CONFIDENTIAL
(Classification)
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INR BRIEFING NOTE
TO: The Director, INR
CIST: General Assembly Passes South West African Resolution by Vote of 96 to 2; US Among 18 Abstainers.
DATE: 6/12/68
TIME: 15:00
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
SOURCE(S)
AP ticker item #71 U
6/12/68
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
The UN General Assembly today approved by a vote of 96 to 2 (with 18 abstentions) a resolution condemning South Africa for holding on to South West Africa but making no specific request for sanctions by the Security Council to compel the South Africans to yield control. The United States, Great Britain and France were among the abstainers. Only Portugal and South Africa voted against the resolution.
INR/RAF Comment: Although we do not yet have the text of the SWA resolution as passed, it appears to be essentially the same as the compromise resolution agreed to only last night by the Afro-Asian and Latin American delegates. This compromise eliminated all specific references to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter (mandatory sanctions), but sanctions were so strongly implied in several places in the compromise resolution that the US felt unable to go along with it.
Passage of the SWA resolution this early in the day appears to clear the way for a vote on the NPT resolution later today. Had the US been able to vote in favor of the SWA resolution, we would have predicted that some of the African members who abstained in the Committee I vote on the NPT resolution might have supported it in the plenary vote. Our abstention on the SWA resolution makes any significant shifts in favor of the NPT resolution unlikely as African members will be tempted to retaliate for our abstention on a resolution that so directly affects their interests. We do not, however, anticipate that our abstention on the SWA resolution will significantly (if at all) increase the negative vote on the NPT resolution. (Tanzania and Zambia were the only two African countries to vote against the NPT resolution in Committee I.)
INR OFFICE
RAF
BRIEFER
Kinter
EXTENSION
4970
CONFIDENTIAL
(Classification)
FORM DS-1118
6-66
NW 31097 DocId:33061196 Page 3