The Struggle Intensifies on All Fronts
FROM 1966 when we launched the armed liberation struggle we also expanded our diplomatic establishment and representation, at the UN in New York and in many other places outside Africa. By 1970 we had Swapo offices in Stockholm, London, Belgrade, Moscow, Bucharest, Paris and Helsinki. This was to help mobilize the international community.
Swapo intensified the political mobilization too, inside the country, and of course the armed liberation struggle, which was the most effective against the enemy. The decision to go to war, coming so soon after the International Court of Justice fiasco, followed by the Pretoria trial of Swapo members in 1968, brought Swapo much more into the limelight. These developments also established more clearly the existence of our country as more than just an appendage to South Africa called South West Africa. The UN was determined, after the ICJ fiasco, to support the people of South West Africa in their just struggle for freedom and independence. This determination facilitated the setting up, in 1967 under General Assembly Resolution 2248, of the UN Council for South West Africa, as the ‘de jure’ government of the country. The intention was that the council would administer the country until it achieved its independence. South Africa refused to co-operate, of course, and the council was unable to enter South West Africa. Like the Special Committee before it, its members could visit only countries like Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania, and then return to report to the UN General Assembly.
When the UN Council for South West Africa came to Dar-es-Salaam in April 1968, I put to them Swapo’s decision, which was fully supported within the country, that the name which we in Swapo had come to use for our country – Namibia – should be officially adopted by the UN. I made a strong statement, highlighting the treatment of our guerrillas and political leaders on trial in Pretoria, and the second group awaiting trial, as well as the reign of terror that the apartheid South African white minority regime had launched on the country since Omugulu-gOmbashe. We demanded that the council enter Namibia (I used the new name throughout my statement) “with or without the co-operation of the white South African government” to carry out General Assembly Resolution 2145 (XX1) of 29 October 1966.
Though the council praised our organization there was still much to do. We had representatives in many countries, and more and more member states coming to recognise that only Swapo was fighting to free their country from foreign domination, and that only Swapo could really speak for the people of Namibia. We had to put the organisation on the best possible footing. Swapo held, from 26 December 1969 to 2 January 1970, a consultative congress at Tanga in Tanzania. The war, from its small beginnings, had been going on for three years, but was not, until Tanga, given its central position in our strategy. The congress was attended by observers from countries which were able to supply us with arms and ammunition, and with military training beyond the level of what we ourselves undertook at Kongwa: Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, China, Egypt, Rumania, USSR and Yugoslavia gave us support in ways that Western countries, to whom we had put our case for assistance against apartheid South Africa, would not. The congress thanked them and other countries, both of the Non-Aligned Movement and the socialist countries. It also expressed appreciation for “material humanitarian assistance and moral support given to Swapo by progressive organizations and people in Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and the US, to mention but a few.” We supported the Palestinians, Vietnamese, Cubans and other Latin Americans, “our Black American brothers and sisters” and we condemned the governments of France, West Germany, the United States and Britain for their open assistance to apartheid South Africa in Namibia, and in particular Britain, France and the United States for their diplomatic manoeuvres at the United Nations for the purpose of sabotaging the Namibian question, thus prolonging the illegal occupation of Namibia by the Pretoria racists.”
This brought us much criticism in the West, as we had not before expressed these views so strongly and publicly. But it was also noticed by observers – as in the American publication Africa Report – that “ there were no genuflexions towards Soviet and Chinese ideologies.” We reorganized the leadership, electing Brendan Simbwaye, formerly President of CANU, as Vice-President, with Mishake Muyongo acting for this unaccounted for prisoner of the apartheid South Africa. Moses Garoeb, back from his studies in the United States, became Administrative Secretary and Nelengani, formerly Vice President was expelled. Garoeb replaced Kahangua, now an invalid. We also elected a National Executive of ten members plus two co-options, and a Central Committee of thirty. It was decided that the National Executive committee members would be based at our provisional headquarters instead of being scattered as before. Tanga was decisive, in that we re-restructured the party very effectively by electing Secretaries for many new departments, and formalizing the activities of the existing ones. They were given specific tasks: the Secretary for Education to seek scholarships for our growing numbers of students; the Secretary for Information to inform and influence world public opinion; the Secretary for Defence to acquire weapons, uniforms, boots and all necessary materials needed for us to continue to wage the war. Swapo became much more effective after Tanga. It was there that we developed the three-pronged strategy of political, diplomatic and military action, and where a much clearer structure was established within which the departmental secretaries could carry out their work.