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NAM \ BIAN Ll BE RATION NAM \ BIAN Ll BE RATION: 5EL~· D£/FRM!NATIO ~ LAW MD POLITICS ELIZA8ET~ S. LANDIS EPISCOPAL CHUR&liMEN for SOUTH Room 1005 • 853 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 10003 • Phone: (212) 477·0066 -For A Free S1111tbem Alritll- NOVEMBER 1982 NAMIBIAN LIBERATION Independence for Namibia is one of the forenost issues of today's world that cries for solution. The Namibian people have been subjected to bru­ tal foreign rule and their land exploited by co­ lonial powers for a century. Their thrust for freedom has intensified since 1966 when SWAPO launched its armed struggle against the illegal South African occupiers of its country. Their cause has been on the agendas of the League of Nations and the United Nations for m:>re than six decades . NCM, after five-and-a-half years of 'delicate negotiations 1 managed by five Western powers , Namibia is no nearer independence. Pretoria is m:>re repressively in oontrol of the Terri­ torY and uses it as a staging ground for its militarY encroaclunents into Angola and as a fulcrum for its attempt to reverse the tide of liberation in Southern Africa. Yet the talks conducted by the Western Contact Group are dragged on, with the United States gov­ ernment insisting that Angola denude itself of its CUban allies as a pre-condition for a 1 Namibian settlement" . There is widespread confusion on just where the matter of Namibia stands. This report is designed to penetrate the tangle. This clear, succinct and timely analysis of the Namibian issue by Elizabeth S. landis comes out of the author's yearn of work in the African field and her dedication to the cause of freedom in Southern Africa. Dr Landis was senior political officer in the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia from 1976 to 1981. She was pro­ fessor of African studies at the .American College in Paris in 1963-64. She was co­ editor of the Liberian Cbde of Laws of 1956 and was made a Knight Corrmander of the Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption in 195 7. Dr Landis is a vice-president of the .American Comni ttee on Africa, and has written extensively on Namibia and on South African law. Her degrees are: AB, Mount Holyoke College, 1942; MS in Public Administration, Syracuse University, 1943; lJ..B, Cornell University, 1948; Docteur en Droit, University of Lyon (France), 1950. In 1982 Mount Holyoke awarded Dr Landis an honorarY LLD. She and her husband , William B. Landis , are attorneys and members of the New York State bar. 'This analysis is based on a paper given at the African Studies .Msociation annual meeting in Washington this rronth. (T.his ~port is obtainable f~om ECSA at the cost of postage and handZing: Sl.OO) NAMIBIAN LIBERATION: SELF-DETERMINATION, LAW AND PO LITICS by Elizabeth S . Landis Namibia presents a relatively straightforward question of self-detenmination, overlaid with an incre::libly canplex array of false solutions. In fact , the so-called solutions prop:>sed by South Africa's Western alli es have become part of the problem. NAMIBIA - LAND AND PEOPLE Namibia can be envisaged as a tall, top-heavy cooking p:>t with its handle , the Ca.privi Zipfel ("Strip") extending east as far east as Zimbabwe . The Territory is as large as California, Oregon an:i Washington - or Britain and France - together. Lying athwart the Tropic of Capricorn, where the subtropics merge into tropics , it is located between Angola an:i Zambia on the north and South Africa to the south, with Botswana to the east and the Atlantic to the west. The Namib desert separates the Ocean from the central plateau, where the whi te p:>pulation is concentrated. To the east lies the Kalahari. The Territory is rrostly desert an:i semi-desert, becoming, in general, drier as one moves fran northeast to southwest. It is subject to frequent , unpredict­ able and severe drought - currently it is suffering one of the worst of this century. Only the ooun:iary rivers run perpetually. Agriculture, except for a few areas in the north, is limited to grazing: cattle in the rrore favored areas; sheep - particularly the valuable karakul, sold as SWJ>J.<.AA.A fur - and goats in the south. Originally the wealth of the land was in its central plateau savannahs where vast Nama and Herero herds excited the envy of white fanner/ settlers . Later the fish - primarily pilchards - that feed in abundance in the cold Benguela current off the Namibian coast became a major source of wealth. But just as greedy ran:::hers overgrazed marginal lands, which turned into virtually irre­ trievable desert when the rains failed, so greedy corrrnercial fishermen over­ fished until nearly all the fish are gone. Today minerals - uranium, diam::mds , copper an:i other base metals - are the main source of wealth, and they , too , are being greedily and rapaciously exploited with no concern for the future. Whatever the exploited resource, all the profits go to the foreign exploiters arrl South Africa - secondarily to Namibian whites - and the indigenous in­ habitants remain desperately poor, far poorer than the inhabitants of many far p:>orer countries . The p:>pulation is very sparse - the best guesst.inate is 1 , 500 ,000 . Some 70- 80,000 are white; they are concentrated in the 60+% of the total land area that includes nost of the minerals and good grazing land and is known as the "white area" . Until recently Africans and Coloureds (persons of mixed an­ cestry) were forbidden to own land there or to occupy it except as servants of whites. 'Ihey lived in special reserves in the white area or in the north, which was considered unfit for white settlement; or in "native locations" (urban ghettos set aside for them)if they worked in a town. Today the laws have been relaxed, but not the economic and social barriers which prevent meaningful change. - 1 - copyright ~ 1,982 by Elizabeth s . Landis - 2 - South African authorities currently classify the population of the Territory as belonging to one of 11 "ethnic" groups; earlier it recognized 13. Linguistically there are t:trr>ee major groups in the Territory: Bantu-speaking; European-speaking; and Khoisan-speaking, with the vast majority in the first category. The emphasis on ethnic differences is, of course, an established tactic of colonial powers from ancient t:imes, one which South Africa has played to the hilt. But the evidence is that CIJI¥)ng the young there is only one difference that matters: are you for or a­ gainst genuine independence for Namibia? It is, indeed, South Africa's inability to fan and exploit tribal or ethnic differences that has led it to oppose free and fair elections in Namibia and has led to the current crisis in the "government" which South Africa installed in and after December 197 8 . HISTORICAL BACKGROUND In 1978 Walvis Bay, an enclave of sane 400 square miles, was claimed by the Brit­ ish and annexed to the Cape Colony six years later. In 18 84 the Kaiser claimed the rest of the Territory, called South West Africa, as a protectorate. The German colonial a.rrey came very close to exterminating the Nama and the Herero, the main African groups in the white area, despoiling those who survived of their lands and cattle. NAMIBIA PS MANDATE Pretoria's conquest of South West Africa in 1915 was South Africa's contribution to the Allied war effort. For that service Pretoria was promised the right to annex the Territory. But President Woodrow Wilson insisted on a "peace of no annexations", and the Territory became a "C class" mandate, which South Africa, as mandatory, was able to administer and legislate for as an integral part of the Union of South Afri­ ca. It was bound, nevertheless, by the "sacred trust of civilization" to ensure the material and rroral welfare and the well-being of the inhabitants. South Africa never really accepted the League of Nations' repeated adm:mishments that it did not have "sovereignty" over the Territory, but it did not push the is­ sue to a confrontation until after the Secorrl World War . In the first session of the United Nations General Assembly it sought that body's approval of incorpora­ tion of the Territory, claiming tmt the proposal had been approved by all the "peoples" of the Territory. (1) The speciousness of that claim was later estab­ lished, h.lt the Assembly, witrout the evidence, nevertheless refused, concluding the Africans were not prepared to make such a momentous choice. (2) It urged the Union to place South West Africa urrler the Trusteeship System. South Africa refus­ ed - the only mandatory power to do so. But it did promise to continue to adminis­ ter the Territory in accordance with its mandate obligations. (3) Pretoria subnitted one annual report on its administration of the Territory to the General Assembly; but, angered by the criticism it received, it refused to continue. The National Party, which came to power in 1948, soon argued that with the demise of the League, the man:iate was also extinguished, and South Africa now ruled by right of occupation. (4) It was to maintain this position, with one or another variation, until the fall of the Portuguese African Empire. - 3 - In line with this position, the Union - later the Republic - took a series of steps to incorporate the Territory on a piecemeal basis. It provided that South West Af­ rica w::>uld be represented in the South African Parliament. (5) It conferred invol­ untary South African citizenship on all blacks born in the Territory (whites had been made citizens in the ' 20's).
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