June 8 2008

PRESS RELEASE

NAMIBIANS MUST WAKE TO POLITICAL INTRIGUES

NSHR condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the latest verbal attack by the ruling Swapo Party (SP) on the Ovakwanyama Traditional Authority (OTA) and civil servants in the Ohangwena Region. The attack, characterized by flimsy and sweeping accusations, is viewed by some analysts and certain prominent Oshikwanyama-speaking people as part of a systematic witch-hunt against Namibia’s Ovakwanyama community as a whole.

Republikein and The Namibian newspapers last week carried prominent media reports citing SP as fanning intra-tribal and inter-tribal tensions in certain parts in the North of the country. Human rights and media reports named SP Regional Secretary for Information and Mobilization Mandume Pohamba as having accused OTA and civil servants in the Ohangwena Region of being “traitors” for, as he put it, joining the rival Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) party.

Addressing an SP rally at Edundja village, in the Ohangwena Region on May 31 2008, Pohamba also strongly insinuated that OTA leaders were habitual traitors who had also betrayed legendary Ovakwanyama King Mandume ya Ndemufayo and the current SP leadership. Under the leadership of King Mandume, the Ovakwanyama community launched a heroic armed resistance against Portuguese and British colonial forces between 1915 and 1917.

Pohamba also called upon OTA to “respect” former SP President Sam Nujoma who, according to Pohamba, had “liberated this country”. Unless Pohamba is publicly reprimanded for the attack, his call on OTA to “respect” Nujoma leaves very little if any doubt in the hearts of even careless observers to believe that such an attack was made in the name or defense of Nujoma or with his acquiescence.

Pohamba also threatened that his SP party would institute unspecified measures against those teachers and other civil servants in the Ohangwena Region who were found to be sabotaging Government programs by joining and campaigning for RDP. He also remarked that OTA leaders were “always against the will of the majority” of the people of Namibia.

In NSHR’s opinion, the latest attack is part of a systematic ZANU-PF style campaign is characterized by divide-and-rule tactics, ethnic and other racial demonization, fanning of inter-tribal conflict, political hate speech, death threats, incitement to violence as well as other provocations and has its origins in the pre-independence period.

In the post-independence era this campaign assumed dramatic proportions circa 1996 with the coinage of the term “Kwanyama clique” followed by regional socio-economic marginalization of the Ohangwena Region. It reached a peak with the summary axing of former Foreign Minister Hipido Hamutenya (HH) and his deputy Dr. Kaire Mbuende on May 24 2004. HH’s axing was soon followed by a spate of dismissals from the country’s public service of any suspected HH supporters as well as by a systematic anti-Kwanyama campaign waged inter alia through anonymous e-mails and letters to the editor. Like Mandume Pohamba, the e-mail writers also praised former President Nujoma, saying that he had “liberated” Namibia from colonialism and apartheid rule.

Some analysts also view the hitherto mysterious assassination of Kwanyama border activist Bernard “Nakale” Shevanyenga as part of such campaign. On October 11 2003 unknown gunmen believed to State security agents gunned down Shevanyenga at Oshikuku village in the Omusati Region. Before his death Shevanyenga had received death threats from local SP officials.

It is also significant to note that Mandume Pohamba who, is son to Namibian Head of State President Lucas Hifikepunye Pohamba, is also a member of the Oshikwanyama-speaking community. In a Press Release on February 25 2008, NSHR expressed “serious” concern at allegations that certain high-ranking political figures outside the Ohangwena Region were deliberately fomenting intra-tribal divisions in the Ohangwena Region. This is done through inter alia ‘fronting’ certain Oshikwanyama-speaking SP activists to attack those other Oshikwanyama-speaking people who are members and supporters of RDP. According to NSHR information, the short-term objective of the ‘Kwanyama-on-Kwanyama’ violence strategy is to give credence to certain notions that RDP is a tribal party of the Ovakwanyama people only and that Oshikwanyama-speaking people are trouble-makers who are hell-bent on bringing civil war in the country.

Furthermore, NSHR is disturbed but not surprised by fresh allegations that efforts are once again underway to re-ignite the inter-tribal tensions between members of the Ndonga and Kwanyama tribes. The new tensions are simmering in the newly established Onalusheshete district in the northeastern parts of Aandonga tribal area in the Oshikoto Region.

The tensions are form part of the artificial tribal border dispute at the Ekoka and Ekonghola villages in eastern Ohangwena Region. At the heart of the dispute is a strange “agreement”, brokered by Nujoma, which was signed at Oshakati on March 14 2004 between the late Ovakwanyama King Cornelius Shelungu and his Aandonga counterpart King Immanuel Kauluma Elifas.

NSHR takes great satisfaction in the fact two senior Kwanyama and Ondonga traditional leaders, while speaking on condition of anonymity less than two weeks ago, had vowed “not to allow these political and other machinations pitting our sisterly tribes against each other for personal political gain to succeed”.

The human rights organization is appealing to the people of Namibia to wake up to both covert and overt political machinations and manipulations in the country. The real aim of such political intrigues is to divide-and-rule and thereby ensuring that certain corrupt leaders in this country continue to maintain their iron grip on the political and other critical institutions of the country.

For additional comment, please contact: Dorkas Phillemon at Tel: 061 253 447 or 061 236 183 (office hours only) or Phil ya Nangoloh at Cell: 0811 299 886