1. Pre-colonial History
The history of Namibia is not well chronicled. Its isolated geographic position limited contact with the outside world until the 19th century. Explorer, missionary, trader, conqueror, and settler sources are neither comprehensive, notable for accuracy, nor unbiased. Professional historiography is a post-1960 development in the country, and the political events of the years since then have coloured most of the written history.
The earliest Namibians were San (often pejoratively called Bushmen), nomadic peoples with a survival-oriented culture based on hunting and gathering.
Their clans were small and rarely federated, and their military technology was so weak that even before the arrival of the Europeans they had been pushed back to the desert margins.
The first conquerors in southern Namibia were the Nama (of a people often though not in Namibia pejoratively called Hottentots). They had a larger clan system, with interclan alliances, and a pastoral economy. Closely linked (usually in a dependent role) were the Damara, a people from central Africa whose culture combined pastoralism, hunting, and copper smelting. In northeastern and central Namibia the Herero (a pastoral people from central Africa) built up interlocked clan systems eventually headed by a paramount chief.
The unity of the Herero nation, however, was always subject to splintering. In the north the Ovambo people developed several kingdoms on both sides of the Kunene River. They were mixed farmers (largely because of a more hospitable environment for crops) and also smelted and worked copper. To the east the related Kavango peoples had a somewhat similar but weaker state system. On the margins of Namibia—i.e., the Caprivi Strip in the far east and on the margins of the Kalahari the local peoples and groupings were spillovers from southern Zambia (Barotse) and Botswana (Tswana).
Until the 1860s, European contact and penetration were slight.
Diogo Cão and Bartolomeu Dias touched on the Namibian coast in 1486 and 1488 respectively, en route to and returning from the Cape of Good Hope, but there was virtually no contact until the 1670s. Afrikaner explorers after 1670 and Afrikaner traders and settlers about 1790 came to Namibia and eventually reached the southern boundaries of the Ovambo kingdoms, notably at the Etosha Pan. They, together with German missionaries, explorers of varied nationality, British traders, and Norwegian whalers, did not play a dominant role before 1860. Instead, they created the first avenues for trade (ivory and later cattle) and introduced firearms.
The latter heightened the destructiveness of conflicts among the various clans and peoples. So did the arrival, after the first quarter of the 19th century, of the Oorlam-Nama from the Cape. Their military technology (which included horses, guns, and a small mobile commando organisational pattern) was modelled on that of the Afrikaners. They came to dominate the resident Nama (Red Nation) and Damara. In the middle of the 19th century, a kingdom ruled by the Oorlam but partly Herero and supported by the Red Nation and Damara was established near Windhoek by the Oorlam chief Jan Jonker Afrikaner.
Central Namibia was then an area of conflict between the southward-moving Herero and the northward-migrating Nama. In 1870 a peace treaty was signed with the Germans on the border of Herero country. Meanwhile, largely as a result of war pressures, Maherero had emerged as the Herero paramount chief. At this time a South African Coloured community, the Rehoboth Basters, had immigrated to a territory south of Windhoek, where they served as a buffer between the Herero and the Germans. Like the Oorlam, they were europeanised in military technology as well as civil society and state organisation, which were copied from the Afrikaners.
2. Colonial History
The German Conquest
In the 1870s, British annexation of Namibia appeared imminent. A treaty with the Herero and the raising of the British flag over Walvis Bay were seen as forerunners of the northward expansion of the Cape Colony. However, London proved reluctant to take on added costs in an apparently valueless area, and the way was left open to German colonial annexation as South West Africa in the 1880s. The acquisitions, by exceedingly dubious “treaties” and more naked theft, did not go smoothly, despite the employment of so-called “divide and rule” tactics within and between peoples. The first major resistance by the Herero in 1885 forced the Germans back to Walvis Bay until British troops were sent out.
By the turn of the century, German settlers had arrived, copper was minable, railway building from Swakopmund and Lüderitz was under way, and diamonds were soon discovered near Lüderitz.
But from 1904 to 1907 a great war of resistance broke out, nearly expelling the Germans before it was quelled with extreme savagery by tactics including extermination, hangings, and forced detention in concentration camps.
The first phase of the war was fought between the Germans and the Herero (with a single Ovambo battle at Fort Namutoni near the Etosha Pan). It reached a climax when General Lother van Trotha defeated the main Herero army at the Battle of Waterberg and, taking no prisoners, drove them into the Kalahari, where most died.
By 1910 the loss of life by hanging, battle, or starvation and thirst—plus the escape of a few to the Bechuanaland protectorate—had reduced the Herero people by about 90 percent (80-85 percent dead, 5-10 percent in exile).
The Nama resistance war came late because a key letter from Maherero’s son and successor, Samuel Maherero, to the Oorlam chief Hendrik Witbooi that proposed joint action had been intercepted.
The resistance was finally crushed in 1907, and Nama survivors were herded into concentration camps. War, starvation, and conditions in the camps claimed the lives of two-thirds of the Nama. The Germans allocated about half of the usable and apparently all of the best farm land (except that of the Rehoboth Basters) to settlers and restricted Africans to reserves. The Tsumeb copper and zinc mines opened in 1906, and diamond mining (more accurately, sand sifting) began near Lüderitz in 1908 and at the main fields at the mouth of the Orange River (Oranjemund) a few years later. Railways linked Lüderitz, Keetmanshoop, and Windhoek as well as Swakopmund, Windhoek, and Tsumeb.
German direct rule never extended to the north. The “red line”-now a quarantine boundary—delimited the Police Zone from the Ovambo and Kavango areas. In the latter, the near extinction of elephants, a rinderpest epidemic, and the rising consumption habits of the kings led to a migration of single male contract labourers to work in the mines and farms and in construction. “Contract”—which was to provide the cheap labour for the colonial economy and later provided the national communication and solidarity links to build the liberation movements of 1960-90--had begun.
The South African Period
In 1914-15 South African troops invaded and captured South West Africa as part of the World War I conquest of the German colonies in Africa. Except for diamond mines, most property including Tsumeb—found its way back into German hands. The rising De Beers colossus bought Oranjemund and the balance of the diamond-producing area to bolster its world domination; it was used as a market balancing mine (that is, its production was varied to control the price of diamonds, and it was totally closed for more than two years in the 1930s), a role it played into the 1980s.
Afrikaner settlers were encouraged to come to South West Africa for security reasons—to hold the inhabitants in check - at least as much as for economic reasons.
The League of Nations awarded a Class C mandate (meaning no real targets for development of the people toward independence were intended) to the crown of Great Britain to be exercised by the Union of South Africa authorities. That “sacred trust” was read as justifying settlement, greater exploitation, and no rights for black (and precious few for Coloured) Africans, plus a creeping annexation into South Africa as a “fifth province.” The rail system was extended to Walvis Bay (the one good natural port) and south to the South African border and to Cape Town to tie South West Africa’s economy to South Africa’s on both the import and export sides.
South Africa extended direct rule to the Kunene and Okavango rivers—parallel to a Portuguese push south to the Angola-Namibia border. Resistance there and elsewhere in South West Africa flared into violence repeatedly until the 1930s, while trade union organising and political as well as economic resistance began in the 1920s.
Until 1945 South West Africa was not a productive colony—cattle and karakul were in oversupply, diamond output was held low, and export prices for base metals were not attractive. Governance, security, and settler survival all had to be financed in large part from Pretoria.
3. First steps towards independence
The refusal of the UN in 1946 to agree to South Africa’s request to annex SWA marked the beginning of a protracted dispute. In 1949 South Africa granted the territory’s white voters representation in the South African parliament. In 1950 the International Court of Justice (lCJ) ruled that South Africa was not competent to place the territory under the UN trusteeship system, nor able to alter the legal status of the territory unilaterally.
In 1966 the UN General Assembly voted to terminate South Africa’s mandate and to assume responsibility for the territory; a ‘Council for South West Africa’ was appointed in 1967, and in the following year the UN resolved that the territory should be renamed Namibia. The South African government, however, refused to relinquish the territory’s administration to the UN.
Political resistance was, meanwhile, taking hold within the territory. In 1957 the Ovamboland People’s Congress was formed. It was subsequently renamed the Ovamboland People’s Organisation, and in 1960 the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). Its leaders included Sam Nujoma and Herman (later Andimba) Toivo ya Toivo. From 1963 SWAPO meeting were effectively banned, although it remained technically legal organisation.
In 1966 SWAPO’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), began an armed insurgency. In 1968 SWAPO restyled itself as the South West Africa People’s Organisation of Namibia.
In 1971 the ICJ ruled that South Africa’s presence in Namibia was illegal and that it should withdraw immediately, and in December 1973, the UN General Assembly recognised SWAPO as the ‘authentic representative of the people of Namibia’, and appointed the first UN commissioner for Namibia to undertake ‘executive and administrative tasks’.
South Africa’s unsuccessful intervention in Angola in the second half of 1975 set the scene for the escalation of the Namibian armed struggle. With support from the pro-SWAPO government in Angola, PLAN was able to establish bases close to the borders of Namibia. South Africa reacted to this threat by greatly expanding counter-insurgency forces in the territory. South Africa, meanwhile, began to take initiatives on the political front. In September 1975 a constitutional conference was convened to discuss the territory’s future.
The Turnhalle conference, as it became known, designated 31 December 1978 as the target date for Namibian independence, and in March 1977 it produced a draft constitution for a pre-independence interim government.
This constitution, providing for 11 ethnic administrations, was denounced by the UN and SWAPO, which issued its own constitutional proposals based on a parliamentary system with universal adult suffrage.
4. The UN ‘Contact Group’
In order to persuade South Africa to reject the Turnhalle proposals in favour of a plan, which would be acceptable to the UN, a ‘contact group’ comprising the five Western members of the UN Security Council was established. From April 1977 the contact group’ held talks with both the South African government and SWAPO.
In September of that year South Africa appointed an administrator-general for Namibia, and the territory’s representation in the South African parliament was terminated. By April 1978 the ‘contact group’ was able to present proposals for a settlement providing for UN-supervised elections, a reduction in the numbers of
South African troops from Namibia and the release of political prisoners. These proposals were accepted by South Africa in late April and by SWAPO in July. The proposals were then incorporated into UN Security Council Resolution 435 of 28 September 1978.
South Africa insisted on holding its own election for a Namibian constituent assembly in the territory in December; this was rejected by the international community, which, however, declined to impose sanctions in protest at the action.
With SWAPO boycotting the election, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), a conservative coalition of the ethnic groups involved in the conference, won 41 of the 50 seats. Its leader, Dirk Mudge, became chairman of a ministerial council, which was granted limited executive powers. A separate South West African Territory Force (SWATF) was established in 1980, although the South African government retained control of defence and security matters and external affairs.
In January 1981 the UN convened a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, which was attended by SWAPO, South Africa, the DTA and other internal parties. The UN ‘contact group’ and the ‘front-line’ states (Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) were present as observers. South Africa and the internal parties could not agree on a cease-fire date and the implementation of the UN plan.
It was apparent that the South African prime minister, P. W. Botha, believed the SWAPO was communist-controlled and that it therefore could not be allowed to come to power. The DTA, for its part, required more time to establish itself as a credible alternative to ‘SWAPO; the South African government, meanwhile, hoped that the newly-elected Reagan administration in the USA would be sympathetic to South African policy. Under US chairmanship, the ‘contact group’ resumed consultations with South Africa and SWAPO during 1981. In July 1982 constitutional guidelines were agreed to by the two parties, which provided that the post-independence constitution should include a bill of rights and be approved by two-thirds of the members of a constituent assembly.
Although South Africa and SWAPO were unable to agree on whether the election should be conducted wholly on the basis of proportional representation, the UN secretary-general was able to report that all other points at issue had been resolved. By then, however, a more formidable obstacle to the implementation of the UN plan had arisen.
South Africa now insisted that the Cuban troops withdraw from Angola. This concept, known as ‘linkage’, was initiated in 1981 by the US government, which viewed the war in Namibia and southern Angola as a buffer against Soviet expansionism. The other members of the ‘contact group’, particularly France, which eventually left the group in December 1983, did not share this view. The USA then continued the negotiations alone.
Within the territory, the DTA was seriously weakened in early 1982 by the effective loss of support from the Ovambo (the largest ethnic group in Namibia) other than SWAPO.
After several months of dispute with the South African government over the future role of the DTA, Mudge resigned as chairman of the ministerial council in January 1983, and the council itself was automatically dissolved.
The administrator-general, in turn, dissolved the national assembly, and assumed direct rule of Namibia on behalf of the South African government.
5. Armed Conflict
During the early 1980s security operations by South African forces, augmented by the locally-recruited SWATF, led to a severe escalation in human right abuses ill Ovamboland and in the Kavango and Caprivi regions. Meanwhile, South Africa conducted extensive raids across the frontier into southern Angola. In February 1984 a cease-fire agreement was concluded in Lusaka, Zambia, following talks between South African and US government officials. Under the terms of the agreement, a joint commission was established to monitor the withdrawal of South African troops from Angola, and Angola undertook to permit neither SWAPO nor Cuban forces to move into the areas vacated by South African troops.
SWAPO declared that it would abide by the agreement, but made it clear that it would continue PLAN operations until a cease-fire was established in Namibia as the first stage in the implementation of Resolution 435. US negotiators continued, meanwhile, to aim at achieving a regional accord, in which a settlement in Namibia along the lines of Resolution 435 would be counterbalanced by a removal of the Cuban troops from Angola. In November 1984, in response to US proposals, President dos Santos of Angola suggested a timetable for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from the south of Angola. South African withdrawal from Angola was completed in April 1985, but soon afterwards South Africa established an interim internal government in Namibia.
6. Transitional Government and Popular Resistance
After the dissolution of the DTA ministers’ council in January 1983, there was a political hiatus until an informally constituted Multi-Party Conference (MPC) began to meet in November of that year. At that time, its membership extended beyond the DTA to include the Damara Council, the Rehoboth Liberation Front, the SWAPO-Democrats (SWAPO-D, a breakaway faction of SWAPO), the right-wing National Party of South West Africa (SWANP) and the Herero-dominated South West African National Union (SWANU). SWAPO, however, refused to join, and denounced the MPC as ‘another South African puppet show’.
In October 1984 the MPC called for an all-party meeting by 31 December of that year, failing which it would negotiate unilaterally with Pretoria for independence. The credibility of the MPC was not high, owing to the past history of the DTA, the corruption and mismanagement of ethnic authorities under the control of MPC member parties, its failure to attract any Ovambo party, and its readiness to deal with South Africa.
Aware of the lack of support for the MC, the South African government sought to involve at least part of SWAPO in an internal settlement. In March 1984 it released Toivo ya Toivo, who had been imprisoned in South Africa since 1968. A number of SWAPO activists who had been detained since 1978 were also freed. In May 1984 formal talks were held in Lusaka between the administrator-general, SW APO and the internal parties, under the joint chairmanship of President Kaunda of Zambia and the administrator-general. SWAPO, however, insisted on the implementation of Resolution 435, and the talks ended in failure.
The members of the MPC then proceeded with their own plans. On 17 June 1985 the South African government installed a ‘Transitional Government of National Unity’ (TGNU) in Windhoek, pending independence, although the arrangement was condemned in advance by the contact group governments and was declared ‘null and void’ by the UN secretary-general.
This interim government consisted of a cabinet and a national assembly. Neither was elected, with appointments made from among the constituent parties of the MPC. A ‘bill of rights’, drawn up by the MPC, prohibited racial discrimination, and a constitutional council was established, under a South African judge, to prepare a constitution for an independent Namibia. South Africa retained responsibility for foreign affairs, defence and internal security.
The administrator-general used his power of legislative veto on several occasions. From 1985 the police disrupted a series of rallies by SWAPO and its youth league. In July 1986, however, the courts ruled that SWAPO was entitled to hold public meetings, because the violent overthrow of the state was not an integral part of its programme.
7. Closer Moves Towards Independence
In early 1987 Angola secured US agreement to the participation of Cuba in discussions, nominally as part of the Angolan delegation, and in January 1988 Angola and Cuba accepted, in principle, the US demand for a complete withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, this being conditional on the implementation of the UN independence plan for Namibia. In March proposals for the withdrawal of all Cuban troops were rejected by South Africa as ‘insufficiently detailed’.
However, South Africa agreed to participate in tripartite negotiations with Angola and Cuba, with the USA acting as mediator. At these negotiations, which began in London, United Kingdom, in May 1988, South Africa agreed to implement Resolution
435, providing that a timetable for the withdrawal of Cuban troops could be agreed. By mid-July the participants in the negotiations had accepted a document containing 14 ‘essential principles’ for a peaceful settlement, and in early August it was agreed that the implementation of Resolution 435 would begin on 1 November.
South African troops were withdrawn from Angola by the end of August. The November deadline was not met, however, owing to disagreement on an exact schedule for the evacuation of Cuban troops. In mid-November these arrangements were agreed in principle, although their formal ratification was delayed until mid-December, owing to South African dissatisfaction with verification procedures. On 22 December 1988 South Africa, Angola and Cuba signed a formal treaty designating 1 April 1989 as the implementation date for Resolution 435. Another treaty was signed by Angola and Cuba, requiring the evacuation of all Cuban troops from Angola by July 1991. A further agreement established a joint commission to monitor the implementation of the trilateral treaty.
Under the terms of Resolution 435, South African forces in Namibia were to be confined to their bases, and their numbers reduced to 1,500 by 1 July 1989; all South African troops were to have been withdrawn from Namibia one week after the election. A multinational UN observer force, the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG), was to monitor the South African withdrawal and supervise the election.
8. Implementation of the UN Independence Plan
According to the original proposals regarding Resolution 435, UNTAG was to be composed of 7,500 troops; in February 1989, following disagreement within the UN Security Council over the cost of the operation, it was announced that the number was to be 4,650, with a further 500 police and about 1,000 civilian observers. The UNTAG force began to arrive during February 1989. At the end of that month the TGNU was formally disbanded, and on 1 March the national assembly voted to dissolve itself: from then until independence the territory was governed by the administrator-general, Louis Pienaar, in consultation, from 1 April, with the special representative of the UN secretary-general, Martti Ahtisaari.
The scheduled implementation of Resolution 435 was disrupted by large-scale movements, beginning on 1 Apri11989, of PLAN troops into Ovamboland. The South African government obtained Ahtisaari’s agreement to the release from base of its forces, and more than 300 PLAN troops were reportedly killed in the subsequent fighting.
The origins of the sudden and unanticipated conflict apparently lay in differing interpretations of the terms of the UN peace plan; SWAPO, excluded from the 1988 negotiations, relied on provisions under Resolution 435 for the confinement to base of PLAN combatants located within the territory on 1 April 1999, and it was widely claimed that the insurgents had intended to report to UNTAG officials.
On 9 April the joint commission produced conditions for an evacuation of the PLAN forces; meanwhile, Sam Nujoma; president of SWAPO, ordered a withdrawal of PLAN forces to Angola. At a meeting of the joint commission on 19 May, the cease-fire was certified to be in force.
In June most racially discriminatory legislation was repealed, and an amnesty was granted Namibian refugees and exiles: by late September nearly 42,000 refugees, including Nujoma, had returned to Namibia. Meanwhile, South Africa completed its troop reduction ahead of schedule.
9. Independence Elections 1989
The pre-independence election was conducted peacefully in the second week of November 1989; more than 95% of the electorate voted. Candidates from 10 political parties and alliances contested the 72 seats in the constituent assembly: representatives of seven parties and fronts were elected.
SWAPO received 57% of all votes cast and 41 seats, thus obtaining a majority of the seats in the assembly but failing to achieve the two-thirds’ majority that would have allowed SWAPO to draft the constitution without recourse to wider consultation. The DTA, with 28.6% of the votes, won 21 seats.
The special representative of the UN secretary-general pronounced the election ‘free and fair’. Following the election, the remaining South African troops left Namibia, and SWAPO bases in Angola were disbanded.
Results per party of the UN supervised Namibian Independence Elections (1989)
Party Votes* % Votes Seats
ACN 23.728 3.53 3
CDA 2.495 0.37 0
DTA 191.532 28.55 21
FCN 10.452 1.56 1
NNDP 984 0.15 0
NNF 5.344 0.80 1
NPF 10.693 1.59 1
SWAPO-D 3.161 0.47 0
SWAPO 384.567 57.33 41
UDF 37.874 5.65 4
TOTAL 670.830 100.00 72
*excluding rejected votes. Rejected votes: 9 858 1.45%
10. Post-Independence - SWAPO In Government
In February 1990 the constituent assembly adopted unanimously a draft constitution, which provided for a multi-party political system, based on universal adult suffrage, with an independent judiciary and a ‘bill of rights’. Executive power was to be vested in a president who was permitted to serve a maximum of two five-year terms, while a 72-member national assembly was to have legislative power. The constituent assembly subsequently elected Nujoma as Namibia’s first president.
On 21 March 1990 Namibia became independent: the constituent assembly became the national assembly, and the president and his cabinet (headed by Hage Geingob, hitherto the chairman of the constituent assembly) took office. Following independence, Namibia became a member of the UN, the Organisation of African Unity and the Commonwealth Full diplomatic relations were established with many states, and partial diplomatic relations with South Africa.
In March 1990 Namibia became a full member of the Southern African Customs Union (having previously been a de facto member of that organisation) and a member of the South African Development Co-ordination Conference SADCC), which sought reduce the dependence of southern African states on South Africa.
In August 1992 Namibia joined the other SADCC members in recreating the organisation as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to which South Africa was admitted in August 1994. In April 1990 a team of British military advisers arrived in Namibia to assist in training the new Namibian Defence Force comprising former members of both PLAN and the SWATF.
In May 1990 Angola and Namibia agreed to form a joint commission monitor their common border. However, relations became strained in February 1991 when Angolan aircraft bombed a northern Namibian village; the Angolan government claimed that it had attacked covert destabilisation bases sponsored by South Africa, and promised to pay compensation to the Namibian government.
In September several ex-members of the national police force and of the disbanded pre-independence paramilitary force, Koevoet, were charged with high treason, following the discovery of a weapons cache. The appointment, in October, of the former SWAPO head of security, Maj.-Gen. Solomon Hawala, as commander of the army caused protest among opposition groups, owing to allegations that he had been implicated in the torture and detention of dissidents prior to Namibia’s independence.
Although the opposition in the national assembly continued to raise the matter from time to time, the government refused to agree to an investigation of events that took place during the struggle for independence. Allegations of past violations of human rights by SWAPO have remained a sensitive political issue. The disclosure by the South African government in July 1991 that it had provided some R100m. in funding to the DTA and other anti-SWAPO political parties during the 1989 election campaign added to the DTA’s post-independence problems.
In November 1991 the DTA, formerly a coalition of ethnically based interests, reorganised itself as a single party, but its support continued to dwindle. In late November and early December 1992 the first elections were held for the country’s 13 regional councils and 48 local authorities. SWAPO won nine regional councils while the DTA won only three (in the remaining council there was no clear majority). SWAPO thus secured control of the newly established second house of parliament, the national council, which comprised two members from each regional council; it began work in May 1993. In June Dirk Mudge, the leading figure in the DTA resigned from the national assembly and subsequently retired from public life. The DTA repeatedly publicised examples of alleged maladministration and financial extravagance (the most controversial example being the purchase of a presidential aircraft during a period of severe drought), but these efforts failed to revitalise popular support for the DTA.
Walvis Bay, the 1,124-sq km enclave that contains the region’s only deep-water port facilities, had remained under South African jurisdiction after Namibian independence. Negotiations between the South African and Namibian governments led to the announcement in August 1992 that a Walvis Bay Joint Administration Authority (JAA) would be established, comprising an equal number of representatives from each country.
The JAA began operating in November that year. In August 1993, following pressure from the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC), South Africa’s multi-party negotiating forum resolved to transfer sovereignty of Walvis Bay to Namibia. Some white residents of the enclave resorted unsuccessfully to legal action in an attempt to block the transfer. The work of the JAA was completed in February 1994, and from the beginning of March the enclave was formally incorporated into Namibia.
Namibia’s first post-independence presidential and legislative elections took place on 7-8 December 1994, and resulted in overwhelming victories for Nujoma and SWAPO. Nujoma was elected for a second term as president, securing 76.3% of the votes cast; his only challenger was Mudge’s successor as president of the DTA, Mishake Muyongo.
Democratic Coalition of Namibia (DCN): an alliance of the National Patriotic Front and the German Union and the Monitor Action Group. SWANU, which had been a founder member of the DCN in August, but subsequently withdrew to contest the elections in its own right.
Although SWAPO thus had a two-thirds’ majority in the national assembly, Nujoma gave assurances that no amendments would be made to the constitution without prior approval by national referendum. The success of Nujoma and SWAPO was, in part, attributed to the popularity of land reform legislation recently approved by the national assembly.
Nujoma was sworn in for his second presidential term on 21 March 1995. The previous day, as part of a major reorganisation of cabinet portfolios, he assumed personal responsibility for home affairs and the police, in what was interpreted as attempt to curb an increase in crime and discontent within the force. Geingob remained as prime minister, with Hendrik Witbooi, previously minister of labour, public services and manpower development, as his deputy.
Peter Mietzner/HSF
Sponsors
Sections