Namibia: Creating a Time Bomb

Abstract

This chapter analyses the DDR of former combatants under the auspices of first a UN mission and then national authorities in Namibia. The United Nations Transition Assistance Group successfully implemented a clearly crafted plan for disarming and demobilizing ex-combatants as part of its supervision of the country’s transition to independence. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) facilitated the repatriation of liberation fighters who had been disarmed in Angolan bases. The task to reintegrate ex-combatants was largely left to the devices of the independence government, creating a gap between DDR’s two Ds and the R. The success of DD was undermined by the Namibian independence government’s failure to proactively plan and implement comprehensive reintegration programmes. As Namibia had no army at independence, the new government prioritized the establishment of an integrated military as a vehicle in the nation-building project. The government later embarked on stopgap ex-combatant reintegration measures such as paying superfluous veterans a nominal once-off gratuity and an ill-fated vocational training programme, which failed to facilitate ex-combatant reintegration. The chapter includes clear-cut comparisons with Zimbabwe, specifically whether the Namibians learnt (or failed to learn) tangible lessons from Zimbabwe with respect to reintegration. It analyses whether the eventual resort to protests by ineffectively reintegrated and disenchanted former liberation war combatants in the 1990s demonstrated cross-regional contagion from neighbouring Zimbabwe. The Namibian government, in an instructive response to avert further war veteran riots, implemented the aptly named “Peace Project ” involving affirmative public service job placements for ex-combatants. This enhanced the long-term reintegration prospects of the beneficiaries. In 2006, Namibia also established a separate Ministry of Veterans Affairs that continues to take care of liberation war veteran matters.