Namibian forces in 'hot pursuit'

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, JAN. 6. The Namibian armed forces have crossed the northern border into southern Angola in `hot pursuit' of suspected UNITA rebels operating on both sides of the border.

The armed forces of the two countries, which are bound by a treaty, have been closely co-operating in the operations against the UNITA for several months now.

During this period, the UNITA has retreated from much of the territory it once controlled, including its `strongholds' of Bailundo, Andulo and, finally, Jamba. It is now believed to have retreated to areas close to the Namibian border where sections of the population, having their own problems with the central government in Windhoek, are known to share cross border kinship and ethnic links.

The development comes in the wake of the attack by what the Namibian authorities describe as UNITA bandits' earlier this week on a touring French family in which three children were killed, and their parents seriously wounded, near Bagani on the trans- Caprivi highway, close to the popular tourist destinations of Popa Falls and the Mahango Game Reserve.

The family was returning to Windhoek on Monday, after celebrating the millennium weekend in the Caprivi, when they came under attack by suspected UNITA rebels.

In two separate incidents the following day in the same area, two other persons were injured. An unidentified UNITA spokesperson speaking from Geneva has however denied UNITA's involvement in the attack; and an agency report from Windhoek today quotes another unidentified `UNITA representative in Namibia' putting the blame on the Angolan Armed Forces - an astonishing claim (leaving aside the suggestion that UNITA has a functioning representative in Namibia) since both the FAA and the Namibian armed forces have launched joint operations against what they described as `UNITA bandits'.

The area, which was the scene of an abortive secessionist uprising last year, borders on three countries - Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

According to a news agency report from Windhoek, the UNITA rebels who are `moving randomly on foot within the area seem to have taken complete control, despite the presence of both the Namibian and Angolan troops in the area'. It quoted local game rangers who have fled from the invading forces as saying that the rebels were communicating in Lozi, a local language, also spoken across the border in Zambia. The linguistic map of Zambia does show a small area bordering Angola as inhabited by speakers of Lozi.

The extension of the war against the UNITA rebels into Namibia is a logical and indeed an inevitable stage in the ongoing `fight to the finish' against the UNITA by the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).

Interestingly, just as the FAA's offensive is yielding results, voices are again being heard against the `wasteful war' in Angola.

Most eloquent and dripping with concern for the `victims of the conflict' are `aid agencies' and other `organs of civil society' active in all the countries of southern Africa, as well as war games experts of `security think tanks'.

All these voices were muted, if not utterly silent, during the decades of civil war imposed on the country by the UNITA, in particular in the last two years when it actively resumed fighting, though its leaders had been elected to Parliament and had been accommodated in government positions at all levels - all under the provisions of the Lusaka Accord of 1994.

It is only in the last three months when the UNITA has been on the run, and has lost all its so-called `strongholds' inside Angola, that these structures, and sections of the media whose main sources of information are these `organs of civil society' and `aid agencies' and `security think-tanks' are now expressing concern over the Angolan conflict becoming a broader sub- continental conflict. No one, not even those in official positions in South Africa, can explain how, short of an all out military assault, the UNITA and its leader, Dr. Jonas Savimbi, characterised by the leaders of the Southern African Development Community so recently and with such unanimity as a `war criminal' after he resumed the civil war, can be defeated.

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Section  : International
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