IRIN Special Report: The Caprivi Strip, a new zone of tension

An overview Mishake Muyongo, leader of a secessionist group called the Caprivi Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for Monday's attack by armed gunmen on the strategic town of Katima Mulilio in Namibia's remote northeast Caprivi Strip. In an interview with South African news organisations on Wednesday, Muyongo said: "This is just the beginning. The struggle will be long and we will be victorious." Over a dozen people, including three soldiers and three policemen, were killed in the attack. After regaining control of the situation, the Namibian government immediately announced a state of emergency in Caprivi and announced an indefinite night-time curfew. It also closed Caprivi's borders with Angola, Botswana and Zambia. The demands in a complex regional situation Muyongo accused the ruling Southwest Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) of President Sam Nujoma of failing to honour a 1964 agreement, in which he said the governing party had promised that once independence was achieved, the Caprivi area would be given the opportunity to decide its future. "Nobody can make us a colony now. We are prepared to sacrifice our lives in order to get our freedom," Muyongo said. He added: "The Caprivi has been neglected. We have been marginalised. Unemployment is rife. We must find our own identity." When the tensions in Caprivi first came to prominence late last year, Muyongo, the former opposition leader in Namibia, fled to Botswana and was later granted asylum in Denmark. Citing a crackdown by security forces, he was followed into Botswana over the weeks and months by more than 2,000 Caprivians. UNHCR, in an agreement with the governments of both countries, helped repatriate 1,300 of the refugees, and said it was concerned the skirmish on Monday would delay the repatriation programme. South African analysts said they feared the attack could heighten regional instability, and have a negative impact on foreign investment in the region. The secessionists support base The town of Katima Mulilo itself was used by the South African government at the height of the apartheid era as a rear base when it supported the UNITA rebel movement in the early days of the Angolan civil war from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. It lies on the northern edge of Caprivi where the Angolan and Zambian borders meet. Analysts said many of today's antagonisms in the area stem from that period. While some diplomats told IRIN this week that Muyongo's Caprivi group enjoys support from UNITA, others cited support from another separatist group in western Zambia, the Barotse Patriotic Front, led by Imasiku Mutangelwa. Zambia's Western Province which is sometimes referred to as Barotseland, borders the Caprivi region and the people of the two regions are from the same ethnic group, the Lozi. 'The Namibian' on Wednesday quoted Mutangelwa as saying that Lozis in Zambia's Western Province had started crossing into the Caprivi. "The Caprivi secessionists have started a beautiful journey in the right direction because their plea for autonomy has fallen on deaf ears in the past," he said. Mutangelwa confirmed that a meeting between the two groups had recently taken place in Katima Mulilo. According to 'The Namibian', the Caprivi rebels are believed to have entered Namibia from southwest Zambia. The situation reportedly calm The Namibian government said calm had been restored to Katima Mulilo by Wednesday and that the situation throughout Caprivi was now under control and that the state of emergency would remain in force. But at a news conference in Windhoek on Tuesday, the Namibian National Defence Force (NDF) spokesman, Major Martin Shalli, said: "It is a state of emergency, if we ask you to open your door and you don't, then we will kick your door down and you might get hurt in the process." His remarks came at the same time a spokesman for the Namibian Human Rights Society told IRIN on Wednesday that a human rights activist had been assaulted and detained. "All problems of a political nature have to be solved by a political means," the spokesman said. In a statement sent to IRIN by the South African government, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said the South African government "condemned in the strongest terms the killing of civilians in Katima Mulilio, Namibia." For further information on the Caprivi situation, IRIN has published a background report on the Caprivi Strip. It can be viewed on the following internet site