United Nations Commissioner for Namibia
New agreement
### New agreement

Hurried negotiations took place and a new agreement was reached on 20 April 1989 when SADF forces withdrew to base for 60 hours, allowing SWAPO militants to withdraw peacefully. The SADF were then given two weeks to confirm that SWAPO had indeed left Namibia and also to capture any weapons caches discovered. This agreement was stuck to by both sides, though Ahtisaari and the UN Secretary\-General were nervous about the length of time the SADF were out of their bases, and pushed hard to get them back to [barracks](/wiki/Barracks "Barracks"). Despite these reservations, the withdrawal and verification passed without incident and by the end UNTAG was almost fully deployed, albeit a month behind schedule.

In October 1989, under orders of the [UN Security Council](/wiki/UN_Security_Council "UN Security Council"), Pretoria was forced to demobilise some 1,600 members of [Koevoet](/wiki/Koevoet "Koevoet") ([Afrikaans](/wiki/Afrikaans "Afrikaans") for *[crowbar](/wiki/Crowbar_%28tool%29 "Crowbar (tool)")*). The Koevoet issue had been one of the most difficult UNTAG faced. This counter\-insurgency unit was formed by South Africa after the adoption of UNSCR 435, and was not, therefore, mentioned in the Settlement Proposal or related documents. The UN regarded Koevoet as a paramilitary unit which ought to be disbanded but the unit continued to deploy in the north in armoured and heavily armed convoys. In June 1989, the Special Representative told the Administrator\-General that this behaviour was totally inconsistent with the [Settlement Proposal](/wiki/Settlement_Proposal "Settlement Proposal"), which required the police to be lightly armed. Moreover, the vast majority of the Koevoet personnel were quite unsuited for continued employment in the [South West African Police](/wiki/South_West_African_Police "South West African Police") ([SWAPOL](/wiki/SWAPOL "SWAPOL")). The Security Council, in its resolution 640 (1989\) of 29 August, therefore demanded the disbanding of Koevoet and dismantling of its command structures. South African foreign minister, Pik Botha, announced on 28 September 1989 that 1,200 ex\-Koevoet members would be demobilised with effect from the following day. A further 400 such personnel were demobilised on October 30\. These demobilisations were supervised by UNTAG military monitors.[United Nations Transition Assistance Group](https://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/untagFT.htm) 


Was the verification process for SWAPO's withdrawal successful?