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Chester A. Crocker

High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood Hardcover – January 1, 1993

by Chester A. Crocker (Author)

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A look at politics in Southern Africa discusses the white South Africans seeking support, African Marxists who still believe in the armed struggle, and other characters, including the Cuban leadership.

Print length

534 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W W Norton & Co Inc
Publication date

January 1, 1993
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

0393034321
ISBN-13

978-0393034325
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Thomas Mitchell

Doing the Right Thing at the Wrong Time

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2009

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"High Noon in Southern Africa" is the story of Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker's efforts to negotiate a Cuban withdrawal from Angola and a South African withdrawal from Namibia during the Reagan Administration. The effort took almost eight years, making him the longest serving Assistant Sec'y for African Affairs. During the middle his efforts were complicated by the drive for economic sanctions against Pretoria over its apartheid policy. South Africa was a hot button issue for American politics in the 1980s: conservatives saw Pretoria as a loyal ally in the fight against Soviet expansionism and Marxism; liberals saw Pretoria as a major violator of human rights and an embarassment to the West. The United Nations had revoked Pretoria's League of Nations mandate to administer Namibia--dating back to 1920--in the 1960s and Pretoria occupied Namibia in defiance of the UN. Crocker decided that Pretoria could be compelled to withdraw only by neutralizing the Cuban threat in Angola. His efforts were complicated by the ongoing Angolan civil war with South Africa supporting rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and UNITA against the ruling MPLA regime. The book is the story of how he overcame all of these obstacles. This book should be required reading for all diplomats dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Lee Jordan

Long Winded

Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2013

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Not exactly a page turner, but it does provide a detailed account of events during the 80's in Angola and Namibia, albeit a very one sided view. I used this for graduate research, so it was very effective for that purpose. I would not recommend it for casual reading.

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Don't Read Much Fiction

Southern Africa: Lessons from the last Cold War to prevent the next

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2020

Forty years ago, Southern Africa suffered the hottest chapter of the Cold War. Mozambique and Angola had had no respite from their struggle for independence having launched directly into civil war in 1975. Zimbabwe won its independence in 1980 and Namibia, retained by South Africa despite a United Nations resolution to withdrawal, would be the last of Europe’s African colonies to receive full independence in 1990.

From the 1950s to the early 1980s each consecutive American president intended an Africa policy of non-interference in internal affairs, similar to claims of Beijing today. Critical Southern African political factors, to include persistent Portuguese colonial rule and white minority dominance, were strategically ignored or discounted for decades, feeding into the strife of the 1980s. It was arguably one of the most challenging diplomatic chapters for the region and the competing world powers of the day.

That Cold War is over and now another, some warn, is brewing if not already in motion. If history has a way of repeating itself, then Southern Africa, the United States, Europe and China would all do well to learn the lessons of past great power competition. Conflict prevention is never a fait accompli but instead a continuous endeavor. In the 1980s, Southern Africa might have felt like a pawn under the pressures of international political competition. The manifestations of politics, economics, corruption and racism today, while different from that of the 1980s, need not facilitate a cold war. Now in 2020, African leaders and the populations that hold them accountable need to call their own shots. Were there to be a powerful combination of agency and accountability, both internal and from international partners, Southern African countries could generate stability and development. Here is a look at history for a contemporary perspective.

In 1981, Chester Crocker assumed the role of US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs serving under President Ronald Reagan. In “High Noon”, Crocker recaps every detail of his negotiation efforts to bring peace to Southern Africa. Angola’s ruling MPLA party, financially and militarily supported by Cuba and the Soviet Union, clashed with the UNITA rebels led by Jonas Savimbi and backed by South Africa and off and on by the United States. Zambia and Zimbabwe played host to numerous resistance movements across the region. Former German colony, Namibia, had passed to South Africa’s care post-WWI and South Africa remained there even after a 1966 UN General Assembly resolution terminated South Africa’s League of Nations mandate.

Apartheid South Africa, dominated by the white minority, feared that SWAPO, the political movement whom the United Nations recognized as the voice of the Namibian people, would overwhelm the white and non-white minorities in an independent Namibia. SWAPO claimed fidelity of the Ovumbo ethnic group, who made up roughly 50% of Namibia’s population. The ethno-linguistic loyalties of Angola and Namibia were complex; populations switched sides in reaction to human rights abuses from all quarters. South Africa claimed that with such overt Communist influence in Angola, Namibia and Mozambique, it would be impossible to ensure the will of the people at the ballot boxes (Crocker, 123). South Africa was the regional power, which included 15 African states. As Crocker saw it, despite significant world opinion against the South African government, had they been sidelined, a peace settlement would not have been possible (Crocker, 68-70).

While policy makers today might pine for the ‘simplicity’ of a cold war strategic calculous, Chester Crocker warned that the Southern African political, ethnic, economic, cultural and historical context, added to it local leader personality dynamics, were anything but simple. Crocker’s team, comprised of US, British, Canadian, French and West German diplomats, however, did manage to bring opposing parties to the table using the Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS) method of expressing mutual interests. The “Cold War politics”, “Third World diplomatic hypocrisy” and “UN silliness” (Crocker, 179) was still at times a tangle of emotions and misperceptions.

As early as 1981, Crocker had determined that South Africa might withdrawal from Namibia if the 30,000 plus contingent of Cuban troops in Angola evacuated the continent. Angola, the SWAPO sanctuary, wanted to see an independent Namibia. It took ten years to debate, sign and implement the accords. Like elections, the day at the ballot box is rarely as important as the months of preparation and the years that follow the vote.

The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, July 1987 – March 1988, one of the most violent military clashes of the Cold War in Africa, is often cited as the event that brought the Cuban, Angolan and South African signatories to the table in December 1988. The 23rd day of March, the official end of the battle, is commemorated by the South African Development Community (SADC) as the regional day of liberation. Chester Crocker reserves barely two pages for Cuito Cuanavale if only to remind us today that conflicts can be fought with arms but mostly pen and persistent diplomacy. Whatever the politics of 23 March, the war’s end initiated a political transformation in Southern Africa.

Today’s US policy in Africa seems overly concerned with terrorism, oil and China when the potential for mutual cooperation and African development is so much greater. In 1992 Crocker wrote that African affairs was the, “stepchild of US foreign policy” (Crocker, 253). It is arguably the same today. Crocker described the challenges of diplomacy in a Washington environment heavily influenced by popular nationalism. According to Crocker, South Africa played political spoiler, strategically feeding information to hawkish US policy-makers and lobbyists, sowing discord between US diplomats (Crocker, 100). Tit for tat attacks between SWAPO and the South African military forces stalled negotiations on more than one occasion. Negotiating with some African decision makers was a challenge culturally for many Western diplomats, a factor that Crocker claims led to even the Cubans’ appreciation for the US-led peace talks (Crocker, 422). The potential for cross-cultural miscommunication and frustration are hazards of the diplomatic trade.

Crocker had high praise for Angola’s Interior Minister and lead negotiator, Manuel Alexandre Duarte Rodriques “Kito”. Kito’s diplomatic career continued, serving as Angolan Ambassador to South Africa and later to Namibia; replaced from the latter position in 2019. Crocker was one of the first to note the quiet, professional and influential manner of then-Mozambiquan Foreign Minister Joaquim Chissano who would later go on to receive the coveted Mo Ibrahim prize for leadership; one of only six recipients. Southern African leadership is well recognized by the Mo Foundation with winners Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Festus Gontebanye Mogae (Botswana) and Hifikepunye Pohamba (Namibia). At first blush, it would seem that Southern African leadership and development was heading in the right direction. All the more reason to understand the factors currently challenging the region beyond a simplistic cold war analysis.

Forty years ago, the region’s political challenge was to transition from colonial rule to independence. Today, almost every country is struggling to complete an economic transition, create jobs for millions of youth and bring development outside the capital cities. Instead of Communism and civil war, the region currently battles corruption; a national problem with international dimensions; along with new and old forms of prejudice great and small. Many in today’s South Africa are angry at migrants searching for a better living in Africa’s most robust economy. Each country addresses, celebrates, instrumentalizes or ignores, its ethnic diversity in different ways. Southern African populations have justifiably been shocked by racial tensions in United States but also wise to their own prejudicial divides.

Southern Africa and China are on the mend after struggling to balance their relationship after Africans in China complained of racially motivated discrimination. Media outlets across Africa highlight more and more the alleged suspect business practices of some Chinese companies. At the same time, Chinese nationals have been targets of theft and even murder.

In Zambia, Lusaka’s mayor highlighted businesses owned by Chinese nationals for allegedly discriminating against Zambian clients and posting prices and services in Mandarin. Chinese nationals across the region have been accused by police of everything from illegal logging and fishing to occupying mining sites and quarries, selling and processing scrap metal all without a license. These are all token examples of a deeper tension that has both social and political dimensions. To be sure, despite the misgivings against Chinese investments, Southern Africa has benefited in many areas from the relationship.

Even if conflict had not been inevitable between the US and China, it would seem that Covid-19 was too tempting a crisis not to be politicized by both. Conflict between two of Southern Africa’s largest trading partners would not end well for Africans. But Covid-19 is also exposing the economic, production and development fragility of almost every Southern African state. While African debt is still not as bad as it was in the 1980s, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Angola and even Botswana have serious debt challenges made worse by economies in negative growth. Angola, which has tried in vain to diversify away from oil dependence, is perhaps hit the hardest by COVID-related economic factors.

China has decided to cancel small portions of Southern Africa’s debt and in the case of Angola, may pause repayment requirements for three years. In the first months of 2020, president of Angola, João Lourenço, appeared on the cover of Africa’s top political and economic magazines as he waged battles in the war on corruption. Angola is also host to more Chinese immigrants and workers than any other Sub-Saharan African country, except possibly South Africa. Angola remembers how difficult it was to mend the US-Angola relationship in the early 1990s but also how easy it was to forgo IMF and World Bank loan requirements in favor of a bureaucratically simpler financing plan from China at the end of Angola’s civil war in 2002.

In the 1980s, the general American understanding and response to events in Africa was slow, clunky and reticent (Crocker, 48). American politics again threatens a half-hearted way forward with Southern African partners. Today, instead of talking Southern Africa away the Communist cliff, the US warns of dangerous development traps. Yesterday’s “third world hypocrisy” is today’s endemic state corruption. One could argue that the “UN silliness” of the 1980s is today’s power politicization of Covid-19 within international organizations. Today’s “cold war politics” involves trade wars, debt narratives and a lack of focus on the sincere long-term interests of African partners.

In the 1980s, US diplomats saw three options for US policy in Southern Africa: constructive engagement, abandonment or super-power bullying. Throughout the conflict of the 1980s, President Reagan managed to meet personally with over a dozen African heads of state while vice-president Bush made key trips to the continent. The same is not happening today. Despite any powers’ intentions or statements, Southern Africa knows how to interpret sincere engagement. They are, or at least should be, the key stake holders.

At the close of Crocker’s book, Angola’s MPLA and UNITA had signed a peace accord on their way to a botched 1992 election. Two years later, Mozambique elected its first post-civil war president. The ruling party, Frelimo, and Renamo, the opposition, have signed multiple peace accords since, the most recent in 2019. While Mozambique waited for steady, intentional development and public services, a new crisis, Islamist extremism, found its way to Mozambique’s underdeveloped northeast and impatient youth. Unlike in the 1980s, could SADC now be capable of addressing its own regional threats?

A variant on Chester Crocker’s constructive cooperation is a contemporary option, along with healthy competition. Africa has its choice of partners between EU, Turkey, Brazil, India, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, Russia, China the US and others, not to mention the recently implemented Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) between African countries. Competition should translate to more transparency and higher quality development that meets popular needs outside the capital cities.

Sensing the eve of great power competition, many Africans echo the words of João Melo, the well-known Angolan writer, who recently wrote, “keep your cold war out of Africa.” As the 1950s ideological rivalries heated up, keeping the Cold War out of Africa happened to be President Eisenhower’s policy as well; desiring instead robust partner and diplomatic engagement.

While Southern Africa’s “frontline Cold War” states remain roughly the same in 2020 as in 1980, Africa’s own populations, voters, media and journalists should prepare to be the arbiters; holding their leaders accountable to good investment policies that promote universal development and increased economic sustainability. The rest of the world can do their part and be decent, honest and sincere partners. And if they’re not, let a healthy competition, not cold war manipulation, be the impetus for adjustments that benefit all of Southern Africa’s citizens.

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High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood Hardcover – January 1, 1993

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