Stanley Frederick St Clair Duncan CMG FRGS (born 13 November 1927) was a British diplomat in the second half of the Twentieth century. [1]
He was educated at Latymer Upper School.
After his retirement he completed a BA(hons) degree with the Open University.
He joined the India Office in 1946 which became part of the Commonwealth Relations Office a year later following India's independence. He was Second Secretary in Ottawa then Toronto as British Government Information Officer from 1955 to 1957 where he had to cope with a hostile Canadian media at the time of the Suez crisis. He then was Second Secretary in Wellington, New Zealand until 1960. He was First Secretary at the CRO, and was seconded to the Central African Office, a unit set up by the Prime Minister, Mr Harold Macmillan, under Mr R.A. Butler, then Home Secretary, to sort out a growing crisis in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and when it could no longer be held together was a member of the British delegation at the Victoria Falls Conferenceto arrange for its orderly dissolution.
He was responsible for Southern Rhodesia in the Central African Office and in 1962 helped to pilot the legislation for a new Southern Rhodesian constitution through Parliament.The Southern Rhodesian electorate rejected the constitution and called for independence. He supported Mr Butler in talks with the Southern Rhodesian delegation at Victoria Falls about the conditions under which their demands might be met and at further talks with them in London. In the light of non-agreement he was involved in preparation for the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence by the Rhodesians. When fighting broke out between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots in December 1963 he was selected to go to Cyprus but was held back in London because of continuing tensions in relations with Southern Rhodesia. He finally reached Cyprus in September 1964 as First Secretary where he remained until 1967. He returned to London to participate in the process of amalgamating the Information departments in the newly formed Foreign and Commonwealth Relations Offices and was also Adviser to the British group at the Inter-Parliamentary Union from 1968 to 1970. Head of Chancery in Lisbon from 1970 to 1973. He was Consul-General in Mozambique at the time of the rebellion by the Portuguese army in 1964 and remained to open diplomatic relations with the FRELIMO-led independence government in July 1975. He was selected to be Ambassador but the Mozambique government preferred an appointee who had not been accredited to the Portuguese government. He opened the new embassy as Chargé d'affaires until his replacement arrived. He was Counsellor (Political) at Brasilia from 1976 to 1977; Head of the Consular Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1977 to 1980; seconded to the Canadian National Defence College from 1980 to 1981; Ambassador to Bolivia in 1981. The Falklands war with Argentina caused him successfully to advise the military government not to involve Bolivia in the conflict and was able subsequently to witness the return to democratic government there. He left Bolivia in 1985 and went finally, as High Commissioner to Malta where he presided over the resolution of the seven-year long dispute with the Maltese government about the clearance of bombs and wrecks from the Grand Harbour of Valletta left over from the 1939-1945 war. Royal Navy ships had been denied visiting Malta during the dispute but the good relations which he was able to reestablish allowed their return to much acclaim. He retired in November 1987.
He was awarded the Portuguese Order of Christ in 1973 and C.M.G. in 1983.
Rhodesia, officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the de facto successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique to the east. From 1965 to 1979, Rhodesia was one of two independent states on the African continent governed by a white minority of European descent and culture, the other being South Africa.
Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 following prolonged dispute over the terms, particularly British demands for black majority rule. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia's security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla groups. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure.
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in south central Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia. It was initially administered, as were the two earlier protectorates, by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), a chartered company, on behalf of the British Government. From 1924, it was administered by the British Government as a protectorate, under similar conditions to other British-administered protectorates, and the special provisions required when it was administered by BSAC were terminated.
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was a statement adopted by the Cabinet of Rhodesia on 11 November 1965, announcing that Southern Rhodesia or simply Rhodesia, a British territory in southern Africa that had governed itself since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state. The culmination of a protracted dispute between the British and Rhodesian governments regarding the terms under which the latter could become fully independent, it was the first unilateral break from the United Kingdom by one of its colonies since the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. The UK, the Commonwealth and the United Nations all deemed Rhodesia's UDI illegal, and economic sanctions, the first in the UN's history, were imposed on the breakaway colony. Amid near-complete international isolation, Rhodesia continued as an unrecognised state with the assistance of South Africa and Portugal.
The British South Africa Company was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expected mineral wealth of Mashonaland but united because of common economic interests and to secure British government backing. The company received a Royal Charter modelled on that of the British East India Company. Its first directors included The 2nd Duke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself, and the South African financier Alfred Beit. Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the "Scramble for Africa". However, his main focus was south of the Zambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in the Transvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.
The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second Chimurenga as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia . The conflict pitted three forces against one another: the Rhodesian white minority-led government of Ian Smith ; the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the military wing of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union; and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union.
Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl was a Rhodesian politician who served as his country's Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1979 as a member of the Rhodesian Front (RF). A close associate of Prime Minister Ian Smith, Van der Byl opposed attempts to compromise with the British government and domestic black nationalist opposition on the issue of majority rule throughout most of his time in government. However, in the late 1970s he supported the moves which led to majority rule and internationally recognised independence for Zimbabwe.
Sir John Baines Johnston was a British diplomat. He is best known for being Britain's High Commissioner to Rhodesia when that colony made its Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965.
Brigadier Andrew Skeen was a British Indian Army officer, and Rhodesian politician who served as the last High Commissioner from Rhodesia to the United Kingdom.
Lieutenant General George Peter Walls GLM DCD MBE was a Rhodesian soldier. He served as the Head of the Armed Forces of Rhodesia during the Rhodesian Bush War from 1977 until his exile from the country in 1980.
Iain Peter Butchart, a cricketer, was born in Bulawayo on 9 May 1960. Broadcasting of television started in November. The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) was formed in 1961 with Joshua Nkomo as leader. The Rhodesian Front won the general elections of 1962 on 14 December. Winston Field then became the Prime Minister of Rhodesia. The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was formed in 1963 with Robert Mugabe as Secretary. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved on 31 December 1963 as Zambia and Malawi moved towards independence. The government placed Joshua Nkomo, leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union, under restriction on 16 April 1964. Northern Rhodesia gained its independence and Southern Rhodesia became the colony of Rhodesia on 24 October.
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also known as the Central African Federation or CAF, was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories: the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia and the British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It existed between 1953 and 1963.
Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth of Nations have had a controversial and stormy diplomatic relationship. Zimbabwe is a former member of the Commonwealth, having withdrawn in 2003, and the issue of Zimbabwe has repeatedly taken centre stage in the Commonwealth, both since Zimbabwe's independence and as part of the British Empire.
A de facto embassy is an office or organisation that serves de facto as an embassy in the absence of normal or official diplomatic relations among countries, usually to represent nations which lack full diplomatic recognition, regions or dependencies of countries, or territories over which sovereignty is disputed. In some cases, diplomatic immunity and extraterritoriality may be granted.
The Victoria Falls Conference took place on 26 August 1975 aboard a South African Railways train halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border between the unrecognised state of Rhodesia and Zambia. It was the culmination of the "détente" policy introduced and championed by B. J. Vorster, the Prime Minister of South Africa, which was then under apartheid and was attempting to improve its relations with the Frontline States to Rhodesia's north, west and east by helping to produce a settlement in Rhodesia. The participants in the conference were a delegation led by the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith on behalf of his government, and a nationalist delegation attending under the banner of Abel Muzorewa's African National Council (UANC), which for this conference also incorporated delegates from the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI). Vorster and the Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda acted as mediators in the conference, which was held on the border in an attempt to provide a venue both sides would accept as neutral.
The modern political history of Zimbabwe starts with the arrival of white people to what was dubbed Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. The country was initially run by an administrator appointed by the British South Africa Company. The prime ministerial role was first created in October 1923, when the country achieved responsible government, with Sir Charles Coghlan as its first Premier. The third Premier, George Mitchell, renamed the post Prime Minister in 1933.
The Rhodesian mission in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, operated from September 1965 to May 1975. It was a diplomatic mission representing Rhodesia, initially as a self-governing colony of Britain and, after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965, as an unrecognised state. Rhodesia informed Britain of its intent to open a Lisbon mission headed by an accredited representative, independent from the British Embassy in the city, in June 1965. Whitehall refused to endorse the idea but Rhodesia continued nonetheless, and later that month appointed Harry Reedman to head the mission. The British government attempted unsuccessfully to block this unilateral act—Rhodesia's first—for some months afterwards.
William John Harper was a politician, general contractor and Royal Air Force fighter pilot who served as a Cabinet minister in Rhodesia from 1962 to 1968, and signed that country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965. Born into a prominent Anglo-Indian merchant family in Calcutta, Harper was educated in India and England and joined the RAF in 1937. He served as an officer throughout the Second World War and saw action as one of "The Few" in the Battle of Britain, during which he was wounded in action. Appalled by Britain's granting of independence to India in 1947, he emigrated to Rhodesia on retiring from the Air Force two years later.
Queen of Rhodesia was the title asserted for Elizabeth II as Rhodesia's constitutional head of state following the country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom. However, the position only existed under the Rhodesian constitution of 1965 and remained unrecognised elsewhere in the world, including by Elizabeth herself. The British government, along with the United Nations and almost all governments, regarded the declaration of independence as an illegal act and nowhere else was the existence of the British monarch having separate status in Rhodesia accepted. With Rhodesia becoming a republic in 1970, the status or existence of the office ceased to be contestable.
The Rhodesia Information Centre, also known as the Rhodesian Information Centre, the Rhodesia Information Service, the Flame Lily Centre and the Zimbabwe Information Centre, represented the Rhodesian government in Australia from 1966 to 1980. As Australia did not officially recognise Rhodesia's independence it operated on an unofficial basis. The centre's activities included lobbying politicians, spreading propaganda about white minority rule in Rhodesia and advising Australian businesses on how they could evade the United Nations sanctions that had been imposed on the country. It collaborated with a far-right organisation and a pro-Rhodesia community organisation. The Rhodesia Information Centre had little impact, with Australian media coverage of the Rhodesian regime being almost entirely negative.
1.Daily Telegraph, London Day by Day "Overdue Assessment" 31 August 1972. 2.Daily Telegraph, London Day by Day "Hot Potato" 19 June 1973. 3.The Times, "Malta Greets the Navy with cheers and tears" 16 August 1986, pg 1, issue 62537. 4.Financial Times, "Sea Change" 18 November 1987. 5.The United Kingdom and the Independence of Portuguese Africa(1974–76). Vol.18 No.2. 2005, Pedro Aires Oliviera, Faculty of Social & Human Sciences, New University, Lisbon. 6."Counter Coup in Lourenco Marques" A.D. Harvey, International Journal of Historical African Studis, Vol.19, No.3 2006. 7.The Times Letters "Falklands Fallout" 3 April 2007.