Editing Namibian Defence Force (section)

==History==
[[File:Namibian Army WZ523 APC.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Army W523 APC]]
Major General A W Dennis, CB, OBE (rtd), [[British Army]], previously Director of Military Assistance Overseas, made the following comments on the initial phase in Namibia at a conference in Pretoria, South Africa on 6 August 1992:<ref>Alasdair Dennis, "[http://www.issafrica.org/pubs/ASR/SADR5/Dennis.html The Integration of Guerrilla Armies into Conventional Forces: Lessons Learnt from BMATT in Africa] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051229050948/http://www.issafrica.org/Pubs/ASR/SADR5/Dennis.html |date=29 December 2005 }}," South African Defence Review 5 (1992). Retrieved June 2012. Paper presented at a conference on Changing Dynamics: Military-Strategic Issues for a Future South Africa, hosted by the Institute for Defence Politics in conjunction with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, CSIR conference centre, Pretoria, 6 August 1992.</ref>

<blockquote>You will no doubt recall that the Angola Accords were signed in Luanda on 22 December 1988. In November 1989 SWAPO won 57% of the votes in the Namibian General Election and immediately requested the help of a British Military Advisory and Training Team following independence on 21 March 1990. The team, initially 55 strong, was duly deployed on 26 March 1990 and the first leader's cadre, for the 1st and 2nd Battalions, was run from 17 April to 2 June. By 1 July, the 1st Battalion, about 1,000 men strong, accompanied by 5 BMATT Advisors, had deployed to the northern border. By November 1990, only four months later, the 5th Battalion had deployed and in early 1991 the 21st Guards Battalion had also been formed, four staff courses had been run, and support weapons and logistics training was well advanced (indeed a logistics battalion deployed as early as July 1990) and an operational test exercise had been conducted. In addition, the Ministry of Defence, a mixture of civilian and military personnel, was operating as a department of state. No one would pretend that everything was working perfectly, nevertheless, a great deal had been achieved in the first year following independence. Most people would probably agree that at some 7,500 strong the Army is unnecessarily large, but sensible plans will need to be made for the employment of any surplus soldiers before they are discharged. Integration has not been easy to achieve, at least in part, because of the need to use several interpreters to cope with the wide variety of languages involved. Battalions are made up of approximately 70% ex-PLAN and 30% ex-SWATF. This mixture could have proved explosive but hounded by their BMATT instructors they united in a common task (or perhaps in the face of a common enemy!) and soon realised that they could work well together. At the higher levels, integration has been more patchy, at least in part because of the departure of most white South African and SWATF officers. But the Government's intentions seem clear in that it decided to split the four MOD directorates evenly, appointing two white and two black (ex-PLAN) directors. In all this, BMATT Namibia has played a role remarkably similar to that of BMATT Zimbabwe.</blockquote>
[[File:Namibian Air Force K-8.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Air Force K-8]]

[[File:NS Brendan Simbwaye.jpg|thumb|right|150px|NS ''Brendan Simbwaye'']]