Opposition to blame for rally disruptions, claims Ekandjo

‘JUST because they were wearing Swapo T-shirts doesn’t mean they are Swapo.’

That was the excuse offered by Swapo Secretary for Information and Mobilisation Jerry Ekandjo yesterday, when asked to comment on reports that Swapo members had disrupted a Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) rally in Oshakati this past weekend.Ekandjo refused to admit to the possibility of Swapo members being disruptive at the opposition rally, arguing that ‘when the (liberation) struggle reached a high epoch’, members of the apartheid government’s structures and Koevoet in particular used to wear Swapo colours and harass people to give Swapo a bad name.He argued that opposition parties were doing the same thing today, stating that ‘the possibility of other parties wearing Swapo colours is there’.He went on to say that ‘Those are not Swapo members! They are other parties. Just because they were wearing Swapo T-shirts doesn’t mean they are Swapo’, arguing that media that reported on the story could not prove that the Swapo-clad disrupters were really Swapo members.When he questioned which paper had reported on the disruption, and was told that a local Afrikaans daily had reported on the rally, Ekandjo launched into his second rally disruption argument by simply accusing the paper of telling lies.The paper had reported that members of the Police force had to intervene before, during and after the RDP rally in Oshakati to keep Swapo supporters from blocking streets, throwing stones and damaging the vehicles of RDP supporters.The Namibian also reported that after the rally, some of the ‘struggle children’ camping at the Swapo headquarters in Oshakati shouted and threw stones at the RDP convoy, and that Police intervention was needed to calm the situation.’They (the disrupters) were not Swapo members, and I can’t believe the Republikein because they have lied before,’ he said, accusing the newspaper of having lied to ‘the white Afrikaner community’, creating fear among them, and isolating them from what was happening in the country.He said that ‘one day, we will address the Afrikaner community and once they find out that they are being told lies I am sure they will go to the Republikein office in numbers,’ he said.nangula@namibian.com.na