The agreement was the culmination of months of intense diplomatic efforts brokered by the United States. South African President P.W. Botha proclaimed, "A new era has begun.... We want to be accepted by our African brothers. We need each other."
The treaty, which was formally signed in New York City, provided for the phased withdrawal of an estimated 50,000 Cuban troops. It also set April 1 as the date for the implementation of U.N. Resolution 435, which calls for Namibian independence and for supervised elections in the onetime German colony. The accord delicately intertwined interests among all three parties and ended two long-running conflicts: the13 years of hostilities between South Africa and Cuban-backed Angolan forces, and a 22-year-old war between the Angolan-based guerrillas of the and South African forces.
During the First World War, South Africa, a member of the British Commonwealth and a former British colony, occupied the German colony of South-West Africa (present-day Namibia). In 1920 the newly established League of Nations legitimized the South African occupation with a Class C Mandate. From that point forward "South-West Africa" was in effect a "province' of South Africa, with the white minority having representation in the whites-only Parliament of South Africa.
During the 1960s, as the European powers granted independence to their colonies and trust territories in Africa, pressure mounted on South Africa to do the same in Namibia. South Africa steadfastly refused despite a 1966 United Nations resolution that terminated South Africa's mandate over the former German colony. Decades of "bush war" followed between South African Defense Forces and SWAPO guerrillas.
Finally, on December 22, 1988, South Africa signed the agreement linking its withdrawal from the territory to an end to Soviet and Cuban involvement in the long civil war in neighboring Angola. The agreement paved the way for formal Namibian independence in 1990.
