Today in History: South Africa is suspended from World Meteorological Organisation
South Africa was eventually readmitted to the WMO on 9 June, 1994.
On this day in 1975, the United Nations agency known as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) suspended the Republic of South Africa’s membership due to the country’s decision to continue implementing the apartheid policy.
The WMO is an intergovernmental organisation and special United Nations agency with a membership of 192 member states and territories. It followed on from the International Meteorological Organisation, founded in 1873, which was a non-governmental organisation.
Reforms to its status and structure were proposed from the 1930s, culminating in the World Meteorological Convention, signed on 11 October, 1947. It came into force on 23 March, 1950. It formally became the World Meteorological Organisation on 17 March, 1951, and was designated as a specialised agency of the United Nations.
Twenty-four years later, at the seventh World Meteorological Congress held from 28 April to 23 May, 1975 (which the Republic of South Africa didn’t even attend), the seventh item on the agenda of the congress was the discussion between the WMO’s members of whether the Republic of South Africa should have its membership suspended. According to the abridged report of the Congress, the “Congress considered a proposal for the suspension of the Government of the Republic of South Africa from Membership of the World Meteorological Organization on the basis of a draft resolution submitted by a large number of delegations”.
On the third day of the Congress (30 April), the decision was made and the resolution taken to suspend South Africa’s membership. According to the abridged report, the decision was as follows: “[Congress] DECIDES that the Government of the Republic of South Africa shall be immediately suspended from exercising its rights and enjoying privileges as a Member of WMO until it renounces its policy of racial discrimination, and abides by the United Nations resolutions concerning Namibia”.
While many were in support of suspending South Africa, a few nations opposed it, with the report stating the following as their reasoning: “They [those who opposed] felt that WMO was highly dependent on a world-wide network and that the exclusion of South Africa would result in a serious gap with detrimental effects on air navigation, agriculture, etc. Some delegates also considered that the proposal contravened Articles 2 and 31 of the Convention”.
Nonetheless, South Africa was suspended from the organisation for 19 years before being re-admitted in 1994, following the first democratic elections in South Africa, and the election of Nelson Mandela as president.
Information courtesy of: https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/sa-suspended-world-meteorological-organization, https://public.wmo.int/en/about-us/members, and https://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_416_en.pdf.
