REGISTRATUR AA. 3 (Enlarged and Revised Edition) 2 REGISTRATUR AA. 3 (Enlarged and Revised Edition) GUIDE TO THE SWAPO COLLECTION IN THE BASLER AFRIKA BIBLIOGRAPHIEN Compiled by Giorgio Miescher Published by Basler Afrika Bibliographien Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library 2006 3 © 2006 Basler Afrika Bibliographien Publisher: Basler Afrika Bibliographien P.O.Box 2037 CH 4001 Basel Switzerland http://www.baslerafrika.ch All rights reserved Printed by Typoprint (Pty) Ltd, Windhoek, Republic of Namibia ISBN 3-905141-89-2 4 List of Contents I The General Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien 7 II Introduction to the enlarged and revised edition 9 Changing archiving pattern since 1994 10 Collections of SWAPO material scattered around the world 12 The BAB SWAPO collection and its institutional context 14 Researching the history of SWAPO (and the liberation struggle) 16 Sources to write the history of SWAPO and the liberation struggle 20 III How to work with this Archival Guide 22 Structure of organisation 22 Classification system of the SWAPO collection 22 List of abbreviations 24 IV Inventory AA. 3 25 before 1966 from SWAPO 27 1966 about SWAPO 28 1968 from SWAPO 29 1969 from/about SWAPO 30 1970 from/about SWAPO 32 1971 from/about SWAPO 34 1972 from/about SWAPO 37 1973 from/about SWAPO 42 1974 from/about SWAPO 45 1975 from/about SWAPO 50 1976 from/about SWAPO 56 1977 from/about SWAPO 64 1978 from/about SWAPO 72 1979 from/about SWAPO 82 1980 from/about SWAPO 88 1981 from/about SWAPO 100 1982 from/about SWAPO 113 1983 from/about SWAPO 120 1984 from/about SWAPO 128 1985 from/about SWAPO 138 1986 from/about SWAPO 149 1987 from/about SWAPO 160 1988 from/about SWAPO 175 1989 from/about SWAPO 195 1990 from/about SWAPO 219 after 1990 223 Appendix: from/about SWAPO Democrats (SWAPO-D) 225 Index of Personal Names listed in the inventory 229 V List of publications on SWAPO in the library of the BAB 237 (compiled by Susanne Hubler, March 2006) 5 6 I The General Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien Since its foundation in 1971, the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) has received various archive collections. They form part of the Namibia Resource Centre that in turn consists of an extensive library on Namibia, a historical photo archive, a poster collection, a press and manuscript archive, and a general documentation archive (AA).1 Since 1995, personal papers and archives with reference to the region of southern Africa have also been acquired. The collections have been made accessible to research in the form of inventories which comprise the following: Registratur AA.1. Allgemeine Archivalien der Basler Afrika Bibliographien zu Namibia. Compiled by Thorsten Hinz. Basel, 1994, 45pp. Registratur AA.2. Allgemeine Archivalien der Basler Afrika Bibliographien zu Namibias Unabhängigkeit. Compiled by Sabine Schmidt & Thorsten Hinz. Basel, 1994, 97pp. Registratur AA.3. Guide to the SWAPO Collection in the Namibia Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Compiled by Giorgio Miescher. Basel, 1994, 163pp. Registratur AA.4. Epupa, water, energy, 'indigenous/tribal peoples' and chieftaincy. A bibliography of Namibian newspaper articles 1990–1996 with special reference to Kaoko. Compiled by Giorgio Miescher & Lorena Rizzo. Basel, 1998, 164pp. Registratur AA.5. Das Archiv der Solidaritätsgruppe Medic'Angola/Kämpfendes Afrika (Zürich 1971–1988) – The Archive of the Solidarity Group Medic'Angola/Kämpfendes Afrika (Zurich 1971–1988). Compiled by Dag Henrichsen. Basel, 2002, 51pp. 1 For an introduction to the BAB collections, see the essays by Dag Henrichsen, Regula Iselin and Giorgio Miescher in Documenting and Researching Southern Africa: Aspects and Perspectives. Essays in Honour of Carl Schlettwein, Basel 2001. Edited by Dag Henrichsen and Giorgio Miescher. For the poster collection in particular see: Giorgio Miescher and Dag 7 Registratur AA.3 (Enlarged and Revised Edition) Guide to the SWAPO Collection in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Compiled by Giorgio Miescher. Basel, 2006, 322pp. Inventories pertaining to other collections in the BAB are listed on the cover fold. Henrichsen, African Posters: A catalogue of the poster collection in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel, 2004. 8 2 II Introduction to the enlarged and revised edition The independence of Namibia on 21 March 1990 created a caesura not only in the history of the country but also in the history of SWAPO of Namibia. Founded in the late 1950s as the Ovamboland People's Congress (OPC), the organisation was transformed into a broader movement in 1960, and since then has existed as SWAPO. Inside and outside the country the political struggle for independence began in those years. In 1966, SWAPO's launched its armed struggle against South African colonial rule. In 1990, SWAPO achieved its first and most important goal, clearly expressed in the slogan "the aim was independence", the title on one of the organisation's posters produced in the same year.3 With independence, SWAPO became the ruling party and its past as a long-standing liberation movement became history. In 1994, the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) published the first edition of this archive inventory. In the introduction we stated that "the existing library and archival material on SWAPO from its period as a liberation movement is scattered all over the world".4 At that time, four years after independence, the BAB was one of the few institutions that had a complete and detailed inventory of its SWAPO-related holdings and had already opened them up for research. This effort was well-appreciated by the archive's users and the SWAPO collection has been regularly consulted since then. In fact, over the years, interest has been steadily growing in the history of the liberation movement that became a ruling party. The publication of the inventory has thus fulfilled the aim put forward in the introduction to make "a contribution to communication and research on the liberation movement's history and the recent history of Namibia".5 As with the first edition, the publication of this enlarged and revised edition of an archival guide to the SWAPO collection was a special concern of Carl 2 I would like to thank Dag Henrichsen, Werner Hillebrecht, Antonio Uribe who gave important comments on draft versions of this introduction as well as Anne Blonstein for her help with translation and language editing. 3 A poster celebrating the 26th of August in 1990. The 26th of August, for many years celebrated as "Namibia Day", was turned into "Heroes' Day" in 1990. See BAB poster collection X 1858. 4 Giorgio Miescher, Registratur AA.3 – Guide to the SWAPO collection in the Namibia Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel, 1994, p. 7. 9 Schlettwein, the founder of the BAB. The SWAPO collection grew out of Carl Schlettwein's efforts to cultivate contacts with all participants in the Namibian conflict, in order to create a collection that was as broad in its coverage as possible. During the long years of the liberation struggle he gathered material both from and about SWAPO. Repeatedly, his activities as a collector met with misunderstanding and suspicion, and more than once he was confronted with the accusation of being a "friend of terrorists" or a "collaborator with apartheid". Despite all this, Carl Schlettwein adhered to his strategy, thus laying the basis for the SWAPO collection in the BAB. Carl Schlettwein passed away in January 2005, and so, regrettably, was denied the satisfaction of holding in his hands this enlarged and revised edition. Changing archiving patterns since 1994 1994, the year in which the first edition of this inventory was published, also saw the transition of power in South Africa, the climax to but also the end of a phase of political upheaval in southern Africa. The struggle against colonialism and apartheid had been played out not only in southern Africa itself but on many other stages of the world as well. Among them, western Europe, where solidarity and anti-apartheid groups had conducted active political propaganda campaigns on behalf of the liberation movements in southern Africa. By the time that Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the new South African President in May 1994, the raison d'être for most of these solidarity and anti-apartheid groups seemed to have become obsolete. A few redefined their political goals, but most disbanded. Subsequently, some of the documentation and archive material collected over the years by the groups themselves or by individuals was offered to archives or actively acquired by them. This archiving activity is well illustrated, for example, in the 2004 archive guide to material on SWAPO in the Western Cape region compiled by Sarah Sadie Wilcox.6 In it, Wilcox describes in great detail four collections, some from Europe, that had only recently found their way into South African archives: the 5 Ibid. 10 Jack and Ray Simons Collection and the Amy Thornton Collection, now in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the University of Cape Town, and The Brian Bunting Collection and The International Defence & Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) Collection in the Robben Island Mayibuye Centre of the University of the Western Cape. As Wilcox stresses, all four are important, although by no means the only, collections relevant to the history of SWAPO in southern Africa.7 The collections described by Wilcox belonged either to political activists who, with the exception of Amy Thornton, spent many years in exile, or, as in the case of the well-known European solidarity organisation IDAF, they comprise the former documentation centre and archive of a political organisation that broke up after the turn in 1990 at the start of the period of transition in South Africa. Similar scenarios, albeit on a much smaller scale, were also enacted in Switzerland and in Basel.