SWAPO, Namibia’s Liberation Struggle and the Organisation of African Unity’s Liberation Committee

Abstract

The role the Liberation Committee of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) played in Namibia’s liberation struggle has only been addressed in any depth in an unpublished and very little-known paper, which drew upon the Liberation Committee archive in Dar es Salaam to present an argument highly critical of the Committee. More recently, the role of the Committee has been considered briefly in work on the assistance given by the OAU to liberation movements in southern Africa. Though the Committee’s archive remains effectively closed to scholars, it is possible, by using what is available, to attempt an interim assessment of the role the Committee played in relation to the Namibian liberation struggle. This article examines the Committee’s work in promoting the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) as the sole legitimate liberation movement in the case of Namibia, and in providing it with financial and material assistance. Appeals to the Committee by those who were critical of the status it gave to SWAPO, and of the ways in which the SWAPO leadership conducted the struggle, were ignored. Instead, the Committee focused exclusively on the goal of Namibian independence and gave the SWAPO leadership its full support.