South Africa and the United Nations: the dynamics of duplicity and defiance

The Republic of South Africa has riveted international attention for several decades on account of the issues of apartheid policy and its illegal occupation of Namibia. This essay analyses the relationship between the white supremacist regime in South Africa and the United Nations in these two issue areas. It not merely explains the inability of the UN to come to effective grips with the problem of apartheid and the Namibian question (the South African government has ignored all resolutions adopted by both the General Assembly and the Security Council over Namibia, and has argued that apartheid should be regarded as an internal affair of the Republic of South Africa), but equally suggests possible solutions within and outside the UN framework. The author argues that problems such as the South African one cannot be solved by the UN. It can only serve as a pressure point on the South African authorities. The article’s starting point is a discussion of the purposes and objectives of international organizations against the backdrop of the interests which States seek to attain both within and outside these organizations. Ref.