Namibia

IV

Economy

The principal occupations are livestock raising (primarily cattle, Karakul sheep, and goats), and subsistence agriculture, which, because of scanty rainfall, is largely confined to the north. Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 was $6.1 billion, or $3,016 per person. Industry, principally mining, contributes the largest portion of the GDP, 32 percent in 2005. Namibia has some of the richest diamond fields in the world. Nearly all diamonds extracted are of gem quality. Gem-quality diamond output in 2004 was 2 million carats. Other important mineral products include uranium, copper, tin, lead, silver, vanadium, tungsten, and salt. The waters off Namibia’s coast are rich in marine life, which thrives in the cold waters of the Benguela Current. Because of overfishing, the catch has dropped since the early 1970s; the catch in 2004 was 570,758 metric tons. Mackerel, pilchard, hakes, and anchovies were the principal species caught.

The official unit of currency was changed in 1993 from the South African rand to the Namibian dollar (N$6.40 equal U.S.$1; 2005 average). The new currency is linked to the rand on a one-to-one basis. Most of Namibia’s trade is with South Africa, with which Namibia is linked, along with Swaziland, Botswana, and Lesotho, in a customs union. Transportation is provided by a network of 42,237 km (26,245 mi) of roads and 2,382 km (1,480 mi) of railroads. Lüderitz and Walvis Bay are the only ports.

V

Government

Before 1990, South Africa controlled Namibia’s defense and foreign affairs, and could veto its legislation. The constitution of 1990 established Namibia as an independent republic. According to the constitution, Namibia’s president is the executive and is elected by the voters. The president may serve a maximum of two terms of five years (although a constitutional amendment approved in 1998 granted an exception to the sitting president, Sam Nujoma, allowing him to run for and win a third term in 1999). Legislative authority is vested in the National Assembly, a body made up of 72 elected members and up to 6 appointed representatives. The National Council, made up of two representatives from each of Namibia’s 13 regional councils, acts as an advisory body.

During the period of South African rule, the security and apartheid (racial segregation) laws of South Africa were extended to Namibia, and black nationalist parties were barred from government participation. This barrier was removed as independence approached, and the black nationalist South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) won a majority of the votes in elections for a constituent assembly in November 1989. SWAPO won a majority again in the elections of 1994, 1999, and 2004. The most important minority parties are the multiracial Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) and the Congress of Democrats (COD).

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VI

History

Cave paintings that may be more than 25,000 years old attest to the presence of hunter-gatherer groups in the country during the late Pleistocene Period, but the earliest identifiable inhabitants are the San, who were here by the beginning of the 1st century ad. The Nama-speaking Khoikhoi arrived about ad 500. The Ovambo and the Herero migrated to the area much later.

A

European Presence

Between a landing by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 and the creation of German South-West Africa in 1884, most of the few Europeans who visited the territory were explorers, missionaries, and hunters. The next three decades of German rule were marked by bloody suppression of the rebellious black Africans, notably the once dominant Herero, whose revolt in 1904 was not finally crushed until four years later at the cost of perhaps 60,000 lives.

In 1915, during World War I, the German colony was conquered by military forces of the Union (now Republic) of South Africa. Germany renounced sovereignty over the region in the Treaty of Versailles, and in 1920 the League of Nations granted South Africa mandate over the territory. In 1946 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly requested South Africa to submit a trusteeship agreement to the UN to replace the mandate of the defunct League of Nations; South Africa refused to do so. In 1949 a South African constitutional amendment extended parliamentary representation to South-West Africa. The International Court of Justice, however, ruled in 1950 that the status of the mandate could be changed only with the consent of the UN. South Africa agreed to discuss the trusteeship question with a special committee of the General Assembly, but the negotiations ended in failure in 1951. South Africa subsequently refused to accede to UN demands concerning a trusteeship arrangement, but it permitted a UN committee to enter Namibia in 1962 in order to investigate charges of atrocities committed against the native peoples. The committee found the charges against South Africa to be baseless.

B

South Africa’s Occupation

Aroused by steps that the government of South Africa was taking to establish apartheid in the mandated territory, Ethiopia and Liberia took the case to the International Court of Justice, but the court dismissed the complaint in 1966 on technical grounds. In October of that year the apartheid laws of South Africa were extended to the country. The UN continued to debate the question, and in June 1971 the International Court of Justice ruled that the South African presence in Namibia was illegal. South Africa, however, continued to govern the territory. As a result, the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), a black African nationalist movement led by Sam Nujoma, escalated its guerrilla campaign to oust the South Africans. The major Western powers, principally the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany), became deeply involved in the Namibian question in the late 1970s. South Africa continued to resist eviction until December 1988, when it agreed to allow Namibia to become independent in exchange for the removal of Cuban troops from neighboring Angola.