UNITED NATIONS -- Irony and grief hung over the ceremony Thursday heralding Namibia's independence, coming less than a day after the fiery death of Bernt Carlsson, the U.N. diplomat who actively contributed to the fledging nation's birth.
'Bernt Carlsson was a tireless champion of Namibia's independence,' U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said after joining envoys from South Africa, Angola and Cuba in signing an agreement gradually freeing the Namibian people from South African domination.
'His memory will be honored by all who wish Namibia well. We grieve for him,' Shultz said at the signing ceremony at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Carlsson, 50, a bachelor from Sweden who was U.N. commissioner for Namibia, was returning from a mission to the European Parliament when he died Wednesday aboard the Pan Am jumbo jet that crashed in southern Scotland.
In Stockholm, Sweden's prime minister found irony in the tragedy, noting Carlsson's death came on the eve of the Namibia's symbolic birth.
'Bernt Carlsson actively contributed (to the fact) that the agreement is signed at this moment,' said Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who is not related to his like-named countryman.
The United Nations was not a direct sponsor of the pact, but Carlsson was to supervise the negotiated timetable for the independence of South African-controlled Namibia. The pact also calls for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from neighboring Angola.
Carlsson's last known act was to telephone his chief aide, Macaire Pedanou, from London's Heathrow Airport to say he was about to board Pan Am Flight 103.
'He was in Brussels where he had been invited to speak to a committee of the European Parliament,' Pedanou said. 'He stopped in London to meet a non-governmental organization there and he was returning to New York.'
Sweden's foreign minister called Carlsson's death 'doubly tragic.'
'Both Sweden and the world have lost one of those who worked with greatest devotion for peace and freedom,' Foreign Minister Sten Andersson said in Stockholm.
'It's doubly tragic that he would lose his life as the agreement on Namibia was to be signed.'
Carlsson began his diplomatic career in the Swedish Foreign Service. He became international secretary of the ruling Swedish Social Democratic Party and was a close confidant of former Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, who was assassinated in 1986.
From 1976 until the mid-1980s, Carlsson was general secretary of the Socialist International, an organization of Social Democratic parties worldwide.
'I have met many international figures in my time and I found that he was simply an extraordinary man in terms of devotion to his job,' said Laurence Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
'While general secretary (of Socialist International), he was one of the Reagan administration's leading critics on its Central American policy.'
Carlsson became the Swedish ambassador to international organizations, involving much work with the United Nations, and in the course of his duties was appointed U.N. commissioner for Namibia.
