United Nations Council for Namibia

United Nations Council for Namibia
Abbreviation	UNCN
Formation	1967
Extinction	1990
Parent organization	UN

The United Nations Council for South West Africa – renamed the United Nations Council for Namibia (UNCN) in 1968 – was established in 1967 as the legal Administering Authority for the UN Trust Territory, Namibia, which continued to be occupied by apartheid South Africa after the UN terminated its mandate in 1966.

Illegal occupation

In 1971 the International Court of Justice ruled that the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia was illegal and as a result South Africa was under the obligation to withdraw its administration from Namibia immediately and thus put an end to its occupation of the Territory. But South Africa refused to withdraw, and the national liberation movement South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) proceeded with its struggle for independence.

Governors-in-waiting

Although the UN Council for Namibia was prevented from establishing de facto control of the country, the UNCN did appoint a series of seven UN Commissioners to act as governors-in-waiting. The 7th UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was scheduled to take control of Namibia upon the signing of the New York Accords by South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha on 22 December 1988. However, Carlsson was killed in the Lockerbie bombing of 21 December 1988 and Botha passed control to the South African appointee Administrator-General Louis Pienaar instead.

Namibian independence

Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 (UNSCR 435) of 1978 finally began on 1 April 1989, and UN Special Representative Martti Ahtisaari arrived in Windhoek to head the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) to oversee the election in November 1989 that led to Namibian independence four months later.

Dissolution

At the UN General Assembly on 12 September 1990 the UNCN was dissolved following the independence of Namibia on 21 March 1990. Extract of UNGA Resolution A/RES/44/243:

"Requests the UN Secretary-General immediately to arrange, in consultation with the Government of Namibia, to co-ordinate the transfer to the Government of Namibia of the programmes, activities and assets of the United Nations Council for Namibia, including archival collections consisting of, inter alia, major resolutions and decisions of the United Nations on the question of Namibia and other relevant documents and official correspondence, as well as, in particular, those relating to the implementation of Decree No 1 for the Protection of the Natural Resources of Namibia and to the accession to international conventions and representation of Namibia in specialised agencies of the United Nations and intergovernmental organisations."

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Pan Am Flight 103: It was the Uranium	article	6 January 2014	Patrick Haseldine	Following Bernt Carlsson's untimely death in the Lockerbie bombing, the UN Council for Namibia inexplicably dropped the case against Britain's URENCO for illegally importing yellowcake from the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia.
Document:The Rossing File:The Inside Story of Britain's Secret Contract for Namibian Uranium	pamphlet	1980	Alun Roberts	Scandal in the 1970s and 1980s of collusion by successive British governments with the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto to import yellowcake from the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia (illegally occupied by apartheid South Africa) in defiance of international law, and leading to the targeting of UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

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