their respective peoples. Viewing organisations of liberation movements as ”governments in waiting” underscored this approach. This drew considerable consequences, including in some ways and cases, the actual suspension of democratic conditions and approaches. In the interview volume, this view is expounded impressively in particular by Ottilie Abrahams, member of SWAPO’s founding generation who however found herself in opposition at an early date in the end, in a political wilderness. Not by accident, it is also her who bemoans, very appropriately, the widespread identification in everyday as well as social science language of ”movement” and ”party”.[10]

 

The Danish politics of solidarity

The slim account of the Danish relationship with the national liberation movements in southern Africa also leaves out completely these more problematic and inevitably sensitive issues. In fact, Morgenstierne more than all the other authors restricts his discussion to the treatment of the issue within Danish politics. Therefore, developments in southern Africa are only mentioned in passing and do not form a topic of analysis in their own right. Besides a much more parsimonious treatment of space and paper, this also means that the fascinating potential of any such undertaking is not even slightly tapped in this case: to further an understanding of the interplay between two or more very different socio-political processes and trajectories, as well as their mutual reflection. Thus, the liberation movements and their representatives hardly figure as live counterparts in this account, nor do the liberation movement’s internal problems come into view. Within these somewhat narrow limits, the volume mentions Danish experience with occupation by Nazi Germany and resistance during World War II as one main point of reference to motivate solidarity with movements that were seen in a similar predicament, while the country’s NATO membership certainly was a restraining factor.

Examples set by Sweden and Norway, but also by the Netherlands are also mentioned as spurring Danish co-operation with liberation movements. After the consumer boycott initiatives of the early 1960s, also mentioned for Sweden and Norway, Danish official involvement largely centred around the budgetary ”Apartheid Appropriation” that was institutionalised by parliamentary decision in 1965 and – also in largely similar ways to other Nordic countries – rose to considerable amounts during the following years. Unfortunately, the table in which this is set out has been seriously disorganised.[11] The funds were expended mainly via Danish and international NGOs and other agencies, while a rather little institutionalised ”Apartheid Committee” dealt with applications and project proposals under the aegis of the Foreign Ministry.

Morgenstierne’s emphasis is on the parliamentary politics, against the backdrop of Denmark’s rather volatile electoral history during the time in question. Still, the policies largely defined by Social Democratic foreign ministers were in effect not seriously challenged by liberal interludes in the incumbency. This, Morgenstierne maintains, was largely due to a dissociation of the administrative running of the co-operation, on mainly humanitarian grounds on the one hand, and of political debate on the other. In this resides the ”flexible response”, combining humanitarian and political concerns. Still, it is never quite clear whether this is considered as an intelligent legitimating strategy, e.g. in confronting NATO partner Portugal with regard of support for the liberation movements in her then African colonies, or whether this implies rather ideas of the structural make-up of the approach. A rather intriguing story is the process that led up to Denmark imposing trade sanctions against South Africa in 1986. Apart from civil society, in particular also union activity which was directed against mounting imports of South African coal for the Danish energy industry, this came about by a peculiar parliamentary constellation: In terms of policy towards southern Africa, a conservative-liberal minority government faced a pro-sanction majority that did not exist on other issues, and which arguably would have been more difficult to achieve with a Social Democratic party hampered by the responsibilities of government

 

Concluding remarks

Against the backdrop of over 2500 pages of printed paper, at that overwhelmingly filled by certainly useful information and sensible argument, it may cause irritation to point out, in closing one major topical gap. However, this gap probably refers to the basic conception of the entire venture and moreover, may be indicative for the analytical approach, articulated in very discrete manner, but which can be gauged overall from the volumes discussed here. All the accounts take independence or majority rule as their cut-off dates, even though to some extent, the perspective is shifted to the role of independent states as front-line states which form the theatre of action for liberation movements still engaged in the struggle, as well as for South African destabilisation strategies with all the immense problems and suffering this entailed. This way of dealing is understandable in so far as everything has to be limited and come to a close at some point, and this is certainly also true in the case of the working capacity of a single author who has produced nearly 1500 pages within this project.

Still, the impression of conclusive success is conveyed here, for instance with mention of the invitations extended to the different partners in co-operation to participate in the independence celebrations. Thus, Pierre Schori, who for many years filled important functions within Swedish social democracy and government in connection with solidarity work, states, in 1996: ”For Sweden, South Africa is without any doubt the great success story.”[12] This is of course very understandable, but seen from the perspective of extremely contradictory – to say the least – developments experienced since the advent of majority rule, such a statement is quite one-sided at least. Over and above some reflection on persistent as well as newly emerged problems, some follow-up project would be in place that might look at Nordic co-operation, and relations in general, with the independent countries and democratic South Africa.

What remains is a fascinating experience, with a wealth of facets that cannot even be hinted at here, of a very specific form of international political relations and co-operation, part of which was also formed by a ”very easy and warm” relationship between official state agencies on one side and the solidarity movement and NGOs on the other. This seems to have been predicated, as also stated by Säve-Söderberg in the interview volume, by a realization ”that it was a situation where you could show some decency”.[13]

It remains a remarkable feat to have transformed such an insight into practical, sustained policy, borne and even pushed forward by broad public consensus. Seen from the perspective of a country whose governments – also independently of party political affiliation – have always acted with blunt disregard for such decency, in particular regarding southern Africa, this is a simple as well as magnificent statement. If Nordic NGOs as well as diplomats did not shun the blame to be involved in aiding ”terrorists” in the practical following up of such insights, there are aspects of undeniably up-to-date relevance to ponder about in this experience.