Namibia and southern Africa

The struggle of Namibia's independence from the regional perspective of southern Africa over a period of forty-five years from 1945 to 1990 is the subject of this detailed study, which is based on extensive research in the region.

The author argues that regional dynamics of the decolonization process in Namibia interacted with, and at times determined, both the internal dynamics of colonization, collaboration and resistance, and the international dimension of United Nations diplomacy and superpower politics during the years of the cold war.

This regional approach to the study of Namibia's recent history, ranging from cross-border movements to regional diplomatic, economic and military strategies, thus complements and enlarges existing avenues of research which focus primarily on the internal and international diplomatic dimensions of Namibia's occupation by South Africa and subsequent liberation.

Namibia and Southern Africa throws light on issues such as the origins of Namibian nationalism in the regional southern African context and the relationship between Namibian nationalist movements and other liberation movements of southern Africa in the light of Soviet-Chinese rivalry in the 1960s. It also analyses the role of independent southern African states in Namibia's search for independence.

In particular, it examines the as yet little studied Frontline state diplomacy during the negotiations and subsequent attempts at the implementation of Security Council resolution 435 of 1978 which provided the blueprint for Namibia's transition to independence under United Nations supervision. Finally, the study discusses the regional war between Angola and South Africa in the light of the South African 'Total National Strategy', Cuban internationalism, the changing Soviet policy under Gorbachev, and the Reagan administration's policy of 'linkage' during the last years of the cold war in the 1980s.

For it was the peaceful settlement of a regional war between South Africa and the Angolan government in southern Angola, rather than the dynamics of resistance to South African occupation inside Namibia, which precipitated South Africa's withdrawal from Namibia and the country's independence in March 1990.