Description
In 1988 a peace agreement was secured between the major parties to the internationalised Angolan civil war, which also incorporated a ceasefire and commitments to end the protracted armed conflict in Namibia between the occupying South African government and the South West African People’s Organisation. That is, the peace agreement made provision for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 (1978) resolution, which called for the withdrawal of South African occupying forces from Namibia and for the transfer of power to Namibians. In terms of this resolution, the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) was established with a view to facilitating the independence of Namibia through democratic elections. The peace agreement also made provision for disarmament, as well as the demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants. This paper will reflect on peace and security developments in Namibia over the past two decades with a view to determining why there was no significant conflict re-occurrence despite some of the parties to the previous conflict in neighbouring Angola (to the north) taking up arms in 1992 and fighting a destabilising war for ten years. The paper will argue that the peacebuilding process in Namibia, combined with the democratic transition in neighbouring South Africa (to the south), largely contributed to the absence of significant conflict reoccurrence in Namibia.
Keywords: peacebuilding, Namibia, disarmament, armed conflict, peace agreement, conflict recurrence, internationalization
