Twenty four soldiers dismissed for refusing to fight ‘foreign’ wars

The Namibia Defence Force (NDF) has dismissed 24 soldiers for refusing to conduct military combat operations along the country’s northeastern region and abroad since 1998, the ‘Namibian’ reported on Tuesday.

The announcement was made by Deputy Defence Minister Victor Simunja in the national assembly last week while he was responding to questions on the circumstances of the dismissals, the report said. Simunja said another soldier was discharged for refusing to be deployed on a peace-keeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “Our soldiers crossing into Angola are engaged in cross-border follow-up operations against barbaric UNITA rebels,” the deputy minister was quoted as saying.

He added that in terms of the Defence Act, NDF members were compelled to serve outside the country’s borders to combat, prevent or suppress any threat or attack against the nation. “Just as there is no law in our statute books which prohibits deployment of our troops on a peace mission in Cambodia, the same is also the case with respect to the DRC mission,” Simunja added.

The Deputy Minister also said that six officers had been discharged from the NDF since 1998 after being convicted of disciplinary offences. Replying to a question by Congress of Democrats (CoD) leader Ben Ulenga, Simunja said legislation governing the NDF did not provide for conscientious objectors.