Any breach of the contract, such as quitting or labour organisation, brought criminal sanctions and severe punishment which could be exercised by the employer.

In August 1971, pro-independence students (many of whom already had experience with contract work) were expelled from high schools throughout Ovamboland by South African officials.

In June, the International Court of Justice had ruled that South Africa's ongoing occupation of Namibia was illegal; this encouraged anti-colonial actions in the territory.

Organisers at Walvis Bay called a mass meeting, which was attended by most of the compound's contract workers.

It was decided that mass meetings would be held on Sunday, December 12, at Walvis Bay and Windhoek, and the strike would begin the following week.

[9] Under the pass system, workers planned to return to the Ovamboland reserve for the duration of the strike.

This was partially in response to earlier statements by Jan de Wet, Commissioner General for Ovamboland, when the government became aware of a potential strike.

In reality, economic conditions in the reserves and the pass system often forced workers to sign contracts as a means of survival.

This backfired due to militant worker response, with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELOK)'s Bishop Leonard Auala persuaded to endorse the strike.

The strike began on December 13 in Windhoek and the following day in Walvis Bay, both large worker compounds.

Eighteen thousand workers had returned to Ovamboland by mid-January, 13,500 of whom were transported by rail by the government, which wanted to avoid conflict at compounds in centers of production and near white residences.

[13][9] The Police Zone was an area in South West Africa (present-day Namibia) where Indigenous people were not allowed to enter unless they had a labour contract.

The policing of borders became necessary to prevent disease from spreading to healthy cattle, exposing the fragility of a German colonial control defined by the Red Line.

[14] This became a significant policed boundary between white German colonizers and the Indigenous population in Namibia, laying the foundation for racial apartheid in the 1940s.

[9] During the strike, an ad hoc committee was formed by workers in Ovamboland with its members elected on a regional basis.

The committee met on 3 January, and decided to reject any agreement not supported by the strikers; it also drew up lists of specific grievances and demands, and held a mass meeting a week later.

At the meeting, a delegation was elected to represent the workers in negotiations with the government, major employers and the Bantustan executive on January 19–20 in Grootfontein.

[9] While the strike continued, picket lines were maintained at the borders; this turned back potential strikebreakers.

[9] An agreement was reached on January 20, 1972, which abolished the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA), required written employment contracts with details of entitlements and conditions, removed criminal sanctions (adding civil sanctions against workers deemed to have breached employment contracts) and established mechanisms to resolve disputes.

[5] Four of the workers (Thomas Mueshihange, Benjamin Herman, Lukas Veiko and Mathias Ohainenga) died in Epinga.

Wide-scale opposition continued, however, eventually merging into a long-term guerilla campaign in the north as part of the Namibian War of Independence.

[20] Attempts to re-abolish it included the 2007 Namibian Labour Act, which was reversed by the Supreme Court in December 2009 before it could be implemented:[20][22] "[91] For these reasons, the prohibition of the economic activity defined by s. 128(1) in its current form is so substantially overbroad that it does not constitute a reasonable restriction on the exercise of the fundamental freedom to carry on any trade or business protected in Article 21(1)(j) of the Constitution and, on that basis alone, the section must be struck down as unconstitutional.

LSM News: Special Issue on: SWAPO, Quarterly Journal of Liberation Support Movement (PDF).