Word: swapo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...including 100,000 whites) under a 1920 League of Nations mandate that the U.N. formally revoked in 1966. Since then, Pretoria has had to fight a low-key guerrilla war against some 8,000 members of the Marxist-dominated and Soviet-armed South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). South Africa values Namibia as a buffer zone against Marxist Angola, a SWAPO haven. With 20,000 troops in Namibia, the South Africans have launched sharp punitive raids against SWAPO camps in Angola...
...bringing independence to Namibia, the South African-administered protectorate. The U.N. plan, which was supported by the Carter Administration, had called for a U.N. peacekeeping force to monitor a cease-fire in the 14-year-old guerrilla war between the insurgent South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) and South African forces. This was to have been followed by U. N.-supervised elections for a national assembly that would write a new Namibian constitution...
...stead, Crocker proposed that a constitutional convention, along the lines of the London conference t transformed Rhodesia into independent Zimbabwe, should be held prior to elections. The difference would be critical: under such a scheme, Namibia's predominantly white anti-SWAPO political parties, backed by South Africa, woulD be assured a role in a new Namibian government, even if they were defeated at the polls...
...heavily fortified base at Rundu, .50-cal. machine guns were aimed across the Okavango River. They were trained on a deserted, war-torn Angolan village on the other side. Both SWAPO guerrillas and villagers had long since retreated into the bush, out of range of South African fire...
...contempt for the idea of a U.N. ceasefire proposal that would replace them with 5,000 peace-keeping troops. Says one officer: "Five thousand men haven't got a hope in hell of monitoring a ceasefire. Before the last South African soldier was back across the border, SWAPO would be in Namibia." However, crossing the Angolan border at will, as South Africa has been doing, could backfire. Third World frustration over Pretoria's failure to make concessions at Geneva has generated renewed demands by black African nations like oil-rich Nigeria for international sanctions against South Africa...