In 1981, Chester Crocker was appointed U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and announced that the U.S. would pursue with South Africa "a more constructive relationship... based on shared interests, persuasion, and improved communication".[1] The constructive engagement policy originated in a piece published by Crocker in Foreign Affairs the previous year, while he was an adviser to Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign.[2] In the piece, Crocker criticised the South Africa policy of Jimmy Carter's administration, which had involved overt and public pressure on Pretoria to move away from apartheid. He said this policy had had disappointing results. Instead, by building leverage with Pretoria and saving it "for genuine opportunities to exert influence", the U.S. could "steer between the twin dangers of abetting violence in the Republic [of South Africa] and aligning ourselves with the cause of white rule", and thereby could "underpromise and overdeliver".[3]
Beyond this, however, constructive engagement was generally framed by its adherents as the policy governing the U.S.'s engagements with the entire Southern African region.[4] The region had grown in its importance to the U.S. – and its Cold War programme of containment – as a result of the Cuban presence in Angola, where South Africa was pursuing putatively counter-communist objectives in both the Angolan Civil War and the Border War. The South African government redoubled its appeals to its own importance as a Western military partner and anti-communist bulwark in the region, while U.S. policymakers feared that political instability inside South Africa would create a regional power vacuum, opening the door to Soviet influence.[5][6] At the same time, Crocker believed that a closer relationship with the South African government could create leverage to be expended on brokering peace across the region.[7]
Strategies
The policy of this Administration has been to foment change away from apartheid:
By unambiguous public statements condemning apartheid evils;
By reinforcing these views with quiet diplomacy;
By working with elements within South Africa that share a vision of peace and equality;
By encouraging fair employment practices for U.S. companies; and
By including ourselves as a government in financing programs... to give South African blacks better training and educational opportunities.
Constructive engagement entailed "encouraging change in the apartheid system through a quiet dialogue with [South Africa's] white minority leaders" – that is, through private inducements and positive incentives, rather than through sanctions or public pressure.[9][10] In an early speech, Reagan declared his support for the South African government,[11] and his administration lifted prior restrictions on the export of military equipment to South Africa.[12] Between 1981 and 1985, bilateral trade and investment grew, as did bilateral cooperation in other arenas.[12][13] Indeed, Reagan's administration frequently used its veto powers to block punitive measures tabled in the United Nations (UN) Security Council or in the U.S. Congress.[14] Instead, it welcomed and encouraged the limited domestic political reforms initiated by South African President P. W. Botha, including the 1983 Constitution.[15]
Southern Africa and linkage
In the wider region – which on some accounts was Crocker's primary focus[16] – the practice of constructive engagement turned on the so-called "linkage" strategy. Crocker sought to attain both Namibian independence and a Cuban withdrawal from Angola, precisely by linking the two outcomes: the end of South Africa's highly unpopular occupation of Namibia could be made conditional on Cuban withdrawal from Angola, which, in turn, could be framed as a reward to South Africa for its own withdrawal.[17] These regional objectives were also linked to the U.S.'s improved bilateral relationship with South Africa: the U.S.'s conciliatory posture would encourage South African compliance with a regional peace programme, and, moreover, once achieved, the regional peace programme might provide more conducive conditions for domestic political reforms inside South Africa.[18]
The policy of constructive engagement, though it was echoed by the British government of Margaret Thatcher, came under criticism, as the South African government used increasingly repressive tactics against its black population and anti-apartheid activists.[19][20] When South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited the United States in 1984, in the aftermath of President Reagan's comfortable re-election, he said in a speech on Capitol Hill that, "constructive engagement is an abomination, an unmitigated disaster... Apartheid is as evil, as immoral, as un-Christian, in my view, as Nazism. And in my view, the Reagan administration's support and collaboration with it is equally immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian."[21] In April 1985 President Reagan came under attack from within the Republican Party itself. The Republican majority in the Senate voted 89–4 on a resolution condemning apartheid.[22] The four "no" votes came from Republican senators Jesse Helms, Barry Goldwater, Chic Hecht, and Steve Symms.[23]
In October 1986, the United States Congress overrode President Reagan's veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (the Senate vote was 78 to 21, and the House vote was 313 to 83). During the lead-up to the override, Reagan appointed Edward Perkins, who is black, ambassador to South Africa. Conservative Representative Dick Cheney was opposed to the override, saying that Nelson Mandela was the head of an organisation that the State Department had deemed "terrorist".[24][25] In the week leading up to the vote, President Reagan appealed to members of the Republican Party for support, but as Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr. would state, "For this moment, at least, the President has become an irrelevancy to the ideals, heartfelt and spoken, of America."[26] The legislation, which banned all new U.S. trade and investment in South Africa, also denied landing permission at U.S. airports to South African Airways flights. This legislation was seen as a catalyst for similar sanctions in Europe and Japan, and signalled the end of the constructive engagement policy.
Assessments
The policy is widely viewed as having failed to achieve its aim of inducing the National Party to reform apartheid.[10][27][28] In the early 1980s, the apartheid state grew more, not less, repressive.[12] Furthermore, just as Carter's Non-Proliferation Act failed to prevent South Africa from building a nuclear bomb, Constructive Engagement attempted, but failed, to prevent expansion of the weapons program.[29] According to one 1985 analysis by academics Peter Vale and Sanford J. Ungar:
Having been offered many carrots by the United States over a period of four-and-a-half years as incentives to institute meaningful reforms, the South African authorities had simply made a carrot stew and eaten it... Constructive engagement has not merely caused the United States to lose five valuable years when it might have influenced South Africa to begin negotiating a settlement of its unique and extraordinary racial problems. Many would argue that constructive engagement was a necessary step in the evolution of American attitudes toward South Africa, but the cost has been great. American policy has actually exacerbated the situation inside South Africa by encouraging and indulging the white regime's divide-and-rule tactics...[30]
At the same time, U.S. adherence to constructive engagement is viewed as having marginalised and alienated moderate black activists inside South Africa, who were neglected by U.S. diplomacy, and as having antagonised other states in the region.[31] Similarly, critics hold that U.S. concessions to Pretoria had little regional effect but to delay Namibian independence and regional peace. Journalist Christopher Hitchens, for example, blamed constructive engagement and "the fearlessly soft attitude displayed by Chester Crocker towards apartheid" for the ten-year delay in implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 435:
Independence on these terms could have been won years ago if it were not for Crocker's procrastination and Reagan's attempt to change the subject to the presence of Cuban forces in Angola. Here again, the United States dogmatically extended diplomatic recognition to one side only – South Africa's. Here again, without 'neutral' mediators American policy would have deservedly become the victim of its own flagrant bias. An important participant was Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, who worked tirelessly for free elections in the colony and tried to isolate the racists diplomatically.[32]
The value of the regional dimensions of constructive engagement, and particularly the linkage principle, are defended by some commentators, who argue that previous U.S. administrations had not recognised – as Crocker did – the extent to which regional conflicts were inter-connected.[7] Crocker himself continued to defend the policy, and viewed it as instrumental in enabling the 1988 Tripartite Accord and moves towards negotiations to end apartheid.[33]
Davies, J. E. (2007). Constructive Engagement?: Chester Crocker & American Policy in South Africa, Namibia & Angola. Ohio University Press. ISBN9781847013057.
Klotz, Audie (1999). Norms in International Relations: The Struggle Against Apartheid. Cornell University Press. ISBN978-1-5017-3165-5. OCLC1053865453.
Nesbitt, Francis Njubi (2004). Race for Sanctions: African Americans Against Apartheid, 1946–1994. Indiana University Press. ISBN0-253-11068-8. OCLC61479320.
Rotberg, Robert I. (1990). "Reagan Era in Africa". In Kyvig, David E. (ed.). Reagan and the World. New York: Greenwood Press. pp.119–138. ISBN0313273413.
The Frontline States (FLS) were a loose coalition of African countries from the 1960s to the early 1990s committed to ending apartheid and white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia. The FLS included Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The FLS disbanded after Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994.
The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was a law enacted by the United States Congress. The law imposed sanctions against South Africa and stated five preconditions for lifting the sanctions that would essentially end the system of apartheid, which the latter was under at the time. Most of the sanctions were repealed in July 1991, after South Africa took steps towards meeting the preconditions of the act, with the final vestiges of the act being repealed in November 1993.
Angola and the United States have maintained cordial diplomatic relations since 1993. Before then, antagonism between the countries hinged on Cold War geopolitics, which led the U.S. to support anti-government rebels during the protracted Angolan Civil War.
The main goal of the US foreign policy during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) was ending the Cold War and the rollback of communism—which was achieved in the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe during 1989; in the German reunification in 1990; and in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Historians debate whom to credit, and how much. They agree that victory in the Cold War made the U.S. the world's only superpower, one with good relations with former communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Chester Arthur Crocker is an American diplomat and scholar who served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from June 9, 1981, to April 21, 1989, in the Reagan administration. Crocker, architect of the U.S. policy of "constructive engagement" towards Southern Africa including apartheid-era South Africa, is credited with setting the terms of Namibian independence.
Disinvestmentfrom South Africa was first advocated in the 1960s in protest against South Africa's system of apartheid, but was not implemented on a significant scale until the mid-1980s. A disinvestment policy the US adopted in 1986 in response to the disinvestment campaign is credited with playing a role in pressuring the South African government to embark on negotiations that ultimately led to the dismantling of the apartheid system.
The Agreement among the People's Republic of Angola, the Republic of Cuba, and the Republic of South Africa granted independence to Namibia from South Africa and ended the direct involvement of foreign troops in the Angolan Civil War. The accords were signed on 22 December 1988 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City by the Foreign Ministers of People's Republic of Angola, Republic of Cuba and Republic of South Africa.
In the 1980s in Angola, fighting spread outward from the southeast, where most of the fighting had taken place in the 1970s, as the African National Congress (ANC) and SWAPO increased their activity. The South African government responded by sending troops back into Angola, intervening in the war from 1981 to 1987, prompting the Soviet Union to deliver massive amounts of military aid from 1981 to 1986. The USSR gave the Angolan government over US$2 billion in aid in 1984. In 1981, newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan's U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, developed a linkage policy, tying Namibian independence to Cuban withdrawal and peace in Angola.
Relations between Angola and South Africa in the post-apartheid era are quite strong as the ruling parties in both states, the African National Congress in South Africa and the MPLA in Angola, fought together during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. They fought against UNITA rebels, based in Angola, and the apartheid-era government in South Africa which supported them. Nelson Mandela mediated between the MPLA and UNITA during the final years of the Angolan Civil War. Although South Africa was preponderant in terms of relative capabilities during the late twentieth century, the recent growth of Angola has led to a more balanced relation.
The Cuban intervention in Angola began on 5 November 1975, when Cuba sent combat troops in support of the communist-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the pro-western National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The intervention came after the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War, which occurred after the former Portuguese colony was granted independence after the Angolan War of Independence. The civil war quickly became a proxy war between the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the United States. South Africa and the United States backed UNITA and the FNLA, while communist nations backed the MPLA.
The Brazzaville Protocol mandated the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, paving the way for Namibia's independence through the New York Accords. Representatives from the governments of Angola, Cuba, and South Africa signed the protocol on December 13, 1988 in Brazzaville, Congo.
Soviet–Angolan relations were close until the Angolan government renounced Marxist-Leninism in 1990 and adopted a pro-Western foreign policy. The close, personal relationship between President Agostinho Neto and Cuban leader Fidel Castro complicated the Soviet Union's involvement in the Angolan Civil War and foiled several assassination attempts against Neto.
Namibia – United States relations are bilateral relations between Namibia and the United States.
The United States and South Africa currently maintain bilateral relations with one another. The United States and South Africa have been economically linked to one another since the late 18th century which has continued into the 21st century. United States and South Africa relations faced periods of strain throughout the 20th century due to the segregationist, white minority rule in South Africa, from 1948 to 1994. Following the end of apartheid in South Africa, the United States and South Africa have developed a strategically, politically, and economically beneficial relationship with one another and currently enjoy "cordial relations" despite "occasional strains". South Africa remains the United States' largest trading partner in Africa as of 2019.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid refers to the foreign relations of South Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s. South Africa introduced apartheid in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination laws. Initially the regime implemented an offensive foreign policy trying to consolidate South African hegemony over Southern Africa. These attempts had clearly failed by the late 1970s. As a result of its racism, occupation of Namibia and foreign interventionism in Angola, the country became increasingly isolated internationally.
The Lusaka Manifesto is a document created by the Fifth Summit Conference of East and Central African States which took place between 14 and 16 April 1969 in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Produced at a time when the Republic of South Africa and its affiliated white-ruled regimes in Mozambique, Rhodesia, and Angola were relatively strong but politically isolated, the Manifesto called upon them to relinquish white supremacy and minority rule and singled out apartheid South Africa for violation of human rights. In the manifesto, which was subsequently adopted both by the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations, thirteen Heads of State offered dialogue with the rulers of these Southern African states under the condition that they accept basic principles of human rights and human liberties. They also threatened to support the various liberation wars if negotiations failed.
Africa–United States relations are the political, economic and cultural ties between the United States and the independent African countries.
Angola–Turkey relations are the bilateral relations between Angola and Turkey. The Turkish Embassy in Luanda opened on April 1, 2010. The Angolan embassy in Ankara opened on April 4, 2013.
As a response to South Africa's apartheid policies, the international community adopted economic sanctions as condemnation and pressure.
The anti-apartheid movement was a worldwide effort to end South Africa's apartheid regime and its oppressive policies of racial segregation. The movement emerged after the National Party government in South Africa won the election of 1948 and enforced a system of racial segregation through legislation. Opposition to the apartheid system came from both within South Africa and the international community, in particular Great Britain and the United States. The anti-apartheid movement consisted of a series of demonstrations, economic divestment, and boycotts against South Africa. In the United States, anti-apartheid efforts were initiated primarily by nongovernmental human rights organizations. On the other hand, state and federal governments were reluctant to support the call for sanctions against South Africa due to a Cold War alliance with the country and profitable economic ties. The rift between public condemnation of apartheid and the U.S government's continued support of the South African government delayed efforts to negotiate a peaceful transfer to majority rule. Eventually, a congressional override of President Reagan's veto resulted in passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986. However, the extent to which the anti-apartheid movement contributed to the downfall of apartheid in 1994 remains under debate.
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