Koevoet, Afrikaans for crowbar, also known as Operation K or SWAPOL-COIN) was the counterinsurgency branch of the South West African Police (SWAPOL). Its formations included white South African police officers, usually seconded from the South African Security Branch or Special Task Force, and black volunteers from Ovamboland. Koevoet was patterned after the Selous Scouts, a multiracial Rhodesian military unit which specialised in counter-insurgency operations. Its title was an allusion to the metaphor of “prying” insurgents from the civilian population.
Koevoet was active during the South African Border War between 1979 and 1989, during which it carried out hundreds of search and destroy operations against the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). Koevoet’s methods were controversial, and the unit was accused of committing numerous atrocities against civilians. Over the course of the war, it killed or captured 3,225 insurgents and participated in 1,615 individual engagements. Koevoet was disbanded in 1989 as part of the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435, which effectively ended the South African Border War and ushered in South West African independence as Namibia.
