DISPUTE OVER WALVIS BAY—ORIGINS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NAMIBIAN INDEPENDENCE

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WALVIS BAY is the only developed deep-water port along Namibia's coastline. It will therefore be crucial for the country's future, as it may enable an independent state of Namibia to achierre structural independence from neighbouring countries. But the control of Walvis Bay, and more importantly its ownership, are the object of a political dispute between the Republic of South Africa and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO). WhiLe the former claims that Walvis Bay is South African territory and administers it as a part of the Cape province, SWAPO and the United Nations consider Walvis Bay as an integral part of Namibia. Despite SWAPO's claim, the question of Walvis Bay has been excluded from the negotiations for Namibian independence. This implies the pos sibility that Walvis Bay may in time become a South African enclave within an independent Namibia. Pretoria would thus be able to maintain considerable economic and political leverage over Namibia. It could, therefore, restrict the country's options for structural independence from South Africa and retard the process of decolonization in Southern Africa. But in order to assess the present, and future, importance of Walvis Bay, attention has to be drawn to its history, as the origins of the present dispute are to be found in the late nineteenth century's European partition of Africa. Existing historiography does not satisfactorily answer what the economic, political and strategic importance of Walvis Bay was in the past. If mentioned at all, it is generally relegated to footnotes in historical accounts of Namibia as a German colony, and, subsequently, as a mandated territory of the League of Nations under South African control. An examination of the history of Walvis Bay thus fills an historiographical lacuna and, more importantly, helps to identify the central features of the present political dispute, as well as to assess its possible implications for the ftlture of Namibia. The main argument in this article is as follows: since the British annexation of Walvis Bay in 1878, the importance of the Bay was reflected less in its economic performance as a port per se than in its perceived economic potential and political significance as the only point of access from the sea to the interior. Prior to the First World War, as today, this asset was,