The South West African Territorial Force (SWATF) was the forerunner of the Namibian Defence Force and was basically an extension or auxiliary of the South African Defence Force to combat the Namibian War of Independence. It was formed on 1 August 1980 from Southwest Africans serving as personnel in SADF units.[1]
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It was part of the Department of Defence of SouthWest Africa. It was headed by an Administrator general who was always an SADF general. There was the SWATF/SADF Joint Committee for Planning, Liaison and Co-ordination. As a "joint" command the SWATF was responsible for logistics, finances and administration while the SADF was responsible for military operations.[2] It was broadly divided along two lines:
The full timers consisted of Permanent Force, volunteers of auxiliaries and national servicemen. Full timers manned the 8 full time battalions[3].
Part timers were a militia force called the Area Force which contained 27 multi-racial battalions and the Citizen Force which manned the Reaction Force Brigade of three motorized infantry battalions and a battalion sized Armored car Regiment, as well as five Field Artillery Batteries. These part time personnel could be activated on very short notice for active service[4].
Before Namibian independence in 1990, whites, Coloureds and Basters in that disputed territory had the same compulsory military service as in South Africa, and they sometimes served in SADF units in Namibia. In August 1980, the SADF established SWATF to counter the growing South-West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) insurgency, which had been fighting for independence since the 1960s. SWATF included some SADF units and local recruits; its commander, an SADF general, was both South-West Africa secretary of defence and general officer commanding South African army forces in the territory.
During the 1980s, the 3,000-strong SWAPOL Koevoet counterinsurgency force, composed mostly of Ovambo fighters commanded by white S.A.P(South African Police officers), conducted anti-SWAPO operations in Namibia and earned a reputation for ruthlessness and brutality. Koevoet was largely disbanded after the territory achieved independence in 1990, and some of its members were transferred to the Namibian police force[5].
By 1987 SWATF was a 22,000-member militia, with a reaction force element and an area force. The reaction force had a motorized brigade composed of three infantry battalions and an armoured car regiment, and a standing force of six light infantry battalions with supporting units recruited and trained for service in specific regions, or among specific ethnic groups. The area force comprised twenty-six multiracial counterinsurgency forces. Additional specialized units of SWATF included engineers, signals personnel, mounted troops, a parachute battalion, and a commando squadron. Several other multiracial units performed territory-wide functions in South-West Africa. The army's ground forces in the mid-1980s fielded an imposing array of equipment, most of it produced in South Africa. Their arsenal includes tanks, armoured reconnaissance vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, and armoured personnel carriers. The army also has a wide array of artillery pieces, including towed and self-propelled heavy artillery, multiple-rocket-launcher systems, as well as mortars and antitank and air defence weapons.