Tangeni Amupadhi in Windhoek and Howard Barrell in Cape Town
The contagion of war in Central Africa this week infected yet another country – this time South Africa’s immediate neighbour, Namibia. And regional security experts have warned that President Sam Nujoma’s Swapo government could find itself having to wage an anti- guerrilla struggle it is ill-equipped to fight.
How serious the conflict becomes between secessionists in the Caprivi Strip region of Namibia and the government in Windhoek hinges on the intentions of the Angolan rebel movement, Unita, which is believed to be backing the rebels.
The fighting capabilities of the Caprivi separatists themselves, and ethnic solidarity between the Lozi-speaking clans of the Caprivi and their tribal relatives in neighbouring Angola and Zambia, will also help determine the seriousness of the challenge facing Nujoma.
In the early hours of Monday morning, guerrillas of the secessionist Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA) launched attacks on a military base at Mpacha airport, and the police station and Namibian Broadcasting Corporation radio centre in Katima Mulilo, the regional capital.
Armed with assault rifles, the separatist rebels killed five police officers and three soldiers, and wounded more than a dozen security force personnel. By the end of the day, when the armed forces had established full control over the regional capital, five separatists had been killed and eight captured.
Regional security analysts are asking two key military questions about the outbreak of violence this week. One is: does the CLA have sufficient and adequately trained guerrillas to sustain a string of similar attacks in the medium term? The second is: what is the game plan of the Angolan rebel movement, Unita, in the support it has lent the CLA?
Unita has been allied to the rebels fighting to topple President Laurent Kabila’s regime in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is being propped up by troops sent by the governments of Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
The minimal information available indicates that between 30 and 40 CLA guerrillas are former members of the South West African Territory Force who saw action against Swapo in the 1980s. They are well-trained, battle- hardened fighters. But the quality of the remaining “one or two hundred” is unknown.
The current consensus among regional security experts appears to be that Unita’s aim in backing the CLA is probably limited to “putting a shot across Nujoma’s bows”, in the words of one security analyst. It is intended as a “warning to Nujoma not to give the Angolan government transit across Namibian territory or the use of Namibian military facilities in its fight against Unita”.
But another security analyst warned that Unita might decide that it should place far stiffer pressure on Nujoma. In this case, Unita’s intentions would be to force Nujoma to withdraw Namibian military support for Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo and to make it impossible for Namibia to back the embattled Angolan government.
Unita leader Jonas Savimbi is believed to be capable of putting a batallion of his own fighters into Caprivi, which could tie the bulk of Namibia’s security forces up in a debilitating counter-insurgency campaign which they have little capacity to fight.
Nujoma has also been among the most vocal backers of Angola’s MPLA government. Earlier this year, he, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kabila signed up to an alliance with Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos. Unconfirmed reports suggest Nujoma agreed earlier this year to let Angola use Namibian territory in its war against Unita, but that he has since got cold feet about meeting his obligations.
Caprivi straddles a vital supply route for foodstuffs and other commodities – though, as far as can be ascertained, not armaments – for Unita. Sources report the existence of large warehouses in Caprivi where goods are stored before being smuggled across the border into Angola and onwards to Unita- controlled areas.
Caprivian separatists have also established close links with their Lozi-speaking kith and kin in Angola and Zambia. And the CLA is backed openly by a similar Lozi secessionist group in Zambia, the Barotse Patriotic Front.
The issue of Caprivian secession has been gestating for many years – since long before Namibia achieved independence in 1990.
The rebellion is led by Mishake Muyongo, who was until last year the leader of the main opposition party in Namibia, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance. Muyongo was also the vice-president of Swapo for 16 years to 1980, until he fell out with other leaders.
Muyongo claims a merger agreement signed in 1964 between Swapo and the Caprivi African National Union, of which Muyongo was a founder member, forms the basis of rebel demand for Caprivi secession. Swapo denies an agreement stating that Caprivi would get independent statehood.
The Caprivi is a 28 000km2 finger of land that the Germans annexed to try to link South West Africa to their colony, Tanganyika, in East Africa. During the colonial era, it was administered from Pretoria. Until this year, some Namibian laws did not apply there.
Although Caprivian secession was a heated issue in the mid-1980s it did not resurface until last year when a group of Namibians fled to Botswana after newspapers revealed Muyongo had military training camps in the territory.
When Muyongo was granted political asylum and Botswana asked that he be relocated to a third county in order to safeguard its lukewarm relationship with Namibia, Namibians thought the secessionist campaign was over. Security forces and Namibia’s intelligence community were thus caught unawares this week. Myongo is now based in Denmark.