Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:South Africa and the Owen/Vance Plan of 1977
Author:Onslow, Sue
Year:2004
Periodical:South African Historical Journal
Issue:51
Pages:130-158
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
Zimbabwe
Subjects:civil wars
peace treaties
foreign policy
negotiation
Politics and Government
international relations
Ethnic and Race Relations
Inter-African Relations
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582470409464833
Abstract:Between late June and the beginning of September 1977 a series of meetings took place between the South African premier, B. Johannes Vorster, and his Rhodesian counterpart, Ian Smith. This intense flurry of diplomatic activity marked the period in which renewed Anglo-American hopes of an international settlement to the Rhodesia question, as proposed by the British Foreign Secretary, David Owen, and the American Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and a parallel acceptable solution to the South West African (now Namibia) issue, were dashed. Drawing on the original handwritten transcript of the Vorster-Smith meetings, this paper reveals the intricacies of South African intentions and diplomacy. Examination of these meetings offers an insight into the dynamic of South African-Rhodesian relations at a critical juncture in the Cold War in southern Africa, the preoccupations and divergence of opinion between Pretoria and Salisbury, and their differing responses to the challenge of militant African nationalism supported by the Soviet bloc. South Africa's preferred version of progress towards black majority rule in South West Africa clearly influenced both the content and presentation of its policy towards Rhodesia in mid-1977. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover