The report says since its creation in 1945, the United Nations has spent more time and extended more words on the Subject .of South West Africa/Namibia than on any other single issue; of the several mandates which the League of Nations transferred upon its expiration to the United Nations, only one administrating nation refused to acknowledge the authority of the UN to oversee the mandate and determine the process of that territory toward independence; that lone nation was the Union of South Africa, administering the League mandate In the former German colony of South West Africa. The report says in 1964, flying in the face of world opinion, South Africa adopted the Odendaal plan for "ethnic...
The report says since its creation in 1945, the United Nations has spent more time and extended more words on the Subject .of South West Africa/Namibia than on any other single issue; of the several mandates which the League of Nations transferred upon its expiration to the United Nations, only one administrating nation refused to acknowledge the authority of the UN to oversee the mandate and determine the process of that territory toward independence; that lone nation was the Union of South Africa, administering the League mandate In the former German colony of South West Africa. The report says in 1964, flying in the face of world opinion, South Africa adopted the Odendaal plan for "ethnic homelands," an expansion of apartheid into South West Africa; under this plan, 26% of the population of the territory--all of them black inhabitants--was forcibly removed and resettled, reserving the richest 60% of the land for the 12% of the population which was white and containing the black population on the poorest and most arid land, from which they could only venture forth under the slave-like conditions of the contract labor system. The report says partly as a response to this action, partly to the overall failure of negotiation to bring any progress, the United Nations withdrew the mandate in 1966 and declared South Africa's military occupation of the territory--renamed "Namibia"--to be illegal; in response to submissions by South Africa, the International Court of Justice in 1971 upheld the UN's right to revoke the mandate. The report says a constitution was drawn up which would have given each ethnic group--including whites--a veto over all national legislation, thus creating a confederation of bantustan-like ethnic states which would have condemned blacks forever to the inequities of land and resources established a decade earlier by the Odendaal plan. The report says the five Western Powers--Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany--anxious to curb an escalating armed struggle as Namibian freedom fighters established themselves more securely in newly-independent Angola, and anxious to avoid an opportunity for further Cuban involvement in Southern Africa—acted as a Contact Group outside the UN to negotiate between South Africa and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) which was carrying on the armed struggle from outside the borders of Namibia, while engaged in nonviolent political resistance and organizing within. The report says on 25 April 1978, South Africa announced that it was accepting the proposal; SWAPO asked for clarification on a number of points relevant to the guarantees of UN control and supervision of the elections and to the control of Walvis Bay; while SWAPO Was waiting clarification from the Contact Group, South African planes and paratroopers struck at a refugee camp for Namibians deep inside Angola, at Kassinga, killing several hundred people, many of them schoolchildren. The report discusses the Turnhalle conference, black tribal leaders, Black political parties, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), the South African military, UN Security Council resolution 385 (1976), elections, the UN Special Representative, UNTAG, the Namibian National Front (NNF), Administrator-General, AG Proclamation 26, and a UN-supervised election. [Note: K. K. Martin is Kenneth K. Martin]
