Word: untagged
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...green-and-blue-clad SWAPO supporters chanted "Freedom is in our hands" at noisy celebrations in the capital of Windhoek, the guerrillas were coaxing donkeys carrying rocket launchers and other artillery through the thick sand of the bush. According to captured prisoners, SWAPO commanders told their troops that UNTAG would allow them to establish military bases in Namibia, where they would be "confined to barracks" like the South African battalions. But their deployment was a flagrant violation of the cease-fire agreement, which calls for SWAPO forces to remain north of the 16th parallel, some 100 miles beyond the border...
...militant exiles of the South West African People's Organization, whose guerrilla army has been battling Pretoria's rule since 1966. The U.S.-brokered agreement was signed last December under the auspices of the U.N., which took on responsibility for policing Namibia's transition with an international peacekeeping force (UNTAG...
...first large-scale clashes near the border town of Ruacana, 38 SWAPO guerrillas were mowed down by machine-gun fire, while two policemen were killed and 14 wounded. Elsewhere, the guerrillas fared little better. All told, at least 260 guerrillas and 28 Namibian security police were killed. UNTAG, which had less than one-fourth of its planned force on hand and barely 200 soldiers in the area of fighting, could do no more than look on ineffectually...
...SWAPO incursions allowed South Africa, which agreed to the independence plan only grudgingly, a rare opportunity to cry foul. Calling the violations a "grave situation," Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha warned that the Namibian peace process "could collapse within hours." Pretoria applied pressure on UNTAG's Finnish commander, Martti Ahtisaari, to reactivate some South African military forces and ordered others back to service on its own. Backed by Western public opinion for once, South Africa continued to threaten an end to the treaty. Declared Foreign Minister Botha: "SWAPO must surrender, lay down their arms, hoist a white flag...
Though few had predicted violence in Namibia on the scale that erupted, UNTAG was woefully unprepared even for the minor clashes that were all but inevitable. Scarcely 1,200 of the 4,560-man force from Kenya, Malaysia and Finland that is scheduled to oversee the transition period was in place. At week's end UNTAG officials were considering emergency airlifts to bring in military personnel, many of them aboard navy vessels days away...