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South African Border War
The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angola from 26 August 1966 to 21 March 1990. It was fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). The South African Border War was closely intertwined with the Angolan Civil War. Following several years of unsuccessful petitioning through the United Nations and the International Court of Justice for Namibian independence from South Africa, SWAPO formed the PLAN in 1962 with material assistance from the Soviet Union, China, and sympathetic African states such as Tanzania, Ghana, and Algeria. Fighting broke out between PLAN and the South African security forces in August 1966. Between 1975 and 1988, the SADF staged m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SWAPO
The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been the governing party in Namibia since the country achieved independence in 1990. The party continues to be dominated in number and influence by the Ovambo ethnic group. SWAPO held a two-thirds majority in parliament from 1994 to 2019. In the general election held in November 2019, the party won 65.5% of the popular vote and 63 out of the 104 seats in the National Assembly. It also holds 28 out of the 42 seats in the National Council. From November 2017 until his death in February 2024, Namibian President Hage Geingob remained the president of SWAPO after being elected to the position at the party's electoral congress. History Background and foundation German South West Africa was established in 1884. After World War I, the League ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constand Viljoen
General Constand Laubscher Viljoen (28 October 19333 April 2020) was a South African Army officer and politician. He co-founded the Afrikaner Volksfront (Afrikaner People's Front) and later founded the Freedom Front Plus, Freedom Front (which in turn merged into the Freedom Front Plus before the 2004 South African general election, 2004 election). Military service Viljoen matriculated at Standerton High School in 1951. He joined South Africa's pre-republic South African Defence Force, Union Defence Force at the Military Gymnasium in Voortrekkerhoogte for the Permanent Force Cadet Course of which he won the "Best Student" in 1952. He studied at the Military Academy from 1953 and graduated as Best Student in 1955 receiving a degree in military science at the University of Pretoria. He was among others Aide de Camp to Dr EG Jansen, Battery Commander at 4 Field Regiment, Instructor at the School of Artillery and Armour, OC 14 Field Artillery Regiment, 14 Field Regiment in Bethlehem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederik Willem De Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk ( , ; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as the seventh and final state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president alongside Thabo Mbeki under President Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997. Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pieter Willem Botha
Pieter Willem Botha, ( , ; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006) was a South African politician who served as the last Prime Minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and as the first executive State President of South Africa from 1984 until his resignation in 1989. Nicknamed 'Die Groot Krokodil' (Afrikaans for 'The Big Crocodile') due to his tough political stance, he was considered the final hardline leader of South Africa during the apartheid era. Born on a small farm in the Orange Free State in 1916, Botha was raised in a conservative Afrikaner family with strong nationalist beliefs. Botha studied law at Grey University College but left before completing his degree to pursue a career in politics. He became involved in the National Party's youth wing and worked as a political organizer, laying the foundation for his rise within the party. He supported the NPs opposition to South Africa's involvement in World War II on the side of Britain, and actively campaigned for a Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balthazar Johannes Vorster
Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983), better known as John Vorster, was a South African politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the fourth state president of South Africa from 1978 to 1979. Known as B. J. Vorster during much of his career, he came to prefer the anglicized name John in the 1970s. He was interned in 1942 by the South African government for his involvement in the pro-Nazi ''Ossewabrandwag.'' Vorster strongly adhered to his country's policy of apartheid, overseeing (as Minister of Justice) the Rivonia Trial, in which Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage, (as Prime Minister) the Terrorism Act, the complete abolition of non-white political representation, the Soweto Riots and the Steve Biko crisis. He conducted a more pragmatic foreign policy than his predecessors, in an effort to improve relations between the white minority government and South Africa's n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Pienaar
Louis Alexander Pienaar (23 June 1926 – 5 November 2012) was a South African lawyer and diplomat. He was the last white Administrator of South-West Africa, from 1985 through Namibian independence in 1990. Pienaar later served as a minister in F W de Klerk's government until 1993. He married Isabel Maud van Niekerk on 11 December 1954. Diplomat In the early 1980s, Louis Pienaar was assigned to Paris as South Africa's ambassador to France. Namibia On 1 July 1985, Pienaar was appointed by the National Party government to be the Administrator-General (AG) of South-West Africa, a territory that the United Nations Security Council called Namibia and which UNSC Resolution 435 of 1978 declared was being administered illegally by South Africa. Two years after AG Pienaar's appointment, when prospects for Namibian independence seemed to be improving, UN Commissioner for Namibia (UNCN), Bernt Carlsson, was appointed. Upon South Africa's relinquishing control of Namibia, Commissioner C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Van Niekerk
Willem (Willie) Abraham van Niekerk (29 June 1937 in Pretoria – 8 August 2009) was a South African physician, professor, and politician. Van Niekerk was Minister of Health in the government of P. W. Botha from 1985 to 1989 and Administrator-General of South West Africa from 1983 to 1985. He specialized in cytogenetics, cell biology, gynecology, and obstetrics. Biography Van Niekerk was born in Pretoria and grew up on the family farm located in the Orange Free State. He studied medicine and surgery at the University of Pretoria, and graduated in 1959. He worked as a researcher for the Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, United States, before returning to South Africa in 1960 where he worked at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pretoria. In 1965, he became a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (MRCOG) in London. Van Niekerk became a Fellow of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerrit Viljoen
Gerrit Van Niekerk Viljoen (11 September 1926 – 29 March 2009) was a South African government minister and member of the National Party. He was chair of the Broederbond from 1974 to 1980, Administrator-General of South West Africa from 1979 to 1980, Minister of Education in South Africa from 1980 to 1989, and Minister of Constitutional Development from 1989 to 1992. Early life He was born in Cape Town in 1926, the son of Helena and Hendrik Geldenhuys Viljoen, the editor of ''Huisgenoot'' magazine. He attended Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (Afrikaans High School for Boys, also known as Affies), a popular and renowned public school located in Pretoria. He continued his studies at the University of Pretoria. Here he was elected to the Student Representative Council and in 1948 was a founder of the Union of Afrikaans students. He studied classical literature and philosophy at the University of Cambridge, then at the University of Leiden, where he passed his PhD summa cum lau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umkhonto We Sizwe
uMkhonto weSizwe (; abbreviated MK; ) was the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its mission was to fight against the South African government to bring an end to its racist policies. After warning the South African government in June 1961 of its intent to increase resistance if the government did not take steps toward constitutional reform and increase political rights, uMkhonto weSizwe launched its first attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. The group was subsequently classified as a terrorist organisation by the South African government, and banned. For a time it was headquartered in Rivonia, which was rural at that time but is now an affluent suburb of Johannesburg. On 11 July 1963, nineteen ANC and uMkhonto weSizwe leaders, including Arthur Goldreich, Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu, were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia. (The farm was privately own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national president, has served as president of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress, the organisation was formed to advocate for the rights of Bantu peoples of South Africa, black South Africans. When the National Party (South Africa), National Party government came to power 1948 South African general election, in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techniques of mass politics, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SWANU
The South West Africa National Union (SWANU) is a Namibian political party founded in 1959. Most of its members came from the Herero people, while fellow independence movement SWAPO was mostly an Ovambo people, Ovambo party. Structure and leadership SWANU has a president, a vice-president, and a secretary-general. As many other socialist parties, it has a Politburo of 26 members, and a Central Committee of 52. The first president of SWANU was Fanuel Kozonguizi, who led from its formation in 1959 until 1966. Rihupisa Justus Kandando was the president from 1998, followed by Usutuaije Maamberua followed by Tangeni Iijambo. History SWANU had its roots in the South West African Student Bureau (SWASB), an association of Namibian students studying at South African universities during the 1950s. The students had been radicalised by their firsthand exposure to apartheid in South Africa, and the active resistance to that system by the African National Congress (ANC). In 1955, the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
