Don’t mess with Swapo, warns Nujoma

SWAPO President Sam Nujoma yesterday hit out at those “elements” whose account of April 1 1989 differs from his version of the tragedy.

The Swapo leader particularly singled out the editors of two newspapers – an English weekly and an Afrikaans daily – and warned them not to mess with the ruling party. Hundreds of members of Swapo’s armed wing were killed in a nine-day war after fighting erupted between Swapo fighters and South African forces on April 1, which marked the start of the implementation of the United Nations peace plan for Namibia.The issue has been propelled back into the news by the discovery of numerous mass graves in the former war zone in northern Namibia.Addressing a crowd of Swapo supporters at a hastily arranged meeting in Katutura yesterday, Nujoma claimed that the two editors and a journalist by the name of ‘Jonathan Cobra’ were former Koevoet and South West African Territory Force members who killed hundreds of Namibians.Describing them as “remnants of the apartheid South African regime”, Nujoma said Namibians were not surprised by their zeal to write negative reports on the Swapo party and its leader.It was Nujoma’s second public address on the mass graves-April 1 issue in four days.On Thursday he called a press conference at which he accused former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African Foreign Affairs Minister Pik Botha, former United Nations Secretary General Representative Martti Ahtisaari and then South African Administrator General Louis Pienaar of orchestrating the April 1 tragedy.Republikein reported recently that Nujoma gave the order to former Swapo freedom fighters to invade the country on April 1 1989 and to attack South African forces in the North, while the Windhoek Observer said the ruling party had known all along about the mass graves discovered recently.”These elements killed our people in cold blood.Yet, as human beings, we chose to forgive them; and we embrace them as our countrymen and women under our policy of national reconciliation.We did not forgive and embrace them because we were cowards,” Nujoma told the crowd.He said Swapo reached out to former Koevoet and SWATF members out of a conviction that Namibia’s development weighed heavier than digging up the ugly chapter of colonial retribution.”But if these SWATF and Koevoet elements are regrouping to provoke us, we have the capacity and resources to deal with them.And we will deal with them, as we dealt with and defeated the apartheid SA regime,” he said.Much of what Nujoma said yesterday was a repetition of what he said at Thursday’s media briefing.Nujoma said the skeletal remains found in mass graves in the North “demonstrated the brutal killings of innocent Namibians who were continuously massacred by the apartheid SA”.Newspaper reports at the time of the April 1 tragedy reported that Thatcher arrived in Namibia on April 1.Nujoma charged that South Africa did not want the implementation of Resolution 435 because it feared Swapo’s overwhelming support.According to the Swapo President, Plan fighters had guerrilla bases in Namibia from where they regularly attacked SA military bases such as Eenhana, Oshakati, Ruacana, Okatope, Okongo and Okalongo.Nujoma claimed the South African forces had defied the order by being outside their bases or in the war zone on April 1 1989.”As the President of Swapo and the then Commander-in-Chief of Plan, I commanded the demobilisation of Plan combatants inside Namibia and called them to assemble and contact the Untag military component so that they could be confined to bases inside Namibia, which they did on April 1 1989.I also held a parade on the 31st of March 1989 in Angola, where I informed the Plan combatants that the war had come to an end and that they would return to Namibia, as civilians to participate in the UN-supervised and -controlled elections,” he said.He said the Plan fighters were ready to hand themselves over to Untag peacekeepers, but he claimed they were attacked as they were emerging from their operational bases inside Namibia.Hundreds of members of Swapo’s armed wing were killed in a nine-day war after fighting erupted between Swapo fighters and South African forces on April 1, which marked the start of the implementation of the United Nations peace plan for Namibia.The issue has been propelled back into the news by the discovery of numerous mass graves in the former war zone in northern Namibia.Addressing a crowd of Swapo supporters at a hastily arranged meeting in Katutura yesterday, Nujoma claimed that the two editors and a journalist by the name of ‘Jonathan Cobra’ were former Koevoet and South West African Territory Force members who killed hundreds of Namibians.Describing them as “remnants of the apartheid South African regime”, Nujoma said Namibians were not surprised by their zeal to write negative reports on the Swapo party and its leader.It was Nujoma’s second public address on the mass graves-April 1 issue in four days.On Thursday he called a press conference at which he accused former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African Foreign Affairs Minister Pik Botha, former United Nations Secretary General Representative Martti Ahtisaari and then South African Administrator General Louis Pienaar of orchestrating the April 1 tragedy.Republikein reported recently that Nujoma gave the order to former Swapo freedom fighters to invade the country on April 1 1989 and to attack South African forces in the North, while the Windhoek Observer said the ruling party had known all along about the mass graves discovered recently.”These elements killed our people in cold blood.Yet, as human beings, we chose to forgive them; and we embrace them as our countrymen and women under our policy of national reconciliation.We did not forgive and embrace them because we were cowards,” Nujoma told the crowd.He said Swapo reached out to former Koevoet and SWATF members out of a conviction that Namibia’s development weighed heavier than digging up the ugly chapter of colonial retribution.”But if these SWATF and Koevoet elements are regrouping to provoke us, we have the capacity and resources to deal with them.And we will deal with them, as we dealt with and defeated the apartheid SA regime,” he said.Much of what Nujoma said yesterday was a repetition of what he said at Thursday’s media briefing.Nujoma said the skeletal remains found in mass graves in the North “demonstrated the brutal killings of innocent Namibians who were continuously massacred by the apartheid SA”.Newspaper reports at the time of the April 1 tragedy reported that Thatcher arrived in Namibia on April 1.Nujoma charged that South Africa did not want the implementation of Resolution 435 because it feared Swapo’s overwhelming support.According to the Swapo President, Plan fighters had guerrilla bases in Namibia from where they regularly attacked SA military bases such as Eenhana, Oshakati, Ruacana, Okatope, Okongo and Okalongo.Nujoma claimed the South African forces had defied the order by being outside their bases or in the war zone on April 1 1989.”As the President of Swapo and the then Commander-in-Chief of Plan, I commanded the demobilisation of Plan combatants inside Namibia and called them to assemble and contact the Untag military component so that they could be confined to bases inside Namibia, which they did on April 1 1989.I also held a parade on the 31st of March 1989 in Angola, where I informed the Plan combatants that the war had come to an end and that they would return to Namibia, as civilians to participate in the UN-supervised and -controlled elections,” he said.He said the Plan fighters were ready to hand themselves over to Untag peacekeepers, but he claimed they were attacked as they were emerging from their operational bases inside Namibia.