South Africa's security police and military intelligence chiefs were featuring with increasing prominence in Namibian affairs as 1982 drew to a close. Their evident influence over policy and decision-making lent weight to the view that there was little immediate prospect of an internationally negotiated independence agreement being concluded, and fuelled speculation that a South African military takeover of the territory's 'internal government' was in the offing.
The evidence began to emerge in the course of South African moves to edge out the discredited Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) from the nominal seat of power in Namibia, in favour of a more 'representative' version of 'internal self-government' in the territory. Brigadier Theo May, an officer of South Africa's Military Intelligence seconded to the Administrator General's Office in Namibia, was present at a meeting in Pretoria in July 1982 at which plans for a reconstituted 'interim government' were first presented to the leader of the DTA, Dirk Mudge. Mudge, who has been characterised in the South African and Namibian press as deeply dissatisfied with the recent turn of political events, subsequently claimed that Military Intelligence was in fact the architect of the new strategy.
Senior South African Defence Force officers, the Administrator General and Namibian tribal leaders were reported to have taken place to discuss the details of the revised 'interim government'. The head of the Security Police in Namibia, Brigadier Johannes van der Merwe, was reported to have been prominent in planning these meetings. Both Brigadier van der Merwe and Brigadier May were said to have been instrumental in arranging the July 1982 meeting in Pretoria. Confronted with accusations from Mudge that South Africa was conspiring to replace the DTA-controlled 'internal government' in Namibia with a new structure involving anti-DTA ethnic leaders, the Security Police and the SADF, the Administrator General asserted that the two Brigadiers were serving as his advisers.
During October and November 1982, as the South African government's decision on the fate of the National Assembly in Namibia was awaited, the prospect was raised that a paramilitary form of administration would be installed. The Windhoek Advertiser, for example, commented on 'the growing prominence of the uniformed men from Pretoria in the administrative and political affairs of Caprivi, Ovambo and the AG's office'.
The same paper later reported 'increasing speculation that a military government is to be set up in Namibia and that it will be headed by the present head of the SA Army, General Jannie Geldenhuys'.
Senior South African military officials have themselves lent substance to such speculation through public pronouncements. General Magnus Malan, the South African Minister of Defence, made it clear in a speech in October 1982 that South Africa had no intention of permitting Namibia to achieve its independence. He told a public meeting in George in the Cape Province that South Africa could not withdraw from Namibia as this would involve the operational area being pulled back to the northern Cape with a subsequent loss of initiative for Pretoria.
Although Malan subsequently denied suggesting any change of attitude or policy on South Africa's part, his speech was interpreted as signalling the go-ahead for further military operations. Events both inside Namibia and in neighbouring Angola over the weeks that followed testified to Pretoria's continuing commitment to a strategy of military attack. A marked increase in South African reconnaissance flights over Angola's southern provinces bore fruit on 7 November in a South African naval commando raid on strategic communications links 200 miles inside Angola - well to the north of the occupied zone of Kunene province.
On 3 November, Namibia's usefulness to South Africa's military establishment as a testing ground for its combat troops and weapons was illustrated when the G5 155 mm cannon was put through its paces in the Walvis Bay enclave for the benefit of journalists. This long range cannon, together with its mobile version, the G-6, is intended by Pretoria as the spearhead of a drive to sell South African-manufactured armaments abroad. The demonstration by two of the G5s in Walvis Bay was said by the SADF to be the first time that the cannon had been tested in Namibian conditions.
The ebullient mood of the military in Namibia was also well illustrated by remarks made by the Officer Commanding Sector 30 of the SWA Territory Force, when opening a new headquarters in Otjiwarongo in August 1982. Colonel Johan Louw said that many people were losing confidence in the future of Namibia, but 'here we are busy expanding. A great deal of money has been spent here. Do these people really think that we would develop this sector if we, the Defence Force, did not believe in the future of this country?'
Colonel Ken Snowball, an officer attached to the intelligence wing of the staff of General Charles Lloyd, GOC of the SWA army, has claimed that the armed forces are capable of maintaining the status quo in Namibia 'for a long long time'. 'We have everything militarily in our favour now', he continued. 'It's up to the politicians to use this powerbase that we've given them'.
