Glimpses into Namibia’s Independence: April 1 1989

IN 28 days Namibia turns twenty. This is almost incredible when we consider the hurdles that preceded independence.

The implementation on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 in 1989 played out against the backdrop of a rather unpredictable environment as a result of geo-politics. In the end diplomacy prevailed and the stage was set for Namibia’s independence. The process had to start on April 1 1989. When the day arrived, the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) was either hardly present nor ready to fill their space. In Windhoek the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) organised a march to start at the Katutura Community Centre down Kaiser Street into central Windhoek. The march was organised rather casually and its leaders were rather invisible from the start. Rosa Namises, Maureen Hinda and I sat on the doorsteps of the NUNW offices and wondered what would happen. Suddenly somebody yelled at the top of their voice: ‘It is eight o’clock Comrades!’ Namises said: ‘Daarsy’. And at that point all hell literally broke loose. From the Katutura Community Centre to the current intersection of Hosea Kutako and Independence Avenue there was pandemonium and no vehicle could move for about an hour. Police had blocked the route through Simon de Wet Bridge. The march diverted towards the current Hosea Kutako Road and proceeded smoothly for one kilometre up to where Rhino Park Hospital is today. The special units of the army were deployed there and visibly ready for anything.What the marchers and most Namibians had not known until Monday April 2 was that a shooting war had resumed elsewhere and the South African troops were on alert. The march was, in the eyes of the regime, an extension of the hostilities in the North of the country. None of the 25 000 marchers knew anything about the events of April 1 1989 until a day later when it was reported in the local media.Fortunately, the worst was averted. Union leaders Barnabas Tjizu, John Pandeni and others got into discussions with the army. It was a difficult situation. The march had to go on but equally, the last thing that the South Africans would allow was a march into Windhoek, more so on April 1! During these discussions two people come to mind. One was an old South African journalist by the name Hennie Serfontein, who had once written a book on Namibia. The other was a young lawyer by the name Andrew Corbett, who had just arrived in the country to work for the Legal Assistance Centre, then headed by Advocate Dave Smuts. I knew Serfontein from our regular contacts. Here he played a helpful role as he used his own rapport with Jumbo Smit and Attie Nel, who were in charge of the South African forces on the scene.In the end, the march was aborted and the marchers took the long journey back to Katutura at a snail’s pace, somewhat defeated and somewhat saved by fate.Now we consider ourselves fortunate to have lived to witness Independence day in 1990 to hear F W de Klerk as Apartheid South Africa’s President, exclaim to the world on that date that ‘the era of war is over and the era of peace has started.’ He was right.