Namibia: Jobs for Some

Abstract

Namibia’s post-war government assumed that the reintegration of combatants from each side would be spontaneous. The UN and Namibia’s other international patrons agreed. As a result, and very unlike the other cases evaluated in this book, no internationally administered reintegration programs were designed or implemented. Also unlike the other cases, reintegration was not included in the mandate for the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG). When spontaneous reintegration did not occur, the government’s response was an ad hoc scramble to address the demands of ex-combatants who by then had begun to stage frequent demonstrations against the government. Far from a planned or strategic program response, reintegration in Namibia was an issue that ex-combatants forced on an unwilling patron.