Children drive RDP out of Okahao, says NSHR

THE battle for political control of the northern regions between Swapo and the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) is intensifying, with the RDP now claiming that its organisers were driven out of Okahao in the Omusati Region by hordes of schoolchildren on Wednesday.

According to a National Society of Human Rights (NSHR) statement, a group of 19 RDP campaigners were ‘attacked with stones for about 15 minutes next to the Miami Mobile shebeen’, resulting in slight injuries to some RDP members and damage to one of their vehicles.Efforts by the Police to intervene in the standoff were unsuccessful, according to the NSHR. The Swapo crowd apparently told them Okahao is a ‘no-go area’ for the RDP.The RDP had to withdraw from Okahao for security reasons, the NSHR statement said. An RDP official in Omusati, Kamunyengo Shilongo, confirmed the incident to The Namibian, saying it happened while his party organisers were conducting their house-to-house campaign in Okahao town. But the Okahao Swapo Party co-ordinator, Natangwe Nambashu, said the RDP provoked the situation when they turned up at Nangombe Combined School and Etalaleko Senior Secondary School and invited schoolchildren to join them in their mobilisation drive. He said the children became angry because they did not belong to the RDP and followed them into Okahao. Nambashu said he and the Mayor of Okahao, David Uuzombala Isai, were the ones who notified the Police about the standoff, as the situation was getting out of hand. Isai, when contacted, also said the RDP had provoked the pupils and that ‘they must not cry foul about a situation they created themselves’.He further claimed that the RDP organisers were not chased out of the town, but left after they realised that they were not welcome at Okahao.In another development, the RDP has postponed a planned rally at Outapi, also in the Omusati Region, tomorrow because the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) is holding a public meeting there at the same time. The RDP meeting will instead be held on Sunday.