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| Ten years were to elapse until the ]/] summit of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union in ] (May 29, 1988 – June 1, 1988), finally secured the implementation of UNSCR 435, which would require South Africa to relinquish its control of Namibia.<ref></ref> | Ten years were to elapse until the ]/] summit of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union in ] (May 29, 1988 – June 1, 1988), finally secured the implementation of UNSCR 435, which would require South Africa to relinquish its control of Namibia.<ref></ref> | ||
| ==Conspiracy theory== | |||
| {{COI}} | |||
| {{Main|Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories}} | |||
| No evidence has ever been produced for the ] but, in a series of letters that were published in '']'' newspaper starting on December 7, 1989, former British diplomat ] alleged that ] was responsible for Bernt Carlsson's death in the ].<ref>{{cite web | |||
| |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/File:PatrickHaseldine3B.jpg | |||
| |title=Finger of suspicion | |||
| |date=1989-12-07 | |||
| |author=] | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |accessdate=2009-02-25 | |||
| }}</ref> According to Haseldine's theory, Carlsson was targeted in order to frustrate ]'s progress towards independence from South African rule. He cites a number of related events to support his theory: | |||
| * Signing of the Namibia independence agreement on December 22, 1988 (the day after the ]) at ]. | |||
| * Cancellation at short notice of a booking on PA 103 by a 23-strong South African delegation, headed by foreign minister ], and including defence minister ] and director of military intelligence General C J Van Tonder. | |||
| * The last-minute change of travel plan by Bernt Carlsson. Instead of flying direct from ] to ] on December 20, 1988 Carlsson was persuaded by a representative of ] to stop over in London the following day and to join the PA 103 transatlantic flight.<ref>{{cite web | |||
| |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/File:IDAG(1)12MAR90.jpg | |||
| |title=Pressad och nervös före dödskraschen | |||
| |date=1990-03-12 | |||
| |author=] | |||
| |publisher=iDAG | |||
| |accessdate=2009-02-25 | |||
| }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | |||
| |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/File:IDAG(2)12MAR90.jpg | |||
| |title=Stressed and nervous before air crash | |||
| |date=1990-03-12 | |||
| |author=] | |||
| |publisher=iDAG | |||
| |accessdate=2009-02-25 | |||
| }}</ref> | |||
| However, Haseldine never explained {{Fact|date=March 2009}} how Carlsson's death would have frustrated Namibia's progress towards independence, because the signing of the ] and eventual independence completed as agreed upon by all parties. | |||
| ==Memorial== | ==Memorial== | ||
Revision as of 21:32, 9 March 2009
Bernt Wilmar Carlsson (1938 - December 21, 1988) was Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia from July 1987 until he died on Pan Am Flight 103, which was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988.
Social democrat
A native of Stockholm, Carlsson joined the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League when he was sixteen, studied economics at Stockholm University and, upon graduation, went into Sweden's foreign ministry. He worked as assistant to the Minister of Commerce in 1967 and, three years later, was assigned to be international secretary of the ruling Social Democratic Party of Sweden in 1970. Concurrent with his position in the party, Prime Minister, Olof Palme, appointed him as Special Adviser.
Socialist International
In 1976, Carlsson became Secretary-General of Socialist International (SI), based in London, at the same time as former Federal German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, assumed the SI presidency. For the next seven years, Carlsson was engaged in extending the SI's influence beyond Europe to Third World countries, channelling money and political support to the struggle for liberation in Southern Africa. When there was a break-in at his London apartment, Carlsson confided to his Canadian SI colleague Robin V Sears:
"They messed things up and pawed through my papers. Then just to make sure I knew it wasn't a simple burglary they piled my money in the centre of the living-room rug." South African goons were active in London at the time, and some had a bizarre sense of humour. "But don't talk about it, and I'm not going to report it. That would just give the bastards their little victory."
Carlsson also pioneered moves towards Middle East peace using the SI's unique position of having Israel's governing Labour Party as a member, and at the same time retaining very good ties with Arab countries and Yasser Arafat's faction in the PLO. Carlsson developed a particularly close relationship with Arafat's right-hand man, Issam Sartawi, who was murdered (allegedly by the Abu Nidal Organization) during an SI conference in Portugal on April 10, 1983. Earlier in 1983, however, in a dispute about what he perceived as the SI president's authoritarian approach, Carlsson rebuked Brandt saying: "this is a Socialist International — not a German International". Following the April 1983 SI congress in Albufeira, Portugal, which Brandt had contentiously decided to relocate the SI's conference from Sydney (due to the protests of newly-elected pro-Israeli Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke against the PLO's inclusion), Brandt retaliated by forcing Carlsson to step down.
Swedish diplomat
Carlsson left London and returned to Sweden in 1983 and, for two years, became Palme's special emissary to the Middle East and Africa. Palme entrusted him with an important Middle East role in delicate attempts to negotiate a peace agreement between Iran and Iraq. From 1985 to 1987 Carlsson was head of Nordic Affairs in Sweden's foreign ministry. In 1986 Palme was assassinated.
UN Commissioner for Namibia
On July 1, 1987 Carlsson was appointed an Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the UN Commissioner for Namibia. A year later, he convened a meeting in Stockholm between the SWAPO leadership (Sam Nujoma, Hage Geingob and Hidipo Hamutenya), and a delegation of "whites" from Namibia to discuss developments in the independence process.
Namibia's independence had been expected to take place soon after United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 was agreed in September 1978. However, it took over 10 years for UNSCR 435 to be implemented. The delay was blamed by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens on Chester Crocker's 'procrastination' and on President Ronald Reagan's 'attempt to change the subject to the presence of Cuban forces in Angola' as well as the 'flagrant bias' in America's Namibia policy in favour of apartheid South Africa. Hitchens praised Carlsson's role as a 'neutral mediator' in the process leading to Namibia's independence:
An important participant was Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia, who worked tirelessly for free elections in the colony and tried to isolate the racists diplomatically. Carlsson had been Secretary-General of the Socialist International, and International Secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He performed innumerable services for movements and individuals from Eastern Europe to Latin America. His death in the mass murder of the passengers on Pan American Flight 103 just before Christmas 1988, and just before the signing of the Namibia accords in New York, is appalling beyond words.
An editorial in The Guardian of December 23, 1988 stated:
Two days before Christmas, two tides flow strongly. One - the greater tide - is the tide of peace. More nagging, bloody conflicts have been settled in 1988 than in any year since the end of the Second World War. There are forces for good abroad in the world as seldom before. There is also a tide of evil, a force of destruction. By just one of those ironies which afflict the human condition, peace came to Namibia yesterday. Meanwhile, on a Scottish hillside, the body of the Swedish UN Commissioner for Namibia was one amongst hundreds strewn across square miles of debris: a victim - supposition, but strongly based - of a random terrorist bomb which had blown a 747 to bits at 31,000 feet."
Ten years were to elapse until the Ronald Reagan/Mikhail Gorbachev summit of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union in Moscow (May 29, 1988 – June 1, 1988), finally secured the implementation of UNSCR 435, which would require South Africa to relinquish its control of Namibia.
Memorial
An obituary to Carlsson, written by his friend Michael Harrington, was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 26, 1988. The Bernt Carlsson Trust – otherwise known as One World Action – was founded by Glenys Kinnock on December 21, 1989 (the first anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster) in memory of Carlsson.
In Windhoek, Namibia, a street in the Pionierpark Extension 1 township is named "Bernt Carlsson Road".
In 2008, to mark the 20th anniversary of the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103, the Socialist International published an article entitled "Remembering Bernt Carlsson". The article quoted from the eulogy given by Sten Andersson (then Sweden's foreign minister) at the January 1989 memorial service in Stockholm. Andersson described Carlsson as:
A man with a natural talent for the difficult art of silent diplomacy. In that art many are unsuccessful. But not Bernt. For Bernt was also a man with a soul as tough as steel as his friend Michael Harrington so nicely put it. We, his friends and colleagues, know that he was knowledgeable, with analytical acumen, single-minded and, most important of all, untiring in his fight for those most exposed, those most persecuted. At all times and in every post Bernt was always prepared in concrete action to make common cause with the weak and oppressed. In our country and the world.
References
- U.N. Officer on Flight 103 The New York Times December 22, 1988
- Robin V. Sears (1989). "Bernt Carlsson: A Very Private Public Servant" (PDF). Development Dialogue (Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation) (1989:1): 82–88.
- "Never at a Loss for Words". TIME. 1983-04-18. Retrieved 2008-07-09.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|unused_data=(help) - Hitchens, Christopher (1993). For the sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports. Verso. p. 99. ISBN 0-86-091435-6.
- One view from a desolate hillside
- Namibia's independence process 1988-1990
- Michael Harrington (1988-12-26). "Lost On Flight 103: A Hero To The Wretched Of The World". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
- "Remembering Bernt Carlsson". Socialist International. Retrieved 2009-02-02.
See also
External links
- Countdown to PA 103
- Lost on Flight 103: A Hero to the Wretched of the World
- Namibia's long journey to independence
- Bernt Carlsson Trust
- Socialist International website