NABBED IN NAMIBIA

(Excerpted from an anthology of memoirs by LC Arulpragasam)

Political Background

Some background is in order. Germany held the territory known as South West Africa from 1880 to 1914. Apart from massacres of the natives, their rule was accompanied by the establishment of very large German-owned farms in the cultivable parts of the country. After Germany’s loss in World War I (1914-18), it was forced to give up the territory to South Africa by the League of Nations in 1918, to be held in trust as a mandated territory. But South Africa annexed the territory and refused to give it up when the United Nations withdrew its mandate at the end of World War II.

Worse still, South Africa applied its oppressive apartheid policies to South West Africa too. Spurred by resistance movements in neighboring countries, such as Angola and Zimbabwe, armed resistance was started by the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO). In view of South Africa’s defiance of the UN’s termination of its mandate, the UN sponsored moves to nurse this territory and its people, now known as Namibia, towards independence. To this end, it set up a United Nations Council for Namibia in New York to orchestrate political efforts at the international level and a UN Institute for Namibia in Lusaka (Zambia) to provide the needed technical and administrative training to Namibians, in order to prepare them for independence.

Meanwhile, given the turning tides of international opinion and the ongoing guerrilla war, the South African Government decided to seek a political solution (short of independence) in its conflict with SWAPO. To this end, it proposed the Turnhalle Agreement in 1977, which offered limited autonomy to Namibia, provided that SWAPO agreed to give up its armed struggle and accept territory-wide elections, which would determine the terms and conditions of the proposed autonomy. My first visit to the UN Institute in Lusaka, Zambia occurred at this time, when SWAPO, the Namibian independence movement, had to decide whether it would participate in the national elections to be held in 1978 in terms of the Turnhalle Agreement.

Agrarian Reform Options

Since Namibia was supposed to be on the verge of independence at this time (around 1977), there was a rush to prepare it for independence in terms of institutions and policies. This applied especially in the field of agrarian reform, since access to land was the primary demand of the SWAPO freedom-fighters. In this context, the Institute for Namibia (located in Lusaka, Zambia) convened a Symposium on Land Reform for Namibia (around 1977) to be attended by the top land reform scholars and authorities in the world. Since no one in FAO knew anything about land tenure in South West Africa, I was sent to fill the breach, although I too knew nothing about Namibia.

For the first two days of the meeting, I kept my mouth shut with the sole purpose of not displaying my ignorance. On the final day, I started questioning the line of reasoning and intended recommendations, thus contradicting most of what had been decided over the past three days. The Symposium had, therefore, to break up with no conclusions reached, except that I should brief the consultant who was to write the paper on ‘Land Reform Options for Namibia’! I was called upon later, to write a road map for agrarian reform for an independent Namibia.

As is well known, there was an enormous disparity in land ownership between the native Namibians, who constituted about 90 per cent of the population but controlled only 10 per cent of the cultivable/pasture land, as against the white population of German or South African origin, who comprised only five per cent of the population but controlled 90 per cent of the land. Briefly, there are three parts of the country, each requiring a different land reform solution. While there was agreement in the approaches for the north and central parts of the country, there was a conflict between my recommendation and that of the conference to the problems of the south, the area of most unequal land ownership. Ultimately, my views on agrarian reform options for Namibia were accepted by SWAPO, who of course preferred the socialist option (I had set out two options) due to their political preferences at that time.

My ‘Surrender’ to SWAPO

That night, at a party hosted by Dr. Hage Geingob, the Director of the UN Institute for Namibia, I joined in the drinking and dancing that was going on. During one of my pauses I happened to join a small group of young Namibians who were discussing the pros and cons of SWAPO’s participation in the proposed elections under the Turnhalle Agreement. Having had a couple of drinks, I opined that SWAPO would be foolish to accept the offered terms, since the entire election machinery was controlled by the South African Government. I even gratuitously predicted that SWAPO would lose the election, despite its wide support in the country.

I did not know much about elections, but among the blind, the one-eyed man was king! I pointed out that, first, the electoral register would be prepared by the South African Government with no input or monitoring from SWAPO, since they had no election machinery, Secondly, there were logistical difficulties. For instance, the ballots of the bushmen in the desert would be ‘obtained’ by officers of the South African Government and transported through the desert for two days by jeep. How would SWAPO ever know what happened to those ballot boxes during their journey? So I stressed again that unless SWAPO was able to closely monitor the preparation of the electoral registers as well as the entire electoral process, it would find itself cheated of victory, signifying also the end of their dream of independence.

After briefing the consultant well past midnight with my head heavy with drinks, I tried to make my way to my room at the end of a long, open walkway, with men standing on both sides, drinking. So I walked warily to my room and for safety, double-locked the door. Since it was past 01 a.m. and I had to leave for the airport by 05 a.m.to catch my flight, I started packing before I fell asleep.

But I was interrupted by sharp knocking on my door. After repeated knocks, I had to open the door, taking my best boxing stance, giving only the side of my body in case of a knife thrust. To my surprise, I found the Director of the Namibian Institute, Dr. Hage Geingob and five others who wanted to enter. The Director then ‘re-introduced’ himself and the others, stating that they were all members of the Central Committee of SWAPO. When they came into power, he himself would be the Foreign Minister (in fact, he became the first Prime Minister of Namibia), Comrade Chitzero here would be the Minister of Education and so on.

They had come to see me because they had heard of my contrary view regarding their participation in the elections under the Turnhalle Agreement. I had earlier ad-libbed after too many drinks; but now I had to speak with greater responsibility, since I was now speaking to the future government of Namibia! But my position was basically the same: if SWAPO could not control or closely monitor the electoral process, it would certainly lose the election – and its hope for independence.

The problem was that SWAPO had been advised by the UN Council for Namibia in New York (their only helper in international affairs) to accept the Turnhalle Agreement and the proposed elections. Further, they (SWAPO’s Central Committee) had already sent official instructions to their delegation in New York to accept the terms of the election and the rest of the Agreement. Quite worried now, they wanted more details of the nuts and bolts of the electoral process. Although most of these young men had high postgraduate qualifications from American and British Universities, they had never been allowed to advance beyond elementary school, nor even allowed access to lower clerical positions in their country. As a result, they had no knowledge, nor experience of election laws or of the procedures for their implementation. So although I had a short election experience in only one district in Sri Lanka, I had to give them a run-down of the critical points of control and possible points of manipulation and cheating at elections. From this I went on to the minimum points of organization, administrative checks and monitoring that would need to be established in order to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process.

They talked animatedly among themselves for some time. They then explained their problem. Their Central Committee had already instructed their delegation in New York to officially communicate to the UN Council that SWAPO had agreed to participate in the elections. The UN Council for Namibia was to meet in four days’ time to ratify this decision. In light of what I had told them, they (SWAPO’s Central Committee) had decided (in my room!) to reverse their position on the elections and on the Turnhalle Agreement. However, they did not know enough about election law and procedures to explain their reasons to their representative in New York. So they wanted me to fly to New York immediately as their special emissary to brief their delegation there, before the scheduled meeting of the UN Council. They said: ‘You are our brother, and you must help us!’

I was taken aback by this turn of events, but was equally afraid of being dragged into a political enterprise into which no international civil servant should venture. Besides, I knew that FAO would fire me if they knew that I had traipsed off to New York on a political expedition! Faced with my refusal, they changed their tack and said that if I would not go to New York, I should at least help them by writing a full brief, outlining all that I had explained to them, so that they could send it that morning by special emissary to New York. Despite my protests, their reply was simple: ‘Your plane will not be allowed to take off until you finish it!’ It was only then that I realized that I was a ‘captive’ of SWAPO. I also realized the political power that they wielded as a rebel movement in Zambia, even though it was not their own country – and that they did not have a country at all!

So I had to put my head under the shower (to keep awake) and start writing! I had already written 17 full pages when their car arrived to take me to the airport; but I had not yet finished. To which they matter-of-factly replied: ‘Don’t worry: we will not allow your plane to take off until you finish!’ True to that night’s decisions, SWAPO rejected the Turnhalle Agreement and refused to take part in the proposed elections, resulting in Namibia losing what seemed to be its best chance of ‘independence’. I naturally began to feel quite guilty that a few extra drinks of mine had rolled into events that had ultimately led to the postponement of Namibian independence by about 10 years!

I had nothing to do with Namibia for those nearly 10 years. By this time, the growing international opposition to South Africa’s apartheid policies, the burgeoning military strength of SWAPO, plus mounting UN pressure was making Namibian independence come closer to reality. Hence, around 1985, FAO received a request for my services from the UN Council for Namibia to write a new paper on ‘Agrarian Reform Options for an Independent Namibia’. So off I went again to Lusaka (Zambia), slinking into the UN Institute for Namibia, feeling quite guilty about my role that had resulted in the postponement of their Independence. But I was greeted by the Director of the Institute (later to be the first Prime Minister of Namibia) who thanked me for having saved them from the trap of a rigged election, through which they could have lost everything. Needless to say, I felt quite relieved and vindicated!

Now they wanted me not only to write their new position paper on agrarian reform, but they also wanted my participation in a symposium on ‘Election Law and Procedures’. I had to plead that I was no expert on elections and had never pretended to be one: But since the Director was insistent, I had to tell him that FAO would give me much trouble if the UN sought me out as an expert in election law, in which I was not qualified at all!

Agricultural Policy for Independent Namibia

A new UN Commissioner for Namibia had been appointed in the person of Mr. Marti Adhisaari to actively steer Namibia towards independence. Meanwhile the UN had started preparing policy papers in all development fields. FAO as the lead agency for agriculture was asked to mount a mission on agricultural policy and I was asked to lead this first agricultural policy mission to Namibia.

This afforded me my first opportunity to actually set foot on Namibian soil. Our needed technical and policy briefings were given by white South African officials, who had obviously not dealt with coloured persons of authority before. I was able through my experience in agricultural policy analysis in many countries, to pull together a fairly impressive agricultural policy paper for Namibia. In fact, my presentation so impressed Mr. Marti Adhisaari (the UN Commissioner for Namibia) that he insisted that I should fly in his personal plane to the following donors’ meeting in Oslo.

Conclusion

My biggest ‘problem’ on this last mission was my personal relationship with Dr. Hage Geingob, who had by this time resigned his post as Director of the UN Institute for Namibia to become the Secretary-General of SWAPO and its new Commissioner of Elections. He had probably intervened to ensure that FAO nominate me to lead this policy mission and would have fully expected me to call on him. To this day, I regret very much that I did not do so. Recently, I have been trying to analyze the reasons why I consciously avoided meeting him. My first ‘reason’ seems to have been a hark-back to my old ‘stiff-upper-lip’ colonial training, where I was taught to avoid all political contacts. I realize in retrospect how stupid this had been, because I owed it to my assignment to obtain all possible inputs – even from active politicians – for my study on agricultural policy. However, I also had to admit that my avoidance of this prize political contact (knowing that he was to become the Prime Minister of Namibia) was that I feared that he would commit me to work in Namibia for the next few years.

I had just retired from FAO, was just beginning to enjoy my life in Rome: I did not want to be consigned to a faraway country in Africa. My family was also scattered between America, Italy and Sri Lanka, and I could not contemplate going halfway around the world to the southern tip of Africa to spend the last years of my life there. Anyway, my action (or lack of it) must have seemed a gratuitous insult to Dr. Hage Geingob, who later became the first Prime Minister of independent Namibia. He has made no further attempt contact me – or I, him. So ended the Namibian chapter of my life.