Tripartite Accord (1988)
1988 treaty between Angola, Cuba and South Africa
The Agreement among the People's Republic of Angola, the Republic of Cuba, and the Republic of South Africa (also known as the Tripartite Accord, Three Powers Accord or New York Accords) granted independence to Namibia (then known as South West Africa) from South Africa and ended the direct involvement of foreign troops in the Angolan Civil War. The accords were signed on 22 December 1988 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City by the Foreign Ministers of People's Republic of Angola (Afonso Van-Dunem), Republic of Cuba (Isidoro Malmierca Peoli) and Republic of South Africa (Roelof F. Botha).
Negotiations
In 1981 Chester Crocker, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs for newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan, had developed a linkage policy. It tied apartheid South Africa's agreement to relinquish control of Namibia, in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 435, and to retreat from Angola, to Cuba's withdrawing its troops from Angola. On 10 September 1986 Cuban president Fidel Castro accepted Crocker's proposal in principle. The South African government also accepted the principle of linkage; it proposed the concept at the UN 7th Plenary Meeting on 20 September 1986 (the Question of Namibia).
The concept was strongly rejected by a Cuban-backed majority, with representatives strongly stating their opposition to the effect of, "... The UN.... Calls upon South Africa to desist from linking the independence of Namibia to irrelevant and extraneous issues such as the presence of Cuban troops in Angola as such linkage is incompatible with the relevant United Nations resolutions, particularly Security Council resolution 435 (1978);..."
The Angolan and United States governments started bilateral talks in June 1987 while the civil war continued. There is disagreement amongst historians on how the various parties agreed to come to the table:
Cuba contends that its military successes against the South Africans in Angola drove the South Africans to the negotiating table.
“Tripartite Accord (1988)” enters the record as 1988 treaty between Angola, Cuba and South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tripartite, Accord and treaty can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7843235. Authority coordinates are 40.750, -73.967. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1981, 1986 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tripartite Accord (1988)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.