Talk:Namibian War of Independence

Please state who won the war

It is usual to state who has won a war. In this case the implication of the reference to SWAPO winning the elections is given as the result. This suggests that SWAPO won the war. They did not. They lost the military war. The victory of SWAPO in the elections had little to do with the war. SWAPO could have contested, and may have won, any one of the elections held during the war. An analogy would be Sinn Fein losing the uprising in Belfast, but winning the parliamentary elections of 1918.JohnC (talk) 06:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I lived in Windhoek during the war, which for most people south of Ovamboland meant only the odd explosive device and political murder (like that of Clemens Kapuuo). Namibian independence owes a lot more to the de Klerk government in South Africa than to any military successes of SWAPO, which were, at best, incidental. Ondundozonananandana (talk) 11:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this information is important. Who actually did win the war? Whoever it was can you please add them to the article. g.rocket (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Dishonest at best

To write about how Namibia acquired independence without mentioning the war in Angola in which a combined force of SWAPO, MPLA, and Cuban Army volunteers defeated South Africa, as well as the freedom struggle in South Africa and the world anti-apartheid movement, is to present it so out of context as to be utterly worthless. Mmclic (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC) Marc Lichtman

If you feel it is dishonest to leave out context, then please put in a background paragraph or something similar and add context. g.rocket (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Omugulugwombashe

Who attacked who?? Different areas of wikipedia give different accounts of if SWAPO attacked the South African forces, or if it was vice versa. This should be researched and clarified.

The South Africans attacked, but the source for that particular sentence states differently. --Katangais (talk) 17:05, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Content overlap & confusion with South African Border War

We've managed to tippy toe around this issue for the six years or so this article's been discussed by the wiki community, but given the recent edit conflict I feel obligated to finally bring it up.

How do we define "Namibian War of Independence" and why is it separate from the South African Border War article? In promoting the separate justification for this article in the past, I've taken the view of Leopold Scholtz, Willem Steenkamp, and a number of other SADF scholars and classified the whole conflict into two distinct phases: the large, semi-conventional raids and battles fought in Angola, not only against SWAPO but also FAPLA and the Cubans with their tanks and MiGs; and the low-level insurgency in Namibia/SWA itself.

As far as I'm concerned, this article should cover only the Namibian COIN phase of the war and focus on things like Koevoet, the internal security campaigns undertaken by the SADF and SWATF, and the sabotage/farm attacks by SWAPO, since these were the only times security forces clashed solely with Namibian fighters and Angola was not involved. It makes more sense to call this a Namibian war as well, since this was the part of hostilities that took place in Namibia itself.

The mainstream Border War article should focus on the fighting in Angola, in which the heaviest casualties were often inflicted by FAPLA/Cubans as opposed to SWAPO and which gradually escalated into a separate Angolan conflict between the SADF and FAPLA after Ops Askari in 1985 (see Operation Alpha Centauri, Moduler, Hooper, and Packer, etc). It was ultimately this that resulted in the Tripartite Accord, not the SWAPO guerrilla war.

But if that's not the general consensus, we should look at merging both South African Border War and "Namibian War of Independence" instead of calling them separate but "closely intertwined" conflicts.

Thanks, --Katangais (talk) 03:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not really separate at all, as most of the war took place deep inside Angola. The insurgency within Namibia was not the War of Independence, but a minor part of it. While I find this article worth keeping, if it is to be limited to engagements within Namibia itself it needs renaming. And "strategic SWAPO victory" definitely needs sourcing if it is to remain in the infobox. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 23:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I've taken the discussion to MILHIST and I'd really appreciate it if you could express your opinion there, as well. If the SWAPO insurgency in Namibia is the same thing as the South African conflict in Angola, this needs to be merged with South African Border War. As it is, this article was meant to cover only the former. The main Border War article dealt with all the fighting in Angola. So if there's no difference we have a case of duplicate articles.

On a related note, SWAPO declares in their publication To be born a nation that their primary objectives were 1) independence for Namibia, and 2) the assumption of power in Windhoek. Ultimately both these goals were achieved. So they achieved a favourable strategic outcome, even if they suffered a tactical military defeat. --Katangais (talk) 03:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

SWAPO also wanted a one-party state. South Africa achieved its later-war aim of avoiding the rise of a communist state on its border. Due to its long duration, the outcome of this particular conflict is tricky, but it has to be noted SWAPO had no military presence in Namibia ahead of the elections, despite a desperate last-minute attempt. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 08:03, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I've been putting this issue off for some time while I focused on some other projects. However, I am going to propose merging with South African Border War again, as per the consensus if I remember correctly at WP:MILHIST. --Katangais (talk) 07:51, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Title

Gbooks hits has "Namibian War" (103); "Namibian War of Independence" (20); "War in Namibia" (19). Gscholar has "War in Namibia" (576); "Namibian War" (363); "Namibian War of Independence" (146). Note that some colonial wars are included in the hits.--Zoupan 03:05, 13 September 2016 (UTC)