Chester Crocker - Constructive Engagement

Constructive Engagement

As chairman of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential election campaign's "Africa working group", Crocker sought to change US policy on apartheid South Africa away from what he saw as the confrontational approach adopted by the Carter presidency and towards a new policy which he termed "constructive engagement." Shortly after the election, Crocker attracted the attention of the Reagan transition team with an article he wrote in the winter 1980/81 edition of the Foreign Affairs journal. In the article, Crocker was highly critical of the outgoing Carter administration for its apparent hostility to the white minority government in South Africa, by acquiescing in the United Nations Security Council's imposition of a mandatory arms embargo (UNSCR 418/77) and the UN's demand for the end of South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia (UNSCR 435/78).

On February 7, 1981 Crocker formally proposed that the United States should link Namibian independence to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, where they had been helping the MPLA government of Jose Eduardo dos Santos to contain South African-backed Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebels. In April 1981, Assistant Secretary of State Crocker was dispatched to Africa on a two-week, eleven nation tour to lay the groundwork for the new policy. However, Crocker was met with distrust on one side – the black leaders wary of the Reagan administration's friendly approach towards the white-minority government in South Africa – and hostility from the other, with prime minister P. W. Botha refusing to meet with him. Undeterred, Crocker continued to insist that a comprehensive solution was the only way to allay the fears on both sides. In his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on February 15, 1983 he argued:

"Security, of which the Cuban troop issue is an integral part, has always been a prerequisite for agreement on Namibian independence. As a practical diplomatic matter, it will not be possible to obtain a Namibian independence agreement without satisfactory regional security assurances."

Constructive engagement and "the fearlessly soft attitude displayed by Chester Crocker towards apartheid" were blamed by author/journalist Christopher Hitchens for the ten-year delay in implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 and securing Namibia's independence.