The witness stand to which Nuwe returned for a fifth day of testimony on Tuesday is only the latest in an array of stations in life that he has called at over the past 25 years.

These ports of call include an eight-year stint of service in the pre-Independence South West Africa Territory Force (SWATF) in the 1980s, membership of the DTA, support for a movement that aimed to secede the Caprivi Region, weapons training in pursuit of the goals of that movement, and a venture into exile in Botswana followed by a return to Namibia in 2001 to once again set out to "free" the Caprivi Region.

Nuwe's journey is is similar to that of many of the 120 men on trial before Judge Elton Hoff, but with one crucial difference.

Whereas the journey of his alleged former comrades in the separatist ideal has led them into the dock of the High Court at Grootfontein, Nuwe's has led him into the witness box, where he last week proclaimed himself to be a card-carrying Swapo member.

'ACCIDENTAL RECRUIT'

It is a far cry from the man who once, according to his own testimony, thought it was a good idea to "fight the Wambos" in order to separate the Caprivi Region from Namibia, with the promise that that would bring more employment for the region's people.

As Nuwe would have it, he was initially an accidental recruit to the secessionist cause, having allegedly been duped one night in October 1998 into going to what he had been told would be a DTA meeting.

Yet he had not been a DTA member since 1990, Nuwe added under the prodding of cross-examination from defence lawyer Jonathan Samukange.

That DTA meeting never took place.

Instead, Nuwe found himself in a vehicle that drove all the way from Katima Mulilo to Kongola some 120 kilometres away, where it turned off towards the Singalamwe area to the north, he related in his testimony.

As Nuwe put it himself: "We were now being led to death."

Faced with this sudden change of plans, he neither protested, nor did he try to walk away from what was happening, he also said under cross-examination from Samukange.

His explanation was that he did not know the Singalamwe area, and was scared he would get lost if he parted ways with the group.

A HARDSHIP TOO FAR

From Singalamwe, he found himself walking with a group of other people into Zambia and then Angola, where their group was supposed to receive weapons at a Unita camp.

When this help from Unita did not materialise, they returned to the Caprivi, where he ended up staying in a military training camp in the Sachona area for about a week.

Nuwe claimed he did not stay at the Sachona camp for long because he discovered that the lot in life of the people gathered there was not a comfortable one.

When he found that they were expected to gather leaves to sleep on at night, he decided that he wanted to disappear, he explained.

Having already heard from one of the leaders at the Sachona camp, Oscar Muyuka Puteho, that anyone who escaped from the camp would be shot, he and two other people used the cover of darkness to slip away from Sachona one night, he testified.

Puteho is in the dock before Judge Hoff.

According to Nuwe, Puteho was also one of the people in the group who went to Zambia and Angola on the failed mission to get help from Unita.

ARMS AND THE MAN

Yet Nuwe never mentioned him in any of the three witness statements that he made to the Police from November 1998 to June 2003, defence counsel Greyson Nyoni charged in cross-examination this week.

That failure to mention Puteho was because Puteho was in fact not involved, as Nuwe would now want to claim, Nyoni told him.

Nuwe made a first statement to the Police, informing them of his and the Angola-bound and Sachona-based people's activities, in November 1998.

The next month, he seemed to have switched sides back to the secessionist cause again, when he joined an exodus to Botswana, where they were to prepare for their mission "to cut Caprivi from Namibia".

In Botswana he ended up at the Dukwe refugee camp, and from there he once again returned to Namibia in April 2001 in a group led by Osbert Likanyi, who is also one of the 120 accused persons on trial before Judge Hoff.

They returned to the Caprivi Region on a mission to once again take up fighting for the secessionist cause, but ended up spending some three months moving around stealthily in the bush through the central part of the region, with the struggle to find food, rather than military plans, topping their list of priorities, his testimony indicated.

For the most part they did not even have weapons available, he told the court, prompting Nyoni to remark: "It's a bit shameful, as a former soldier, to even dream of a war or a fight, if you have no weapons."

Nuwe agreed that it was indeed shameful.

Having at turns been living in bush camps in the areas of Masokotwane, some 40 km south of Katima Mulilo, Kapani about 80 km southwest of Katima Mulilo, Masida some 80 km west-southwest of Katima Mulilo, and Malengalenga, about 50 km south of Masida, he and three companions were surprised by the Police in the Malengalenga area one morning.

He and one other person were arrested, Nuwe related.

That was on July 16 2001.

At that stage, while he was still actively involved in the separatist movement, most of the 120 suspects on trial had already been in Police custody for almost two years.

Yet they are the ones being prosecuted, and he is being used as a witness in the State's case against them.

Defence lawyer Jorge Neves did not let the opportunity to point this out pass on Tuesday.

Nuwe's reply was that it was because of a decision of "the Government" that he was standing at the witness stand, rather than in the dock.

His answer, and in fact most of his testimony, may be more instructive for what remained unsaid rather than what was actually stated.

That is, that there is a very thin line differentiating those in the dock from the witnesses that have so far testified in this trial, and that the main difference between them may be a willingness to testify for the State, or not.

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