Caprivi capital calm

Life in the town of Katima Mulilo, capital of northeast Namibia's Caprivi Strip, returned to relative normality on Thursday. Shops reopened, and people went about their business under a state of emergency following Monday's first anti-government rebel attack in Namibia since the country gained independence from South Africa in 1990. As local government officials, traditional leaders and residents in the town of some 28,000 tried to work out how a group of armed secessionists had been able to enter the town and attack its military, police and broadcasting installations before being beaten back, analysts told IRIN that the authorities might have been caught off guard in what appeared to have been an attempt to provoke a crackdown and radicalise the local population. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Mishake Muyongo, leader of a secessionist group called the Caprivi Liberation Army. Over a dozen people, including three soldiers and three policemen, were killed. Explaining the state of emergency announced by the government within hours of the attack, the regional governor of Caprivi, Bernard Sibalatani, told IRIN in an interview on Thursday: "We have to find out where this thing is coming from." South African diplomats said the attackers possibly had the support of Angolan based UNITA rebels, while others cited an ethnic support base in Zambia. Katima Mulilo, however, is located at the point where the Zambian and Angolan borders converge on the northeast Namibian border. "These people are simply power hungry terrorists," Sibalatani said. "Muyongo's support base doesn't extend beyond him and his family. My concern is that peace should be restored, never mind what means are used." On Wednesday, a former opposition party member of parliament was arrested in the town in what Namibian human rights activists feared might signal the start of a crack down by the government on opponents of the ruling South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). Godfrey Mwilima, a leading member of the United Democratic Party (UDP) and former member of parliament of the opposition coalition the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), was reportedly arrested at noon by soldiers and police looking for guns, although none were found during their search. "Mwilima was apparently beaten up by the security forces in front of his wife and children before he was taken away," a representative of the Namibian Society for Human Rights in the Namibian capital, Windhoek told IRIN's Johannesburg office on Thursday. He added that Mwilima's whereabouts are not known. Mwilima is also a son-in-law of Muyongo, who was also the leader of the UDP before he fled into exile in Botswana late last year. He has since been granted asylum in Denmark. According to Namibian news reports, at least 23 people are known to have been arrested, among them teachers, local policemen and government employees with suspected secessionist sympathies. "We are concerned about the news blackout regarding where arrested people are being held," said an activist. Asked to comment on the allegations and the arrests, Sibalatani, who said he had been discussing the situation with traditional leaders, said: "The Namibian Society for Human Rights is an empty vessel. They've never set foot here and they don't have the love of the people of this region at heart." Although the authorities have closed the borders with Botswana, Angola and Zambia, travellers are able to move freely in and out of Caprivi from the rest of Namibia.