Hungry UNITA soldiers surrendering in Namibia

Hungry UNITA soldiers and their families who have crossed into Namibia are being transported back across the border to quartering areas in southern Angola by the Namibian Defence Force (NDF), which has only a limited amount of food to spare the former rebels. A senior NDF officer at the border told IRIN that many of the soldiers and their dependants were sick and malnourished. "We assist them by giving them whatever we have from our rations, we don't have anything special for them," he said. "Hunger and malnutrition is very much the main problem [among the new arrivals]." The officer said that at a rough estimate, 400 UNITA soldiers and their families had presented themselves to the NDF over the past month and were trucked to the nearest quartering centre 150 km inside Angola, south of the town of Menongue, in Cuando Cubango Province. "They don't hide, they come [across the border] openly with their families," he said. On Tuesday, the NDF transported 39 people into Angola to be handed over to the authorities where they should be able to receive relief aid. The officer said that as a security precaution, the former UNITA fighters' weapons are trucked separately. An official in the ministry of defence told IRIN that Namibia, as a neighbour and close ally of Angola, was bound to help with its quartering and demobilisation process following the 4 April ceasefire that ended Angola's long civil war. "We don't turn them [UNITA] away, we don't handle them badly. It's humanitarian assistance," he said. Jackson Mwalundange of the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR) commented that while he welcomed the government's current help to former UNITA rebels, he was concerned about people "being repatriated that nobody knows about". A statement by NSHR on Wednesday said that five farm workers who were arrested and allegedly tortured by the paramilitary Special Field Force in October 2001 were "secretly" deported back to Angola in June this year. The NDF had said the men were prisoners of war who were captured in clashes in the northern region of Kavango. "Subsequent NSHR investigations into the NDF claims revealed that the detainees were farm labourers and were never soldiers, let alone 'UNITA terrorists'. The deportees, who claim to be Namibian citizens, were held in custody without trial since their detention," the statement said. Mwalundange said the government also needed to give a transparent account of the fate of 78 men held in the Dordabis detention centre without charge since August 2000. The government had alleged that the men (initially 80 but two died in detention) were all Angolan nationals who were either UNITA collaborators or "bandits". Namibia suffered mounting cross-border raids by UNITA when it offered logistical assistance to the Angolan army in 1999 in the war against the rebels. Although the government announced earlier this year that the 78 would be repatriated with the assistance of international agencies, "who knows if they have been?" said Mwalundange. "We want their release, and transparency in their release. We want to make sure they will be repatriated in a voluntary basis." The spill over of the Angolan conflict into Namibia - including land mine attacks and ambushes - created serious security concerns for Windhoek. It also led to accusations by rights groups that the security forces and elements of the Angolan army were involved in rights abuses. "We are also urging the Namibian government to account for all other alleged UNITA terrorists who might have disappeared at the hands of the Namibian authorities," NSHR said.