Caprivian, not Namibian, two say in treason trial

THE former Caprivi region is not a part of Namibia, two of the people convicted in the main Caprivi high treason trial insisted from the witness stand in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

While disputing that Caprivi is legally part of the territory of Namibia, Chris Ntaba and Saviour Tutalife also told Judge Elton Hoff that they regarded themselves as being Caprivians, and not Namibians, and that Namibia’s government was illegally in control of the current Zambezi region.

Ntaba and Tutalife made the claims when they testified in mitigation of the sentence that Judge Hoff will later impose on them, having found them and 28 co-accused guilty of high treason, nine counts of murder and 90 counts of attempted murder three weeks ago. The convictions are based on findings by Judge Hoff that the 30 men had taken part in a plot to take up arms to secede the then Caprivi region from Namibia, or had known of the plan and failed to report it to the authorities.

“I believe Caprivi is not part of Namibia, and the Namibian government is in control of Caprivi illegally. My history tells me so,” Ntaba (40) stated during his testimony.

Under cross-examination from deputy prosecutor general Taswald July, Ntaba added that he was a Caprivian, rather than a Namibian. When pressed on the issue of his nationality, he said: “I’m a Namibian by force.” He also said he believed the High Court of Namibia did not have jurisdiction over the region previously known as Caprivi and since renamed the Zambezi region.

In their testimony Ntaba and Tutalife both continued to refer to the region by its German colonial name.

Tutalife (51) voiced near identical sentiments to those of Ntaba. “To be frank enough, I’m a Caprivian by nationality, not a Namibian,” he said. “If I have to call myself a Namibian today I’ll be forced […] .”

He said his father told him at the time of Namibia’s independence in 1990 that Caprivi was not part of Namibia, and through his own reading he has since then been convinced that his father’s view had been correct and that Namibian rule in Caprivi was illegal.

“It is the history that tells Caprivi is not part of Namibia,” Tutalife said. “It is the history, it’s not me.”

Both Ntaba and Tutalife also told the judge that they did not believe in the use of violence, but wanted to see the people of Zambezi and the Namibian government engage in talks about the status of the region with regard to Namibia.

Each of them further testified that he left the Caprivi region near the end of 1998 because of harassment by Namibian security forces, who had been deployed in the region after close to 100 members of an armed secessionist organisation, the Caprivi Liberation Army, had left the region to seek asylum in Botswana. Ntaba and Tutalife said they returned to the region from Botswana in mid-1999.

They denied having been involved in the secessionist attacks on targets at Katima Mulilo on 2 August 1999.

According to Tutalife, he was arrested on 9 August 1999, assaulted by police officers who beat him with sjamboks, and detained without trial until he made a first court appearance on 22 November 1999. He was kept at a police farm in the Gobabis area for most of the three months during which he was detained, he said.

It was at that farm, Houmoed, that he witnessed two of the police officers involved in the investigation of the high treason case executing ten San people with a pistol on 13 November 1999, Tutalife claimed.

He said during that time police investigators were trying to convince him to become a state witness , but he refused and was finally charged.

Tutalife’s claims against the police were aired during the hearing of a civil claim in which he sued the police in the High Court more than five years ago. The claim was dismissed after the presiding judge found that there was a possibility that Tutalife’s claims were not true.

He was a single witness against the testimony of 24 police officers in that case, Tutalife said yesterday.

Ntaba and Tutalife, who have been in custody for about 16 years, are being represented by lawyer Ilse Agenbach.

The hearing of evidence in mitigation continues today.