Namibian Independence
South Africa occupied German South West Africa in 1915 and administered it under a League mandate, extending its own racial legislation to the territory. When the UN terminated the mandate in 1966 South Africa refused to withdraw, and SWAPO began an armed campaign the same year. The war was fought largely in the north and across the Angolan border, entangling it with the Angolan civil war and drawing in Cuban forces supporting the MPLA. The deadlock broke through negotiation rather than victory. The 1988 New York Accords tied South African withdrawal from Namibia to a phased Cuban withdrawal from Angola, allowing both sides to present the outcome as something other than defeat. UN-supervised elections in November 1989 produced a SWAPO majority short of the two-thirds needed to write the constitution unilaterally, which obliged negotiation with opposition parties and produced a constitution with entrenched rights protections. Sam Nujoma became the first president.
- Year: 1990 CE
- Category: Political
