1990 Issue 3 - Were the Namibian Elections Fair? - Counsel of Chalcedon

8/12/2019 1990 Issue 3 - Were the Namibian Elections Fair? - Counsel of Chalcedon

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Were the Namibian

Elections Fair?

N

ote:

n an

earlier article on

Namibia, I misquoted Morgan

Norval by saying

that

''The

United

Nations presence in Namibia is

costing at least 116 million dollars of

whjch America is paying 30%. Mr.

N orval has brought that error omy atten

tion. The 116 million dollars represents

America's

contribution

to

the U.N. fund

ing.

The total bill

for the

U.N.

is

close to .

a

half

billion dollars.

f you blinked, you probably missed

press coverage of

the

elections in

Na

mibia.

TheW

ll Street Journal did carry

1

to

2

updates

on

the situation and a

couple of longer articles. I even found

short

summaries in my local

paper

in

mid-November.

The

press was quick

to report

that the

elections were

over

and the Communist

backed

SW

APO did

not

get

the two

thirds majority

it

needed

to write the

constitution for independent Namibia.

Havingreported that, interes t nNamibia

was

quickly replaced

by

interest

in

other

parts of the world - Europe, Russia,

Romania.

But

Namibia has

not

ceased to exist

because the elections are over.

And the

threat

of

Communism has

not

dissipated

becauseSWAPO did

no win

the election

with a two-thirds majority.

Morgan Norval,Directorof he Selous

Foundation in Washington, D.C.,

and

author

of

Death in the Desert: The Na-

mibian Tragedy

was inNamibia before,

during and after the elections. I recently

talked toMr.Norval

about

the

Namibian

elections and the future of Namibia:

Q

Were

the

Namibian

elections free

and

fair?

A. The elections were free, but they

were anything

but

fair.

SWAPO

had plentyofmoney

to

spend.

The

Organization of African Unity

en

dorsed

them

and

gave

them money.

Even

the

UN

gave SWAPO

money although

they

said

they were cutting

off

financial

support.

But

some of the

UN's

organs

were

seen funneling money

to

SWAPO.

The

UN

openly supported

SW

APO.

They

drove members of

SWAPO around

in

the

UN's air-conditioned cars.

Some

times they visibly

had

SW

APO

posters

on

their vehicles.

TheUN forces turned the controlof he

bush over to SWAPO

by successfully

demobilizing the police. So

the

police

were

not

out patrolling the bush.

This

cleared

the

way

for

what

in

counter

insurgency terms is called soft intimida

tion.

The

military wing ofSW

APO

is called

PLAN, which stands forPeople 'sLibera

tion

Army of Namibia.

They are the

ter

rorists

who

came over throughout

the

terroristwar andcommitted errorist acts

against

the

people.

Members

ofPLAN

wereallowed

in

the

country

to take

part in the election proc

ess.

Some

came into the country visibly

armed.

The UN

overlooked this.

The

terrorists were

sent

back into

the

area

of

the country they

had

operated in.In

other

words,

the

y were

known

as

terrorists

by

the

people.

PLAN had

killed a lot of

people

in those areas.

This time, they

weren't

going around

killing people - although there was

an

odd incident of hat. But what they

were

doing

was very

effective.

At

·night, these members

of PLAN

would put

on their uniforms

and parade

around, carrying their

M-47's. They

wouldnot

say a word; but

their

presence

was there,

Namibian voters are

very

unsophisti-

cated

-someone

witha

4thgrade

educa

tion is doing well. n addition, they are

very

superstitious. SW

APO told

them,

You had

better

vote for

SWAPO be

cause

we know how

y

ou

aregoing.

We've

got

magic powers.

To

reinforce this fear,

on the

f IrSt days

of the voting

when the

lines

of

voters

weretremendouslylong,aboutevery25th

person

in line was

a

PLAN

terrorist.

He

juststoodthere, watching the voters. This

reinforced

SWAPO'

s mess age.

Q Was

soft

ntimidation

the only

prob

lem you saw

with

the

fairness of

the

elections?

A. I also think, although I can't

prove

it,

that

there was

some

fraud involved.

The

two

major

contenders in

the

election were

SW

APO

and

a multi-racial

party

called

the

Democratic Turnhall Alliance.

The

DT

A

is the only

really

organized

political

entity in Namibia. SWAPO is a tribal

oriented organization.

The

PTA

was

leading the election

by

20,000 votes

up

until

about an hour be

fore they announced the results.

There

was

only

one

district

eft

o

come

in.

That

district

was

Ovamboland.

In Ovambo

land, the

DTA

onlygot four

and

one-half

percent of the

vote. But there are

some

very

su

spicious things,

For

example,

in

Ovarnbo,

the

SW

APO

gotatotalof197,100votes. TheDTAgot

9200votes. Whatis the

statistical proba

bility

that

out of a total 670,830 ballots

cast you would come up

with clean fig

ur e

s

like

that? All of

the

polls indicated

that it

was

a 50-50 race. Then suddenly,

SW

APO swept

ahead.

There was a very splintered party that

was

headed

by Peter Kalengula

,

an

Ovarnbo. He was the administrator of

Ovamboland

for

approximately 8 years.

In

that

capacity,

he

wrote paychecks

to

those

in

the

second tier

of

government

which would

be

comparable

to

our

state

government. So he was well-known. Yet,

he only received a

to

t

al

of 449 votes in

Ovamboland.

He

should

havedo n

e better

than

that

in

Ovamboland ba

s

ed

on the

number

of

people

dependent upon

him

for

a paycheck.

He

received a total of

2495 votes nationwide.

Also, there

were

several thousand

Ovarnbos

who

were

dependent

on the

The Counsel of Chalcedon • April 1990 • page 9



demobilized South West Africa Territo

rial Force - family, brothers, etc. The

demobilized members

of

he SouthWest

Africa Territory Force represented over

5000 people, not counting those depend

ing on their paycheck. They loathed

SW APO

.To say that mostof hem voted

for SWAPO

stretches credibility a bit. I

met one demobilized policeman who

supported .26 people from his paycheck

as a policeman.

In addition, the night they were count

ing the ballots, there was a massive power

failure in Ovamboland. Coincidentally,

on the same night, there was a power

failure in Windhoek, the capital.

Now

I'm

not saying they stole the

election, but theUN wanted SWAPO

to

win, but not by the two-thirds majority.

The UN reasoning :_whichwasfalse

was

thatifSWAPO won by over the two

thirds majority, South Africa would in

vade. That was foolish, because South

Africa wanted to get rid of the f mancial

drain thatNamibiahas been on them for

approximately 20 years.

Q. Were the churches influential

in

persuading the people to vote?

A. The churches actively supported

SWAPO . The head of the Evangelical

4ther;mOvambo Koboml;lo,is Bishop

:Pi,uneni.

He instrUcted

all

the,

pastors in

his charge to preach from

the

pulpit that

~ h e i i p t i s h i o n e r s m u s ~ v o t e

f{>r

swAPO

because

i f SWAPO

did

.

not win, the

country would tetumtb tenoristwaifare

AAJ d a blc)od..t:iath . Bishop Dumeni had a

daughter k:illed by

a,

WAPO ,terrorist

bomb

in

an attack hatkilled28 people in

:ognakatiin February, 19 8..Yet he sup-

' ·. ttedSWAPO. .

po . . . .

Q How ·ciany Assembly seats ·does

SWAfOhave?

A.

SWAPO

has.4l

out

of

the 72

seat

As

sembly. They don'thave the two

tNrds majority. Nowthey are trying to

wnte the constitution. The writing

of

the

new const,iMion is going veiy slowly.

~ p p a i e n t l y i t s d a w n i t i g o n S W APO that

it' s very easy to run ,around the chic

circleS

ofEurope and:

b¢

o u n t e d among

the cocktail set

a8

the 'liberators, but it's

a far ciifferent thing to try to run a govern-

ment

Q.Whatdo you think the outcome of he

elections would have been

if

it were

an

actual, free election? How many seats

wouldSWAPO have, in your opinion?

A.Probably between33 to36. Tribalism

is a fact of ife. Half of the population

in

Namibia

is

Ovambo.

Q.Do you thinktheAssemblywill write

a multipart constitution?

A. As long

as

the United Nations is

there, they'llgoalongwithit.Butas soon

as the United Nations leaves and Na

mibia slips out of the public' s eye, they

will

revert back

to

their nonnal thuggery

and start assassinating their political

opponents.

Q. When is the UN going to pull out?

A.

They can stay almost as long as they

want. They have to certify that the consti

tutional process is established and certify

Namibian independence. ThefirstofApril

is mentioned

as

a target date, but

they

can

.stay longer.

The biggestproblemfor the

UN

will

be

whoisgoingtopayforthosetroops. They

are living a rather plush life over there.

They are absolutely useless. They don't

go outon patrols although the Mandate of

UN 435

says

that they must accompany

police patrols andmonitorthem. But hey

don't. They just sit in their bases or drive

up and down the tarred roads

in

Toyota

Land Cruisers that the Japanese donated.

They've created a false economyby

driv-

ingnpthepriceofgoods.Thatandspend

ing our tax money is all they are doing .

Q.

What will happen to the independent

government when theseUN troops leave?

A. It's going to collapse. Independent

Namibia has a very good chance of start

ing out bankrupt. The South Africans are

not going to subsidiZe them. The UNwill

.not. The Soviet bloc certainly doesn' t

have any money to throw around. Nor

should we .

TheCounsel of Chalcedon

·April

1990 • page10

·Q.

Given what has happened in Eastern

Europe with the apparent collapse of so

many Conununist governments, ·can't

SWAPO the implications of a

o

munist government in

an

already poor

country?

A.

f

you look at the trends in·Eastern

Europe

and the trends in Africa,

they

seem to be going in opposite directions.

In

Namibia, you

are

not dealing with a

very sophisticatedgroupofpeople. I think

Sam Nujoma, the president of

SW

APO

,

has a fifth-grade education.

Second, they really don 'tcare- they

want power. Tribalism, which runs

through the history of Africa, condones

communal ownership. So Communism

is easily adaptable within the African

context. It's a good vehicle for the seizure

of

power

by

thugs

like Nujoma and

Ol

iver Tandel and Nelson Mandela.

Be-

sides, it's relatively cheap for the Soviets

to ship a few AK-47 s and limpet mines

to these so-called liberation

movements

.

The Soviets

are

still supplying arms to

Angola in spite of Glasnost and Per

estroika.

T h ~ u s s i a n s gave

up

a lot afterWWI.

Leninwas criticizedby many ofhispeople

for

that. In essence

Lenin asked

them to

trust him.It

was

at this time

he

made the

old one step forward, two steps back

statement, meaning that we'

ll

take

two

steps back o consolidate, and

when

things

are favorable, we'll go ahead again. I

thinkGorbachev

is

doing

this

samething.

The mostdangerous period forany totali-

tarian or authoritative regime is

when

it

reforms,because reform mightgetoutof

hand.

The worst thing we could do is

to

help keep

the

Marxists in government.

Q.

Do yQu think the biggest problem

facing the people

of

Namibia when the

UN pulls out

is

that SW APO will start a

bloodbath, slowly chiseling away one

opponentand

then

another.

A. Sure, allSWAPO has to do is kill a

couple of rival political leaders

and the

rest will be cowered into submission.

Q. So Namibia will have

free

elections

and then Communism?



A. Yes. Unfortunately, I seenothing but

chaos coming for Namibia. Probably

within the year, it will star t

Once this country starts falling apart

they will createa foreign devil

to

take the

people's minds off the misery they are

undergoing. This happened throughout

our history. War

has

always been an

effectivemeansoftakingpeople'sminds

offof their domestic problems.

Q. What could be done to stop it?

A. BootoutSW

APO

and install a decent

economic system basedon

the free

mar-

ket and get investment in there.

Q. How would you boot out SWAPO?

A.

That

is

going to

be

a problem. It's not

going to happen because they are en

sconced

now.

The bestofpossible things

and something that the OAU so far has

resisted is partition. In other words, they

should give Ovambolandback

to

South

ern Angola or make a separate Ovambo

nation outof the Ovamboland in South

ern Angola and Northern Namibia. Let

SW

APO have it.

Redrawing the mapofAfricawould go

a long way toward solving the problems

of Africa. But and when they do that, I

wouldn't begin to predict. Otherwise, I

just think it's going to go and fall into

decrepitude.

Q. Is South

Africa

the only African

nation that is doing well?

A. Botswanais holding its own and the

Ivory Coast is starting to become a little

moreviable. Theyare embracing capital

ism. The rest

of

them

are

really going to

pot.

The big time bomb

in

Africa is the

AIDS .Two physicians toldm i hese

figures are anywhere near true, they are

astounding- they had heard figures that

by the year 2000, half the population of

Africa will have died of AIDS.

Most of the

AJDS

is in sub-Saharan

Africa. Compare the sub-Sahara with the

population of the African continent and

you will see that there is going to

be

a

higher percentage

of

deaths in sub-

Saharan Africa.

Another figure that I heard is that half

of the members of the Zimbabwian De

fenseForceareinfected with AIDS.There

are approximately7 new AIDS cases

in Zimbabwe every day. This

is

spread

heterosex.uaUy, primarily by

the

prosti

tutes and the truck drivers. Apparently

theU and the World Health Organiza

tion and everybody else is just ignoring it.

Zimbabwe cannot export any more

meat now because they've got hoof and

mouth disease on their cattle. Cattle is a

formofwealth but they don't takecareof

the animals by dipping them. They accu

mulette cows and over-graze the land.

This is also happening in Ovamboland.

111ere's almost as many goats, donkeys

and cows

as

there are people up there.

Malaria is starting to occur even

in

Namibia because the tsetse fly is coming

back.

A lot of things are coming to a head in

Africa. None of t is good.

Q. s there any move going on to educate

the people?

A. The South African government ex

pended a tremendous amount of money

to buildover 500 high schools in Ovam

boland alone. There's been a tremendous

Continuing the series

of taped messages on

orinthians

by Joe Moree raft, III

Love

(I

Cor.l3

Love, II

(I

Cor

. 13)

Love, III

(I

Cor. 13)

Love, IV

(I Cor. 13)

4 .00 per tape (cassette)

$14.00 for set of four. Order front

Specialty Media Services

P.O. Box 28357

Atlanta, GA 30358

attempt

to

educate. They even put an

agricultural college n Ovamboland, but

it wasn't toosuccessful.

Q. What's the problem?

A. Again tribal customs.TaketheOvam.:

bos for example. It

is

customary for a

young boy towatch the family cows until

he'sabout 11 or

12

years old. So hestarts.

his education at 11 or 12 years old. And

then when he's 16 or 17 or 18 years old,

he1s ready to go out on his own. So

you've got that cultural thing

to

over

come.

The multi-party conference govern

mentwhich ~ in effect before this new

regime came to power was beginning

universal mandatory education.

It's amazing.In theelections one

of

he

biggest supporters

of

SWAPO were the

teachers.For a while, SW APO was using

education

as

an inducement

to

get people .

to

join them. They would promise these

kids, We'll make you a doctor or

a

lawyer in acouple ofyears.Wewill send

you toone

of

heUN colleges. When the

kids came across the border, SWAPO

would say, Well, flrst we must liberate

you beforewe educate you, so they stuck

themintoPLAN. 0

The Counsel

of

Chalcedon • April 1990 • page

11

Documents

1990 Issue 3 - Were the Namibian Elections Fair? - Counsel of Chalcedon