SWAPO

South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), [ˈswɑːpəʊ], (German: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO; Afrikaans: Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volk-Organisasie, SWAVO), officially known as SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former national liberation movement in Namibia. It has been the governing party in Namibia since achieving independence in 1990. The party won 86.73% of the popular vote and 77 out of 96 seats in the general election held in November 2014.

Though the organisation rejected the term South West Africa and insisted on replacing it with Namibia, the organisation's own name—derived from the territory's old name—was already too deeply rooted to be changed. However, the original full name is no longer used and only the acronym remains.

History

After World War I the League of Nations gave South-West Africa, formerly a German colony, to the United Kingdom as a mandate under the title of South Africa. When the National Party won the 1948 election in South Africa and subsequently introduced apartheid legislation, these laws also extended into South-West Africa which was the de facto fifth province of South Africa.

Namibia

Coordinates: 22°S 17°E / 22°S 17°E / -22; 17

Namibia (/nəˈmɪbiə/, /næˈ-/), officially the Republic of Namibia (German:  Republik Namibia ; Afrikaans: Republiek van Namibië), and formerly German South-West Africa and then South West Africa, is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River (essentially a small bulge in Botswana to achieve a Botswana/Zambia micro-border) separates them at their closest points. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.

The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by San, Damara, and Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion. Most of the territory became a German Imperial protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of World War I. In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa, which imposed its laws and, from 1948, its apartheid policy. The port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands had been annexed by the Cape Colony under the British crown by 1878 and had become an integral part of the new Union of South Africa at its creation in 1910.

List of minor planets: 1001–2000