War-Weary Namibians Sigh, Grit Teeth

Black Namibians like Gabriel Nekongo had seen their dreams of peace and freedom snuffed out again and again over a quarter-century of war on this sun-baked plain of sand and scrub trees. But never have their hopes been raised so high as this year. A curfew was lifted. Bunkered South African army bases were being dismantled, strip by metal strip. The night air, so long filled with the echoes of gunfire and fear, was quiet. And U.N. peacekeeping troops had appeared on the streets.

Today, South African military convoys again roar down the lone paved road in town. The nights have been filled with gunfire and fear as police and 1,200 rebel guerrillas clashed in dozens of places across the border, 30 miles north of here. And Nekongo’s dream has been shattered again.

“We were so happy to see the U.N. here,” the 38-year-old teacher said Monday as he shopped for sugar cane and bananas at a roadside market. “But now people are again afraid. I am also afraid.

“We are just sick and tired of war.”

Border Clashes Take Toll

A four-month pause in the fighting was broken Saturday, the first day of a formal cease-fire and the U.N.-supervised transition to independence, when as many as 1,000 armed guerrillas from the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) crossed into Namibia from their bases in Angola. The resulting clashes with Namibian police, the largest incursion ever in that guerrilla war, have claimed more than 100 SWAPO lives in the past three days.

Few here in Owamboland, the most populous region of Namibia and the center of SWAPO support, believe the South African claim that SWAPO blatantly violated the U.N. peace accord by invading the north. Most figure SWAPO was provoked.

“I’ve grown up here. I’ve seen these things for a lifetime,” said 33-year-old building contractor. “Nobody needs to tell me who’s to blame.”

Nekongo, reflecting the feelings of many here, said SWAPO “is not fighting the (Namibian) people. It is fighting South Africa. South African forces are the problem. As long as they stay, there will be war.”

Under the U.N. independence plan for Namibia, South Africa’s troops were to be confined to base until their departure after next November’s elections. But Pretoria continues to control the Namibian army, which is to be demobilized, and the police. And South Africa has now reactivated some of its soldiers, with U.N. permission, to help bring the situation under control.

Stories of attacks by black Namibian police officers and soldiers on citizens, a staple of talk here before South Africa agreed to abide by the U.N. peace plan, were beginning to swirl again Monday.

Residents said people in nearby villages had fled to Oshakati to escape the fighting. Others talked in hushed tones of unarmed citizens who have been attacked on recent nights by police. Whether or not the stories are true, they are widely believed.

“Don’t drive at night, please,” the building contractor warned. “They will shoot you on the road. If they shoot someone, they just say he was SWAPO. It is like that here.”

Nekongo was riding in a taxi Sunday when he overheard several soldiers from a black army battalion discussing SWAPO. The men were being called back to duty and reissued their uniforms and weapons.

“They said they were going to beat anyone wearing SWAPO colors,” Nekongo said. “That’s why people are afraid.”

Nox Shax, 24, went to the hospital here Monday to visit a friend who he said had been set upon by black police officers on an Oshakati street the day before. The friend was stabbed in the side because he had been wearing the red, blue and green colors of SWAPO.

Tense Province Scene of Fighting

The colors of SWAPO have been worn by thousands in the capital, Windhoek--350 miles to the south--where SWAPO and other political parties launched campaigns over the weekend for the U.N.-monitored elections. But there were few signs of that fresh political activity in this tense province, scene of the heaviest fighting over the years between SWAPO and the South Africa-led police and army.

Shax himself was wearing a SWAPO political hat Monday--but carried a sheathed knife in case he were accosted. “I depend on this party,” Shax said. “I can’t be part of apartheid. I just hope the U.N. will do something to prevent this disaster.”

The U.N. troops, called in to oversee the end of South Africa’s 74-year rule here, are viewed by Namibians in Oshakati as a kindly but ineffectual force, given their inability to prevent the latest fighting. “They are around,” the building contractor said. “But they don’t know this place.”

“We don’t see independence coming now,” one businessman said. “Maybe in three or four months, but not now.”