UN, apartheid & 'Gandhi'

FORTIETH anniversaries fleet swiftly by and are soon forgotten, but we may be forgiven an exception for three punctuation points that marked the December of 1982. One at the United Nations in New York, another in a proud nation half a world away, and the third in an epic eye and mind behind a camera, creating an extraordinary film which captured the imagination of a fraught, fractured and fearful world.

It was a year where the United Nations Secretary-General warned of the approach of a “new international anarchy” as nations often demonstrated the lack of “vision to differentiate between politically expedient positions and the indispensable objective of creating a civilised and peaceful world order”.

“Separatism” had emerged as a new doctrine and isolation inhibited internationalism. Earlier that year, the United States had disassociated itself from the Convention on the Law of the Sea because its provisions on deep sea mining were not market-friendly. It also voted against guidelines to inhibit the marketing of infant formula, which posed a risk in countries where it could be inadvertently mixed with contaminated water, because it “did not want to vote to outlaw something abroad that we would not do so here at home”.

Few instances demonstrated that drawing of distance as vividly as the response to events within, and created by, the apartheid regime in South Africa. “Western powers” on the United Nations Security Council had vetoed resolutions to halt all trade with that government; the United States itself launched a policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa, “based on shared interests, persuasion, and improved communication”, which Pretoria did little to reciprocate. As the events of December 9, 1982, proved.

That morning, South African commandos crossed into the capital of Lesotho, a nation completely landlocked by South Africa, stormed homes and left 42 dead. The ‘Maseru massacre’ was sought to be justified as a pursuit of South African armed rebels who had sought refuge there. Lesotho lodged a complaint with the United Nations, where the Security Council met on December 15. Accompanying the King of Lesotho to the meeting was Charles Molapo, the Lesotho Foreign Minister, a good friend of India, which he had visited five years earlier (and so impressed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that she considered adding Lesotho to a southern African tour later that year, an idea abandoned because of the necessary flight over South Africa it would entail).

Molapo reached out to India’s Permanent Representative, Natarajan Krishnan, particularly anxious that “western powers” should not veto a resolution against South Africa and, if they could not support it, only abstain. As it happened, Krishnan had plans that very evening to watch a new and highly anticipated film, premiering at New York’s Ziegfield Theatre, with the US Alternate Permanent Representative, Charles Lichenstein. He invited Molapo to join them.

Lichenstein was an accidental diplomat. Having served successive US Presidents on domestic policy, he went on to the national Public Broadcasting System before being appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the United Nations position. To many, he was an acerbic and abrasive individual, best known for his exhortation to United Nations delegates unhappy with the United States to “consider removing themselves” from its soil. “The members of the US mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset,” an assertion astronomically tenuous as the United Nations stands on New York’s East River, where the sun only rises. (As a postscript, were Lichenstein alive today, he would not have countenanced the ignominy of Google dismissing searches of his name with, ‘Did you mean Liechtenstein?’)

But he and Krishnan were good friends, a tribute to Krishnan that Lichenstein readily acknowledged (“who would not be?” he once said) and he welcomed Molapo joining them. At the dinner after, the conversation was entirely about the film they had just seen, a film that Lichenstein said moved him “extraordinarily”.

The next day, an exceptionally tough resolution was placed before the Security Council. It called “upon South Africa to declare publicly that it will, in the future, comply with provisions of the (UN) Charter” and “strongly condemn(ed) the apartheid regime of South Africa for its premeditated aggressive act against the Kingdom of Lesotho”.

The United States did not veto. Nor did it abstain. It joined the unanimous endorsement of the resolution.

Speaking after the vote, Lichenstein made a statement, evocative and forceful. And then, as he was drawing to a close, he put aside the text from which he was reading, and which had been circulated to delegates and interpreters, took off his glasses, and appeared to look at the eastern wall of the chamber, or even beyond it, to the oceans and continents that lay beyond. And, as he began to speak extemporaneously, the gravel in his voice had mellowed into marble.

“Violence,” he said, “from whatever quarter, must be condemned. Those who would promote or resort to violence must know that the consequence can only be more violence, an escalating cycle that presents only obstacles to solving real problems. More than most countries, South Africa surely must appreciate the consequences of further eroding international restraints against the use of violence.”

As the meeting ended, Ambassador Krishnan went up to Lichenstein to thank him for that gentle but spear sharp intervention. “Don’t thank me, Krish,” he replied. “You should thank you.” And, after a brief pause, as he evidently thought back yet again to the film they had seen, “and Gandhi”.

— The writer was the first Director of the United Nations Academic Impact