Nine Days Of War: Namibia-before, during and After By Peter Stiff
Nine Days Of War: Namibia-before, during and After By Peter Stiff
Hardcover
ISBN 062014260X
Publisher: Lemur Books Ltd 1989 First Edition
Condition: Very Good+. The original boards with a DJ are slightly shelf rubbed and edge worn. This book was read and enjoyed but is still overall good. Previous owner name on first page. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
On 1 April, 1989, after an agreement had been reached between South Africa and the U.N. to hold “free and fair elections” in Namibia, a large force of heavily-armed SWAPO guerrillas flooded across the Angola/Namibian border in an attempt to seize control of the country before elections could be held.
One of the conditions of the agreement had been that South Africa would withdraw most of its troops and demobilise the SWATF (South West Africa Territorial Force). This had been almost completed and SWAPO believed that they would encounter no resistance in their takeover of the country. Standing in the way of their success was a thin blue line of 1200 SWATF policemen, many of them former members of the elite counter-insurgency unit, Koevoet. For nine days they fought SWAPO to a standstill and prevented the planned invasion.
Peter Stiff was on the spot during the fighting and interviewed almost all the protagonists, including members of SWAPO.
The book gives a brief introduction to the situation in Namibia, and then goes on to describe in great detail the incursion of the 1600 PLAN guerrillas into Namibia in defiance of the agreements that were to lead to free and fair elections in November 1989. Agreements which, it must be emphasized, the South Africans had followed to the letter.
