Recently I was discussing with someone whether or not there would have been a South African Border War if they had annexed Namibia before apartheid came under international scrutiny in the 60's. Just for some context, Namibia was a de facto part of South Africa, but legally a South African League of Nations Mandate, following the South African take over of the region from Germany during World War I. In the 1960's an independence movement known as SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organization) was formed, and began fighting South Africa for control of the state, aided by the USSR and later Angola, eventually leading to a South African withdrawal in 1989 and free elections that put SWAPO in charge of the newly independent country. However, had South Africa annexed Namibia before SWAPO had emerged or South Africa began to be internationally condemned for apartheid, how would events in the region have unfolded? Historically there were plans to make Namibia the fifth province of South Africa in the 1940's.
SWAPO and the Namibian independence movement if South Africa annexed Namibia before 1960?
- Thread starter AbeLincoln1865
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Chris Nation
Banned
I'd say the 1940s is too late to make any appreciable difference.
The UN took over all League of Nations mandates when it was formed. Smuts was respected, but I doubt he could negotiate a legal way out of the situation, and the UN is not going to make one of its first actions the surrender of one of the territories it had responsibility for to what was then viewed as essentially a colonial power. Also, there's the small point that...this is actually exactly what happened, from the South African point of view. The South African government never considered the UN to have legitimate authority in South West Africa. They never conceded that South West Africa was a UN Trust Territory. Thus, although it was technically illegal under the terms of the mandate, South West Africa was represented in the South African Parliament and South West Africans were South African citizens. Additionally, the Bantustan system was, again illegally, applied within South West Africa.
However, what you seek isn't impossible. Specifically, Smuts' first premiership in the early 1920s. He could organise a referendum on South West Africa joining the Union of South Africa. The problem is convincing Afrikaners and Germans to vote in favour of that. I've no doubt they could be induced somehow. At this stage, no one is going to bat a single eyelid over the validity of a whites-only referendum. The League of Nations actually created the category of "Class C Mandate" specifically because of Smuts, which allowed South Africa to govern South West Africa as an integrated territory. They'll acquiesce. Voila. The UN has no legal leg to stand on fomenting an anti-apartheid nationalist movement in the latter part of the century.
I also suspect that the concept of a "South West African" and later "Namibian" never actually takes hold. You'll get anti-apartheid movements, to be sure, but I'm confident South West Africa remains a South African province to this day in this TL. Possibly two provinces.
The UN took over all League of Nations mandates when it was formed. Smuts was respected, but I doubt he could negotiate a legal way out of the situation, and the UN is not going to make one of its first actions the surrender of one of the territories it had responsibility for to what was then viewed as essentially a colonial power. Also, there's the small point that...this is actually exactly what happened, from the South African point of view. The South African government never considered the UN to have legitimate authority in South West Africa. They never conceded that South West Africa was a UN Trust Territory. Thus, although it was technically illegal under the terms of the mandate, South West Africa was represented in the South African Parliament and South West Africans were South African citizens. Additionally, the Bantustan system was, again illegally, applied within South West Africa.
However, what you seek isn't impossible. Specifically, Smuts' first premiership in the early 1920s. He could organise a referendum on South West Africa joining the Union of South Africa. The problem is convincing Afrikaners and Germans to vote in favour of that. I've no doubt they could be induced somehow. At this stage, no one is going to bat a single eyelid over the validity of a whites-only referendum. The League of Nations actually created the category of "Class C Mandate" specifically because of Smuts, which allowed South Africa to govern South West Africa as an integrated territory. They'll acquiesce. Voila. The UN has no legal leg to stand on fomenting an anti-apartheid nationalist movement in the latter part of the century.
I also suspect that the concept of a "South West African" and later "Namibian" never actually takes hold. You'll get anti-apartheid movements, to be sure, but I'm confident South West Africa remains a South African province to this day in this TL. Possibly two provinces.
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Thanks for the response and for showing the issues with my scenario, as well as providing a better alternative. The person I was discussing this with argued that the concept of "South West African" and "Namibian" would still exist even if South Africa annexed Namibia in the 20's.