/ 28 November 1999

PRE-ELECTION VIOLENCE IN NAMIBIA

AN opposition party meeting was violently broken up by supporters of Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party just four days before general and presidential elections, reports said on Friday. A Congress of Democrats (CoD) meeting at the coastal town of Swakopmund on Thursday evening had to be abandoned after some 2000 supporters of the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation surrounded the venue. Prominent CoD member Ignatius Shixwameni had to be evacuated from the meeting hall by police firing warning shots to keep the angry crowd at bay,The Namibian newspaper reported. The police officers and one CoD supporter sustained slight injuries in the melee. The vehicle that Shixwameni arrived at the meeting in was stoned by the crowd and badly damaged. The incident was the most violent yet in a bad tempered election campaign dominated by the political rivalry between SWAPO and CoD, which was launched only in March this year.