The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

66 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 7 Strength in Numbers African Diplomacy: The U.N. Experience Frederick S. Arkhurst, Author House, 2006, $14.00, paperback, 271 pages. R EVIEWED BY H ERMAN J. C OHEN Between 1957 and 1964, most European colonies in sub-Saharan Africa achieved their independence, at the rate of about one per month. The Republic of Ghana, which is celebrat- ing its golden jubilee this year, was the first one to gain sovereignty. Ambassador Frederick S. Arkhurst, the author of this memoir, was one of the pioneers of African diplomacy as he rotated in the Ghanaian Foreign Service through New York, Washing- ton, London and back home to Accra during the heady first decade of decol- onization. Focusing on the United Nations, Arkhurst tells the story of how African nations exploited their strength in numbers to wield influence on some important policy issues in the General Assembly. Of particular significance to the United States during that early period was the issue of Chinese representa- tion in the U.N. after the communist takeover in 1949. Until the African delegations came on the scene, the United States was able to stave off demands for the seating of Beijing and the expulsion of Taipei from the Chinese seat on the Security Council. But by 1971, the pressure from Africa and the rest of the nonaligned move- ment became too great, and Beijing was voted in. (Another factor, of course, was President Nixon’s decision that it no longer made sense to ignore the PRC.) Still, the Africans had demonstrated that collectively, at least, they counted for something in multi- lateral organizations. Working for their own high-priority cause, the Africans were able to engi- neer the revocation in 1966 of South Africa’s League of Nations mandate to rule Namibia. This was effectively the first step in the eventual unraveling of the deeply racist South African apartheid system that came to an end in 1990. It should be noted that the Africans received a strong boost on the Namibia mandate issue from the U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. at that time, Ambassador Arthur Goldberg. The author describes one problem at the United Nations that is still with us today to some extent. African for- eign ministries are often too under- staffed to deal with the many issues arising in the General Assembly and Security Council. As a result, there is a tendency for decisions to be made by delegations on the spot. This is a par- ticular challenge for U.S. diplomacy because it traditionally concentrates on persuading policymakers in foreign capitals to support our positions. But while we are making demarches over- seas, African delegations are gathering together in New York to determine their votes, sometimes with little more than demagoguery driving the deliber- ations. The U.S. mission to the United Nations is therefore wise to have a slot for an Africanist in its delegation. Arkhurst’s diplomatic career was cut short in 1966 when Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah was oust- ed in a military coup as he was attend- ing a state banquet in Beijing. Nkrumah’s megalomania had grown to the extent that he traveled to Asia uninvited, and against the advice of the U.S. government, to unveil a plan to end the VietnamWar. Subsequent- ly, the U.N. recruited Arkhurst to work for the secretariat in a variety of high- level posts in Africa, specializing in health, population and environmental issues, over a period of several decades. Because his diplomatic career was so brief, Arkhurst’s memoir is relatively succinct. It will be of interest mainly to U.N. junkies who relish analyzing General Assembly votes, abstentions and all, rather than general readers. The author ends by offering his views on some current issues, like globaliza- tion and economic development. And here it is refreshing to find an African intellectual and practitioner who declines to blame the outside world for the continent’s chronic dependency. n Retired Career Ambassador Herman J. “Hank” Cohen, who entered the Foreign Service in 1955, was a labor- reporting officer at four African posts. He later served as ambassador to Senegal and the Gambia, and was assistant secretary for African affairs during the George H.W. Bush admin- istration, among many other positions. Since retiring from the Foreign Service in 1993, he has worked as a senior adviser to the Global Coalition for Africa and is the author of Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacekeeping in a Troubled Continent (St. Martin’s Palgrave, 2000). B OOKS