"South African Border War The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angola from 26 August 1966 to 21 March 1990. It was fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). The South African Border War resulted in some of the largest battles on the African continent since World War"
"Organisation (SWAPO) in New York, Sam Nujoma was reconfirmed President of the new organisation. After its reconstitution, SWAPO founded its military wing, the South West Africa Liberation Army (SWALA), in 1962, and oversaw the beginning of an armed insurgency against the South African administration in 1965. On 26 August 1966 the first armed clash of the South African Border War took place when the South African forces attacked SWAPO guerrillas at Omugulugwombashe. Because of his political activities in support of Namibian independence, Toivo was arrested in 1966 by the South African authorities. In his trial in August 1967, ""The state"
"Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Julius Nyerere. During the early 1960s, new nationalist parties such as the South West African National Union (SWANU) and South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) made determined attempts to establish indigenous political structures for an independent South West Africa. In 1962, SWAPO formed a militant wing, known as the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA), and began sending recruits to Egypt and the Soviet Union for guerrilla training. In 1966 SWALA initiated an insurgency against the South African government, sparking what would later evolve into a wider regional conflict known as the South"
"intervention in the Seychelles in 1981, and supporting a coup in Lesotho in 1986. It was behind a coup attempt in Tanzania in 1983, provided support for rebels in Zimbabwe since independence, carried out raids against African National Congress offices in Maputo, Harare and Gaborone and conducted a counterinsurgency war in Namibia against SWAPO. SWAPO retreated to and operated from bases in Angola, and South Africa was confronted not only with the issue of having to cross another border in pursuit of SWAPO but also of another leftist government in the region. Unlike the other countries in the region, South"
"feelings of African unity drove the new nation to aid its neighbors resist colonial rule. Most notably, Zambia was a haven for revolutionaries from the Namibia liberation party, South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. Zambia provided a rear base for revolutionaries as well as administrative and political aid. The South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) is a political party that was formerly an independence movement based in Namibia. Due to pressures from within Namibia, SWAPO moved its headquarters and much of its forces into neighboring Zambia in the 1970's. Zambia became"
"that helped repel the air superiority of the FAPLA forces. South Africa also provided UNITA with arms and training. South Africa had governed South West Africa (Namibia) under an expired League of Nations mandate since annexing the territory from the German Empire during World War I. In 1966, the South West African Liberation Army (later known as the People's Liberation Army of Namibia) launched an armed struggle to free the territory from South African rule. Following the MPLA's ascension to power, SWAPO gained its support and began operating from sanctuaries inside Angola. The South African government's strategic concern was thus"
"of the African National Congress, the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA) was formed by SWAPO in 1962. The first seven SWALA recruits were sent from Dar Es Salaam to Egypt and the Soviet Union, where they received military instruction. Upon their return they began training guerrillas at a makeshift camp established for housing South West African refugees in Kongwa, Tanzania. The increasing likelihood of armed conflict in South West Africa had strong international foreign policy implications, for both Western Europe and the Soviet bloc. Prior to the late 1950s, South Africa's defence policy had been influenced by international Cold"
"African territory and placed it under direct UN administration. South Africa refused to recognize this resolution. South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) at that time prepared for armed resistance and founded its armed wing, the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA) in 1962. Many of its erstwhile commanders were in exile but SWALA began to infiltrate the north of Namibia to establish training camps. Omugulugwombashe was one such training camp, established in June 1966 by SWALA commander John Ya Otto Nankudhu. The group under Nankudhu had just started to build defensive structures and planned to train about 90 insurgents there."
"the South-West Africa People's Organisation's (SWAPO) military wing – the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) – began guerrilla attacks on South African forces, infiltrating from bases in Zambia. The first attack was the battle at Omugulugwombashe on 26 August, and the war was a classic insurgent-counterinsurgent operation. PLAN initially established bases in northern Namibia; they were later forced out of the country by the South African Defence Force (SADF), subsequently operating from bases in southern Angola and Zambia. The intensity of cross-border conflict escalated, becoming known as the South African Border War and the Angolan Bush War. The principal"
"National Union (SWANU) and South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) made determined attempts to establish indigenous political structures for an independent South West Africa. SWAPO first discussed the possibility of armed struggle at its party conference in Rehoboth in 1961. In March 1962, SWAPO president Sam Nujoma made the decision to begin recruiting South West Africans for guerrilla training. SWAPO's decision to take up arms against the South African government may be linked to a variety of political factors. The success of indigenous anti-colonial guerrilla movements in French Indochina and French Algeria had the effect of encouraging nationalist parties to"
"Hainyeko was appointed First Deputy Army Commander of the South West Africa Liberation Army (SWALA), the predecessor of PLAN. In 1965 Hainyeko, together with Peter Nanyemba and Johan yaOtto Nankudhu, led the first group of SWALA combatants from their military camp in Kongwa, Tanzania via Nakonde, Zambia to the Namibian border at Sesheke to commence the armed liberation struggle in Namibia. Through careful planning under his leadership, SWAPO established a guerrilla training base at Omugulugwombashe in northern Namibia. It was from the Omugulugwombashe base that SWALA guerrillas launched its armed struggle against the South African administration on 26 August 1966,"
"with a mandate to unite all people of South West Africa was birthed. On 19 April 1960, the OPO leadership in Windhoek transformed OPO into the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). Nujoma was elected as SWAPO President in absentia and Kuhungua retained his position as Secretary General. Following the transformation in 1960 many SWAPO leaders arrived in Tanzania to prepare for the launch of the armed liberation struggle. In 1962, SWAPO founded its military wing, the South West Africa Liberation Army (SWALA), which was later renamed the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). Ya Toivo, Eliaser Tuhadeleni and other"
"take up arms against colonial powers elsewhere. Furthermore, armed revolution figured prominently in the rhetoric of Africa's leading statesmen at the time, namely namely Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Julius Nyerere, to whom these parties looked to for political inspiration. SWAPO's first attempt to recruit guerrillas also coincided with uprisings against colonial rule in several neighbouring territories, namely Angola. Yet another incentive appeared when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) formed a Liberation Committee for the purpose of encouraging anti-colonial movements. The Liberation Committee collected approximately £20,000 in contributions from OAU member states; these funds were promised to"
"an explicit commitment to guerrilla warfare and sabotage or recently having scaled their activities from passive resistance, petitioning, and lobbying to an openly armed struggle. The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa had launched its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961. It immediately executed several sabotage acts against the country's infrastructure. In South-West Africa SWAPO's paramilitary wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) was founded in 1962, its first military action occurred in Omugulugwombashe in 1966. Yet South Africa was politically strong at the time of the declaration agreed upon in Lusaka. Its border states except"
"1967 during the “terrorism trial"": ""The State vs. Tuhadeleni and Others"" in Pretoria. Among the arrested SWAPO members were; Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, Immanuel Shifidi, Eliaser Tuhadeleni, John Nankudhu, they were convicted under the Terrorism Act and majority of them were sentenced to serve time on Robben Island. Ephraim Kapolo Ephraim Kamati Andjengo Kapolo (1924-1967) was a Namibian activist who participated in the pre-independence movement. He was one of the early members of the Ovamboland People's Organization. Kapolo was an active and founding member of the South West Africa Liberation Army (SWALA), the forerunner of PLAN, at the beginning of"
"African Border War was a conflict between the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), Angola, Cuba and the USSR on one side, and apartheid-South Africa together with UNITA on the other side, in the territory of South-West Africa and southern Angola from 1965 until 1989. South Africa captured the territory of present-day Namibia from Germany during World War 1, and retained it as colonial territory until 1989. SWAPO was attempting to take power in the post-colonial Namibia. The conflict was intertwined with the Angolan Civil War, and was a proxy war of the Cold War between the USSR (supporting Angola"
"of Nelson Mandela and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle. By 1966, SWAPO launched guerilla raids from neighbouring countries against South Africa's occupation of South-West Africa/Namibia. Initially South Africa fought a counter-insurgency war against SWAPO. But this conflict deepened after Angola gained its independence in 1975 under Communist leadership, the MPLA, and South Africa promptly challenged them, allying with the Angolan rival party, UNITA. By the end of the 1970s, Cuba had joined the fray, in one of several late Cold War"
"Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) and repatriated to South West Africa. A small number remained in reserve until after Namibian independence, when they were also repatriated. The last PLAN troops and equipment were returned to Namibia in mid-1990 for integration with the new Namibian Defence Force (NDF). SWAPO's military wing was founded as the ""South West Africa Liberation Army"" (SWALA) in 1962. On 12 June 1968, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution which proclaimed that, in accordance with the desires of its people, South West Africa be renamed ""Namibia"". Thereafter, SWAPO started using the term ""Namibia"" more frequently in"
"returned to Tanganyika in 1961, from where he and a small group of activists would develop SWAPO into an international force. He received support from other African nationalists and received strong backing from Julius Nyerere. Nujoma established SWAPO's Provisional headquarters in Dar es Salaam and arranged scholarships and military training for Namibians who had started to join him there. Among the first arrivals were Mzee Kaukungwa, Mosé Tjitendero and Hifikepunye Pohamba. In 1962, SWAPO founded its armed wing, the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA), later renamed the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). Nujoma himself procured the first weapons"
"was the first engagement of what became known as the South African Border War. The South African government subsequently arrested 37 of SWAPO's most prominent leaders and tried them, along with the captured SWALA insurgents, on charges of terrorism and armed insurrection. The defence counsel argued that because SWAPO did not recognise South Africa's administration of South West Africa as legitimate, its members could not be tried under South African laws by a South African court. The court rejected this opinion, and at least 20 of the detainees were given life sentences, while another 9 were given twenty year sentences."
"as the sole beneficiary of pan-African legitimacy. With OAU assistance, SWAPO opened diplomatic offices in Lusaka, Cairo, and London. SWANU belatedly embarked on a ten year programme to raise its own guerrilla army. In September 1965, the first cadre of six SWALA guerrillas, identified simply as """"Group 1"""", departed the Kongwa refugee camp to infiltrate South West Africa. Group 1 trekked first into Angola, before crossing the border into the Caprivi Strip. Encouraged by South Africa's apparent failure to detect the initial incursion, larger cadres made their own infiltration attempts in February and March 1966. The second cadre, """"Group 2"""","
"Ephraim Kapolo Ephraim Kamati Andjengo Kapolo (1924-1967) was a Namibian activist who participated in the pre-independence movement. He was one of the early members of the Ovamboland People's Organization. Kapolo was an active and founding member of the South West Africa Liberation Army (SWALA), the forerunner of PLAN, at the beginning of the Namibian War of Independence. In 1966, Kapolo was arrested with other prominent members of SWAPO following the battle of Omugulugwombashe. He was detained with no trail and was held in solitary confinement in Pretoria, South Africa for more than a year. He died in police custody in"
"and SWAPO) and the USA (who supported UNITA and South Africa). The conflict ended with the collapse of the USSR, with both Angola and South Africa removing their troops, and Namibia becoming an independent state. The Angolan Civil War was a conflict that plagued the country from the beginning of its independence until 2002. The war was the longest running conflict in Africa and claimed the lives of a million people. The conflict was between the communist MPLA and Cuba against FNLA and UNITA, who in turn received support and assistance from the USA via South Africa and Zaire. The"
"South African ""Umkhonto we Sizwe"" were brought to East Germany for training in the use of military hardware and, ""the leadership role of the Party."" Similar treatment was meted out to Palestinian guerrillas from the ""Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine"", ""Abu Nidal"", and ""Black September"". Other Stasi agents worked as military advisers to African Marxist guerrillas and the governments they later formed. They included the Namibian ""SWAPO"" and the Angolan ""MPLA"" during the South African Border War, the ""FRELIMO"" during the Mozambican War of Independence and civil war, and Robert Mugabe's ""ZANLA"" during the Rhodesian Bush War. Colonel"
"Organisation (SWAPO) and its military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). As the guerrilla war intensified, however, it became clear that the local civilian police alone were not enough to cope with SWAPO/PLAN incursions and escalating unrest. Consequently, military units were deployed for the first time; 60,000 South African combat troops were engaged in South West Africa by the late 1970s. As part of a general policy of military and social reform, Pretoria initiated the establishment of local defence and police agencies for its protectorate beginning in 1977. A start was also made with the regrouping of existing"
"police attacked SWALA combatants who had set up a camp at Omugulugwombashe. The attack would mark the beginning of the Namibian War of Independence which would last more than 25 years. In 1969, Nujoma was re-affirmed as SWAPO President at the Tanga Consultative Conference in Tanzania. In the late 1960s Nujoma continued his diplomatic rounds as SWAPO set up offices across Africa, Europe and the Americas. He represented SWAPO at the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement on 1 September 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia as well as at the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia"
"then German South-West Africa beginning in 1915 during World War I. From 1915, South-West Africa (as it was called) was administered by South African administrators and control of the area came from Pretoria. Many white South African settlers moved to the area and established farms on previously African-controlled pastures. From 1966 until the 1980s, the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) fought a War of Independence against the South African Defence Force (SADF), which from 1974 onward included battles with Cuban troops as well as the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA). During this period, Namibia was"
"People's Organization (SWAPO), which at that time had its bases in Ovamboland and Zambia, first flared up. With the loss of the Portuguese as an ally and the establishment of pro-SWAPO communist rule in the two former colonies, the apartheid regime lost highly valued sections of its ""cordon sanitaire"" (buffer zone) between itself and hostile black Africa. In the following years South Africa engaged in numerous military and economic activities in the region, backing RENAMO in the Mozambican Civil War, undertaking various measures at economic destabilization against Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, backing an unsuccessful mercenary"
"the 1970s and 1980s, the development of South Africa's military equipment, including the assets of the South African Air Force (SAAF), became increasingly influenced by the changes in fortune and demands imposed by the lengthy South African Border War. Having originally been started as a limited-scale counter-insurgency campaign, it progressively escalated into a larger conflict that was being waged across areas of both South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia) and southern Angola against militants of the Communist-leaning South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). As South African forces came to frequently launch raids into neighbouring Angola, these attacks often provoked armed clashes with the"
"armed conflict. Both OPO and SWANU soon realised that a broader group would serve the nationalist interests better. SWANU founder Fanuel Kozonguizi and OPO leader Sam Nujoma discussed whether a merger of OPO and SWANU would achieve that result but Kerina' suggestion to expand OPO into the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) was implemented in 1960, mainly because SWANU did not have the full support of the Herero Chiefs' Council. Kerina became one of SWAPO's co-founders, and is the person to have suggested the name. The difference in preferred methods to lead the country to independence soon led to"
"a safe haven for the group and SWAPO set up guerrilla training camps and sent exiled members into Zambia. The Shipanga Crisis, so named for senior SWAPO leader Andreas Shipanga, saw the Zambian government help round up thousands of dissidents and critics of the movement. SWAPO leaders in Namibia saw growing dissent in the SWAPO installations and guerrilla camps in Zambia, and appealed to then President Kaunda for help. After rounding up thousands of perceived rebels, including Shipanga with the aid of Zambia, SWAPO leadership in Namibia became markedly more authoritarian. The African National Congress was an anti-apartheid political party"
"allied with SWAPO would in turn create increased military pressure on South West Africa. PLAN incursions from Angola were already beginning to spike due to the cessation of patrols and active operations there by the Portuguese. In the last months of 1974 Portugal announced its intention to grant Angola independence and embarked a series of hasty efforts to negotiate a power-sharing accord, the Alvor Agreement, between rival Angolan nationalists. There were three disparate nationalist movements then active in Angola, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and the"
"political base was located. Pohamba and Muatale succeeded in recruiting hundreds of volunteers for a new guerrilla army, which was subsequently named the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA). SWALA's headquarters was established in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, which was sympathetic to SWAPO's cause. The Tanzanian government permitted SWALA to set up a training camp at Kongwa, where the volunteers would receive guerrilla training. The Soviet Union, Ghana, Egypt, Algeria, North Korea, and the People's Republic of China all offered free training programmes for SWALA recruits, provided they were able to make the necessary travel arrangements. The"