Amnesty investigates alleged abuses

The rights group Amnesty International has sent a team of investigators to the Namibia-Angola border to examine reports of human rights abuses following clashes with Angolan UNITA rebels and government forces. Gillian Nevins, a member of the Amnesty team currently in Namibia, told IRIN on Tuesday that they had travelled to the northern border town of Rundu to investigate allegations of rights violations that have occurred since early December last year when the Namibian government gave the Angolan army permission to launch attacks from inside Namibia against UNITA. "There are a number of issues that we are presently investigating," Nevins told IRIN. She said they included allegations of extra judicial killings by the Angolan army and reports of abuses by Namibian government forces as they checked the identities of people crossing into Namibia. "We are also trying to establish with regards to the alleged UNITA attacks as to how much of it is because of banditry by hungry former UNITA soldiers, or whether these are attacks that are politically motivated," Nevins said. "We are investigating abuses by all sides." The Namibian government has accused UNITA of being behind two fatal ambushes in the northern region which claimed civilian lives. Nevins told IRIN that the team, which has been in Namibia for a week, was also looking into reports of torture and ill-treatment of alleged Caprivi secessionists by the Namibian authorities. Windhoek has charged 115 people with high treason, linking them to Caprivi rebels responsible for an attack on the northeastern town of Katima Mulilo last August in which 14 people died.