The anti-apartheid struggle in Denmark: a response

By Morten Nielsen

 

 

Trough many years I have been part of the anti-apartheid movement and its successor organisation, even if I am coming from another perspective than Steen Christensen – namely the activist and non-parliamentarian side of the Danish anti-apartheid struggle. From the side of the anti-apartheid struggle where we attempted, and succeeded, to create a pressure on the Danish parliamentarian system in order for the official Denmark to impose economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa. For a number of years my work was to lobby the political parties of the Danish Parliament, Folketinget, including the Danish Social Democratic Party of which Steen Christensen has been a leading member.

There are a number of questions in Steen Christensen's article to which an activist outside the corridors of power cannot know all the answers. I recognise that Denmark and other Nordic countries in many ways, were in the forefront in the struggle against apartheid, but why did it take so long time, so many years, before the international community, and Denmark, started to do something stronger than just condemning apartheid in words?

 

In 1959 the ANC president at that time Chief Albert Lutuli came with a clear resolution, a demand for boycott on South African goods, when he addressed the British workers in connection with the South African Union 50 years’ anniversary. From this point in time, it was the main demand of the ANC to isolate South Africa politically, economically and culturally.

When in 1963, the Danish minister of foreign affairs Per Hækkerup (from the Social Democratic Party) at the UN Annual Assembly proclaimed that sanctions on South Africa would only be implemented by Denmark if the UN Security Council approved of it. He was of course aware that this would never happen as long as the USA and Great Britain could veto such a decision in the UN Security Council (which they actually did a number of times). In my eyes, this indicates that our Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Hækkerup's speech at the UN Annual Assembly cannot be viewed as a breakthrough for the recognition of the struggle against apartheid. I think, it was something else. The hidden agenda was to put sanctions aside and execute only verbal protest against apartheid, by placing the whole responsibility of sanctions on the shoulders of the UN Security Council. His speech was defined to a large extend by the Danish relation to NATO and to the United States.

It was - apparently - only in the mid-1980'es that the Social Democrats realised that the UN Security Council would not take any further actions, beside weapon sanctions which were already introduced in 1978. Only then the sympathy towards economic sanctions gradually evolved in the party. Files archived at ABA, The Labour Movement Library and Archive in Copenhagen, shows that the board of LO, The National Labour Federation in Denmark, discussed the matter of sanctions both in the 1970’s and beginning 80's. But this was strictly internally. Externally LO kept quiet on their opinions in this matter. Perhaps this was due to disagreements. On this background, it seems to me that the speech of Hækkerup in the UN contributed to the delay and postponement of a genuine debate on the use of sanctions in Danish foreign policy. Furthermore, it is worth noting that it was not until the Social Democratic Party was thrown out in opposition to the conservative-liberal government from 1983 to 1994 that it was possible to move the party to push for sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

However, in this period the alternative non-government majority in the parliament used the matters of both South Africa and security policies to tease the conservative-liberal government. These positions were meant for internal Danish affairs and it is difficult for me to see this tactic as a genuine attempt from the Social Democratic-Radical Party opposition to make Denmark shift to another foreign policy approach on South Africa.

In my view this shows that by giving his speech in the UN, our Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Hækkerup stopped and closed the debate on sanctions, and it took until the beginning of the 1980’s before the debate started again.

 

Sanctions against South Africa were a political issue in Denmark from the beginning of the 1960s. A quick look on Danish Gallup opinion pole institute shows that from 1961 to 1964 one of the main questions to the Danes, asked in the big annual questionnaires, was, "how do you relate to state sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa?” However, after 1964, it vanished and only from the beginning of the 1980s, this question again became part of Gallup's questionnaires to the Danes.

Ten problems are put by Gallup to a selection of the Danes every year as main political questions. This means that if Gallup put it on the questionnaires, it must have been part of an extensive debate, in the media, and of debates at the Danish Parliament, Folketinget. It proves that sanctions and the debate on sanctions against apartheid in South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia for that matter, was a part of the political debate in Denmark. It was not a debate limited to the left wing in Denmark, as Christensen tends to claim. Also, organisations like the Danish Youth Council, other youth organisations, women's organisations, and so on were active in the debate, and in the streets, for sanctions.

In newer Danish history, the speech of Hækkerup is often portrayed as proof of Denmark’s position in the forefront of the criticism of apartheid and in the support of the liberation movements. Therefore, the question arise if Per Hækkerup was aware, that he was killing the possibilities for the UN Annual Assembly to make decisions on South Africa, when he, supported by the other Nordic countries, said that actions against apartheid were a matter of the UN Security Council?

 

Oliver Tambo, at the time the President of ANC, made it clear in a number of speeches that the ANC wanted all countries to impose sanctions without a decision made in the UN Security Council first:

”Given the necessary political will, a Member State, first, can and should impose sanctions on South Africa without relying on a Security Council resolution. Secondly, every government decision to isolate South Africa completely has its own impact in encouraging similar action by other governments. Thirdly, for those determined to see the liberation of Namibia and South Africa, the sacrifices they have to make in the event of the imposition of sanctions on the Pretoria racist regime must be seen as their part in the struggle for peace, stability and progress.”[1]

 

While the Nordic countries were in front with the verbal criticism of apartheid, they did not want to do anything concrete on the national level unless the UN Security Council supported it. It would have been very difficult for other western countries to take this issue up, because most of the NATO countries actually looked at the apartheid regime as an ally against communism. Many who were against apartheid South Africa were labelled communists. It was a constant worry in the Danish Trade unions, as well as in the Social Democratic Party that the ANC was in alliance with the SACP, the South African Communist Party, and that the SACP could have influence on the ANC and the trade union movement in South Africa.

That very narrow-minded security political thinking, enabled Denmark, also under the Social Democratic governments in the 1970s and the beginning of the 80s, to increase the trade with South Africa during the years of strong but rather empty criticism of apartheid, and turn the deaf ear to the demands from the liberation movements in South Africa, on implementing economic sanctions.

Several leaders in the Social Democratic Party and in the trade union movement considered the different Danish anti-apartheid solidarity movements occurring during these years to be cover organisations for the Communist Party in Denmark. This perception of anti-communism was hence not only a common policy on the right wing of Danish politics, but also a common perception among many Social Democrats. In many ways, it could be claimed that Steen Christensen does the same in his article, by focusing on the role of the left wing and the communists and not on the interaction between the solidarity movement and the parliamentarian system in Denmark. The Social Democratic Party did not as a governing party wish to introduce sanctions against South Africa. Instead, its strategy was to allow for some Danish NGOs to receive governmental funds for the support of the victims of apartheid. The effects of this support should not be underestimated of course. All in all, it amounted to several 100 millions DKK.

 

The cold shoulder that the ANC got after the banning in the beginning of the 1960s by the official political scene in western European countries meant that they needed to get military support from the socialist world.

Was our Danish alternative to effective isolation mostly an allocation of money to students and refugees in exile? Did this in reality work as a buying up of future leaders instead of supporting the main political demand which was sanctions? Could these donations channelled through NGOs really constitute a reasonable Danish contribution to the struggle against apartheid?

A possible side effect was that some large Danish NGOs with close cooperation with the Foreign Ministry receiving these funds remained relatively quiet on the question of sanctions. It is also worth mentioning in this connection that the dedicated Anti-Apartheid Movement in Denmark (LSA/SAK) did not get governmental support until 1994.

 

When the political and financial support (which as mentioned was channelled via the Danish NGOs) grew heavily in the 1980s, Danish trade with South Africa simultaneously grew rapidly. In 1984, the purchase of South African coal topped and Denmark was the one country in the world buying the most coal in South Africa. Danish ships owned by Maersk were the main deliverers of oil to South Africa in 1983/84/85. A Danish shipping company, Tricon, made the most well known case of breaking the UN embargo against arms’ sales to South Africa supplying arms to SADF, South African Defence Force. In the 1980s, there were guests from four different Danish parliament parties in South Africa meting with the white regime. At the same time pension funds under the control of the Danish labour movement invested in companies which had interests in South Africa or in South African companies.

 

The question of economic sanctions was an issue which divided the Social Democratic Party and the labour movement in Denmark. When one look into the media debate of that time, it seems clear that there are a number of groups with clearly different perceptions in the Social Democratic Party and the labour movement, and one should think that Steen Christensen with his inside knowledge would be aware of these splits. We know that SiD, the General Workers Union was in many ways supporting sanctions, but the Danish Metal Workers’ Union, on the other hand, was very critical to economic sanctions. From my meetings with Social Democratic members of parliament, I know that also in their parliamentary group there were leading members, which were very critical of the use of sanctions against South Africa.

The high-level meetings between Social Democratic Parties from Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Norway on South Africa is not mentioned in Steen Christensen's article, even if they must have played a crucial role, since at these meetings politics were coordinated on behalf of the Socialist International. South African Labour movement leaders have told me that these meetings were very important for the building of the labour movement in SA, but parts of this history is still kept in the dark.

 

Despite the half-hearted support, the ANC wanted to get good relations with the Nordic countries. It is quite clear for me that the ANC needed recognition, and close connections to the Nordic countries actually helped here. ANC was on the CIA list of terrorist movements for many years. It also made good sense at least in the 1980s during the Thatcher and Reagan time, having good contacts within some NATO countries. As a national liberation movement ANC's aim was, to get as much political influence and recognition as possible. And the recognition and contacts to the trade union movements, the solidarity organisations, and the political parties were useful. The ANC's 75 years anniversary meeting in Copenhagen in 1987 very clearly showed that the ANC eventually had succeeded. The main speaker was a leading liberal politician, at that time minister of education (and from 2004 again minister of integration) Bertel Haarder, who spoke on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Uffe Ellemann Jensen, also a liberal.

ANC representatives attempted to get diplomatic recognition, but generally they did not succeed in Western Europe. Denmark never broke the diplomatic relations with South Africa; it only moved the embassy in 1985 from Pretoria to Zimbabwe.

 

In his article in this book, Steen Christensen writes quite a lot about the solidarity with Chile and Vietnam, the Danish Communist Party’s (DKP) role, and the left wing’s internal splits in these movements. However, there is not much to find about that kind of divisions in the South Africa solidarity in Denmark. The solidarity with South Africa apparently did not have the exact same kind of attraction on the left wing as the two other solidarity movements had. In my opinion, this was because of our strong relationship with the ANC. Apart from the Danish Communist Party and the Socialist Peoples Party, the rest of the left wing in Denmark didn't have much faith in the ANC, and preferred other contacts in South Africa, for example New Unity Movement and the PAC. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the Danish Communist Party and the Socialist Peoples Party understood the ANC as what it was at that time: a national liberation movement, not more, not less.

The fact that the Social Democratic Party and most of the LO trade unions, left the Anti-Apartheid Movement (LSAS/SAK) in 1979 (while the Social Democrats were in government) had several reasons. The main reason was disagreements on sanctions. The reason was not, that the left wing dominated the work. The anti-apartheid movement in Denmark was a very broad movement, with rather few active members from left wing political parties. Neither could it be because the anti-apartheid movement made demands that were not already made by the ANC.

To me it seems that the reasons for the split must be found firstly in the social democrat’s wish for having their own contacts with the ANC and the South African trade union movement, secondly in the resistance to the demands made by the anti-apartheid movement of state sanctions, and finally because of the uncertainty of the intentions of the ANC. The military campaign by the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the support from the Soviet were not easily recognised by the Social Democratic Party.

 

Finally, I will give some very brief suggestions to why the popular campaign in Denmark for economic sanctions got such a broad backup.

The explanation as to why the Danish anti-apartheid movement, with relatively little resources, could create attention, public support and pressure on Danish politicians is to be found in a number of key conditions:

·                Good connections to the ANC.

·                The time was on our side, with the formation of the UDF (United Democratic Front) and COSATU in South Africa, which increased political activity in South Africa itself and thereby from 1984 and onwards increased the media coverage and discussions about the development in South Africa.

·                Close cooperation with Danish journalists working with South Africa.

·                Political actions that created attention in the media and thereby made questions to the politicians in order to do something.

·                Clear strategies for the coordination between activism and political lobby work.

·                Clear strategies with regards to messages, aims and methods.

 

In a period of more than forty years the grassroots in Denmark succeeded in putting the apartheid regime of South Africa on the agenda and in pointing at, how the Danish government could contribute in isolating the regime in Pretoria.

The starting point in the 1960s was a consumers' boycott of South African fruit and other products. This campaign got broad political support, also from the Social Democratic Youth Organisation and from some trade unions. But as these demands by the end of the 70s developed into demands for state sanctions against the apartheid regime, the political support disappeared from centre to the right of Danish official politics. The social democratic government did not want to take the initiative in order to write laws on economic sanctions. Only after a strong public campaign, it was decided that the buying of South African coal was banned. This was in 1986 and later the same year the trade sanctions were introduced, prohibiting South African products in Denmark as well as sale of Danish products and services to South Africa.

 

The strong focus from our side in the anti-apartheid movement on crimes committed by apartheid meant that no Danes or especially Danish politicians could claim not to know. This is why, I have found it difficult to see Danish politicians and business leaders shaking hand with Mandela and, tell about the good figure Denmark did in the struggle against apartheid. We who experienced the complete hypocrisy from most politicians and business leaders know that it was the public pressure on the politicians and business leaders that forced them to act.

The history is now being written in the same way as when somebody tries to portrait FW de Klerk as the man who removed apartheid, because he was a nice person who wanted democracy. So according to the same kind of revisionism, it was the Danish ministers and civil servants who were in the forefront in the struggle against apartheid. Ask yourself: was it the massive public protest in our part of the world, which got ministers and civil servants to change opinions? Who worked against the implementation of economic sanctions? Sanctions that the liberation movements wanted so strongly.

 

Pro or contra apartheid was, as I have stated, in Denmark to a large degree a domestic national issue. The direct reason that it became practically possible to implement economic sanctions in 1986 was not us, not the left-wing, not the trade-unions movements, not the social democrats, but the small centre-right party, the Social Liberals (Det Radikale Venstre), who changed opinion on the subject after a long internal debate in the party about the use of economic sanctions as a part of foreign politics. It was when they changed their position that a majority supporting economic sanctions was made possible in Danish parliament. The majority had been there before 1985 (Social democrats and the left wing) and several times in the 30 years the debate on economic sanctions lasted. However, the Social Democratic Party together with the liberal-conservative parties voted down proposal followed by proposal from the left wing in the parliament.

I hope that three decades of lobby work on the Social Liberals and the Social Democratic Party in Denmark contributed to this change. I hope the three decades of solidarity work by thousands of Danes will get space in the history books in the future. I doubt it, but I hope.