Foreign Relations of South Africa During Apartheid - South-West Africa

South-West Africa

Separate from the issue of apartheid was a major quarrel between the UN and South Africa about the management of South West Africa. After World War I, all German colonies were made mandates of the League of Nations, the UN's forbearer. Direction of these mandates was allotted to certain countries. The Treaty of Versailles declared German West Africa a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration, and it then became known as South West Africa. Walvis Bay was annexed by Britain in 1878 and incorporated into the Cape Colony in 1884. It thus became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910. In 1915 the Union occupied German South West Africa at the request of the Allied powers. South Africa was granted a "C" Class mandate by the League of Nations to administer SWA as an integral part of South Africa. The South African government transferred administration of Walvis Bay to SWA in 1922 and then transferred it back to the Cape Province again in 1977. After the configuration of the UN in 1945, and the transferral of mandates from the League of Nations to the new body, the arrangement changed: former obligatory powers (vis-à-vis those in charge of ex-German colonies) were now obliged to form new concurrences with the UN over their management of the mandates. South Africa, however, refused to play ball, declining to allow the territory to move towards independence. The NP government argued that, for a quarter of a century, South-West Africa had been directed as a piece of South Africa, and the preponderance of South-West Africans wanted to become South Africans anyway. Instead, South-West Africa was treated as a de facto "fifth province" of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa.

The UN attempted to compel South Africa to let go of the mandate, and, in 1960, Liberia and Ethiopia requested that the International Court of Justice announce that South Africa's management of South West Africa was illegitimate. They argued that South Africa was bringing apartheid to South-West Africa, too. South Africa was formally accused of maladministration, and the lawsuit, commencing in November 1960, lasted almost six years. The International Court's verdict astonished the UN: it ruled that Liberia and Ethiopia had no right to take issue with South Africa's deeds in South-West Africa. The Court did not, however, pass judgement on whether or not South Africa still had a mandate over the region. The UN declared that the mandate was indeed concluded, and a council of the UN was to run the state until its independence in 1968. South Africa rebuffed the resolution, but declared its ostensible intention to ready South-West Africa for independence.

Anxiety increased when the UN Council for South-West Africa was declined admission, and steepened still further when South Africa indicted 35 South-West Africans and then found them guilty of terror campaigns. The UN reproached South Africa and declared that South-West Africa would thenceforth be known as Namibia. At the New York Accords in 1988, South Africa finally signed the agreement that granted the country its independence.

The UN allowed the South African government back in 1994, however the South African government had to first show that they had undertaken certain measures to get rid of the racial judgement. Soon after the South African government created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was supposed to aid the transition from Apartheid to Democracy.