The history of Namibia has passed through several distinct stages from being colonised in the late nineteenth century to Namibia's independence on 21 March 1990.
The South West Africa People's Organisation, officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia. 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.
Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma, is a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first President of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in 1960. Prior to 1960, SWAPO was known as the Ovambo People's Organisation (OPO). He played an important role as leader of the national liberation movement in campaigning for Namibia's political independence from South African rule. He established the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) in 1962 and launched a guerrilla war against the apartheid government of South Africa in August 1966 at Omungulugwombashe, beginning after the United Nations withdrew the mandate for South Africa to govern the territory. Nujoma led SWAPO during the lengthy Namibian War of Independence, which lasted from 1966 to 1989.
Theo-Ben Gurirab was a Namibian politician who served in various senior government positions. He served as the second Prime Minister of Namibia from 28 August 2002 to 20 March 2005, following the demotion and subsequent resignation of Hage Geingob. Previously he was the country's first Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 2002, and was President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1999 to 2000. He was Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia from 2005 to 2015, when he was replaced by Peter Katjavivi. Gurirab ultimately resigned from politics in 2015.
Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba is a Namibian politician who served as the second president of Namibia from 21 March 2005 to 21 March 2015. He won the 2004 presidential election overwhelmingly as the candidate of SWAPO, and was reelected in 2009. Pohamba was the president of SWAPO from 2007 until his retirement in 2015. He is a recipient of the Ibrahim Prize.
Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo was a Namibian anti-apartheid activist, politician and political prisoner. Ya Toivo was active in the pre-independence movement, and is one of the co-founders of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960, and before that, its predecessor the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) in 1959.
Benjamin Ulenga is a Namibian politician. In the 1990s, he served under the SWAPO government as a deputy minister and as an ambassador, but he left SWAPO in 1998 and founded an opposition party, the Congress of Democrats (CoD), in 1999. He was a member of the National Assembly of Namibia from 2000 to 2015 and led the CoD until 2015.
Albert Mishake Muyongo is a Namibian politician and former Member of Parliament who is currently living in exile in Denmark.
The Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) was a nationalist organization that existed between 1959 and 1960 in South West Africa. The aim of the organization was to end the South African colonial administration, and the placement of South West Africa under the United Nations Trusteeship system. Andimba Toivo ya Toivo had founded its predecessor, the Ovamboland People's Congress, in 1957 in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1959, Sam Nujoma and Jacob Kuhangua established the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) at the Old Location in Windhoek. Sam Nujoma was the president of OPO until its transformation into the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) a year later and remained president until Namibia gained independence in 1990.
Utoni Daniel Nujoma is a Namibian politician who serves as Minister of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation since March 2020. He has served in various government ministerial positions in the government since 2010.
Johannes Martin "Hannes" Smith, affectionately known as Smithie, was a Namibian journalist, editor and publisher. He was first reporter at, then the editor of, the Windhoek Advertiser until 1978 when he and Gwen Lister founded the Windhoek Observer, the country's only Saturday paper at that time. He remained the owner and editor of the Observer until his death.
Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It is named after Siegfried Groth's book Namibia. The Wall of Silence, and was formed at the occasion of the book's release in 1996.
John Ya-Otto was a Namibian teacher, trade unionist, politician, author and diplomat. Born in Ovamboland, a "native reserve" in what was then called South West Africa ruled by South Africa under a League of Nations Mandate, he was smuggled as a baby by his aunt to Keetmanshoop in Southern Namibia and claimed to have been born there. This enabled him to be educated and to work permanently in the Police Zone where blacks from the "reserves" were otherwise only allowed as migrant labourers with temporary residence permits. He was educated at a Rhenish Mission School in Tsumeb and the Augustineum Training CollegeAugustineum Secondary School in Okahandja, where he obtained a teaching certificate. He then taught at the Herero School in Windhoek’s Old Location. Ya-Otto began a career in politics following the 1959 Old Location Massacre in Windhoek's Old Location black township. He joined the newly established liberation movement SWAPO and soon became part of the movement's "internal" leadership as Acting Secretary General and editor of SWAPO's newsletter Unity Wings while many of SWAPO's leaders, including its president Sam Nujoma, were already in exile. He was arrested in 1966 following the Battle of Ongulumbashe, which was the first military engagement between SWAPO and South African military and police in northern Namibia. Together with 36 others, he was accused under the sweeping definitions of "terrorism" of the newly promulgated South African "Terrorism Act". As one of the few accused who were fluent in English and Afrikaans, he was instrumental in preparing the defence together with their lawyer, Joel Carlson. Most of the accused received lifelong or 20-year prison sentences, to be served in Robben Island. However, no direct involvement of Ya-Otto in the military liberation struggle could be proven, and he received a suspended 5-year sentence under the Suppression of Communism Act and was released. He continued to organise for SWAPO, but was repeatedly arrested. Eventually, Ya-Otto fled into exile and worked as SWAPO's Secretary for Labor, and leader of the exiled National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), based in Lusaka until 1979 and then in Luanda. He established relationships with trade unionists around the world. In 1976, he chaired the Ya Otto Commission to investigate internal dissent in SWAPO. In 1981, he published his only book Battlefront Namibia, based on extensive interviews by Ole Gjerstad and detailing SWAPO's and his own struggle for independence. In preparation for the UN-supervised elections for independence, he returned to Namibia in June 1989 and was elected on the SWAPO list to the Constituent Assembly of Namibia which wrote the Constitution for independent Namibia and, after the attainment of independence on 21 March 1990, continued to sit as National Assembly of Namibia. Later, he was assigned the position of Ambassador to Angola. He died in Luanda on 25 May 1994. In 2010, Ya-Otto was posthumously awarded Namibia's "Most Excellent Order of the Eagle 2nd Class".
The Old Location was an area segregated for Black residents of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It was situated in the area between today's suburbs of Hochland Park and Pioneers Park.
Peter Mweshihange was a Namibian revolutionary and guerrilla leader, and after Namibian independence, a politician and diplomat. He was the Namibia's first Minister of Defence from 1990 to 1995, and first ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1996 until his death.
Aaron Twapewa Johannes Mushimba was a Namibian businessperson. Described as a business mogul, Mushimba was involved with the trading of diamonds. He was linked to Belgian American diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman. He was the chairperson of a Namibian investment group, PE Minerals, which holds the mining rights to the Rosh Pinah mine in Namibia's ǁKaras Region. He is the brother-in-law of Namibia's founding President Sam Nujoma.
Namibia–North Korea relations refers to the current and historical relationship between Namibia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Neither country maintains an embassy in their respective capitals, although DPRK formerly had one in Windhoek, which closed down in 1994.
Kovambo Theopoldine Katjimune Nujoma is a Namibian political figure and former First Lady of Namibia.
Tobias Hainyeko (1932–1967) was a Namibian guerrilla fighter who served as the first commander of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) during the Namibian War of Independence from the 1960s through to the 1980s.
Gaus Shikomba was a South West Africa Liberation Army (Swala) intelligence officer who was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1966 to 1984.
