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Namibia Quotes

Browse 8 quotes about Namibia.

Namibia Quotes

“During World War I, German South-West Africa (now called Namibia) was invaded and administered by South African and British forces. Following the war, its administration was taken over by the Union of South Africa, and the territory was governed under a trusteeship granted in 1920 by the League of Nations. A request made by the Union of South Africa that they be able to incorporate the territory of South-West Africa into their sovereign boundaries was countered by the President-General of The African National Congress (ANC), Dr. AB Xuma, who on January 22, 1946, cabled the United Nations with his concerns regarding the absorption of South-West Africa into the Union of South Africa. As a result, the United Nations requested that the Union of South Africa place the territory of South-West Africa under a UN trusteeship, allowing international monitoring. The Union of South Africa rejected this request. On August 26, 1966, having become the Republic of South Africa, it continued its jurisdiction over South-West Africa and refused to leave. As a result, a conflict began with the first clash occurring between the Republic of South Africa’s Police Force and the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia. This started what came to be known as the Border War. In 1971 the International Court of Justice, the primary judicial branch of the United Nations, based at the Peace Palace in the Hague, Netherlands, ruled that the Republic of South Africa’s jurisdiction over the Namibian Territory was illegal and that they should withdraw.”

“South Africa, with US support, after the fall of the Portuguese empire, invaded Angola and Mozambique to establish their own puppet regime there. They were trying to protect Namibia, to protect apartheid, and nobody did much about it; but the Cubans sent forces, and furthermore they sent black soldiers and they defeated a white mercenary army, which not only rescued Angola but it sent a shock throughout the continent-it was a psychic shock-white mercenaries were purported to be invincible, and a black army defeated them and sent them back fleeing into South Africa.”

“The role that Cuba played and the lives of those 2,077 Cubans, whose mothers and families mourn for having lost their children in Africa, helped achieve the true security and independence of Angola. It was a contribution because in the end the Angolan people were the ones who decided that. We also contributed in a definitive way securing the independence of Namibia after years that a United Nations resolution was being ignored by South Africa and the western powers.”

“The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.”