[4] The students had been radicalised by their firsthand exposure to apartheid in South Africa, and the active resistance to that system by the African National Congress (ANC).

[4] In 1955, the SWASB became a political party in its own right in 1955, when its members renamed it the South West African Progressive Association (SWAPA) and appointed Uatja Kaukuetu as its first chairman.

[4] SWAPA possessed little support outside academia, however, and in an attempt to expand its support base it united with the Ovamboland People's Congress (later the Ovamboland People's Organisation, or OPO), which represented Ovambo migrant labourers in Cape Town, to form the South West African National Union (SWANU) on 27 September 1959.

[5] Throughout late 1959, SWANU and the Herero Chiefs' Council organised a bus boycott in Windhoek's Old Location, in response to forced evictions being undertaken by the South African Police.

[5] However, SWANU placed a disproportionate emphasis on self-reliance, while SWAPO acknowledged the importance of external actors and the role of the United Nations in securing Namibian independence from South Africa.

[4] The growing severity of the Sino-Soviet split drove a rift between the two parties, however, with SWANU becoming more influenced ideologically and politically by China, and SWAPO by the Soviet Union.

[6] Kozonguizi was initially confident the money would be awarded to SWANU due to its international prominence and the fact that many of its members had been educated at prestigious institutions, namely in the United States and Western Europe.

[6] SWAPO was able to argue that its willingness to initiate armed struggle gave it legitimacy in the eyes of the Namibian people that SWANU lacked.

[4] Its continued affiliation with the People's Republic of China made it unpopular, as both the Western nations and the Soviet bloc came to regard it as a Chinese proxy.

[4] Most of these states had already offered support to PLAN, and the negative examples of Angola and Zimbabwe, where rival guerrilla armies ultimately fought each other, were frequently cited as a pretext for declining aid to SWANU.

[4] However, most of its preparations for armed struggle were purely theoretical in nature and due to Botswana's refusal to endorse guerrilla camps on its soil, all training had to be conducted on a covert basis.

[4] For the duration of the South African Border War, SWANU insurgents were confined to the Dukwe camp and did not participate in the hostilities.