Positions of Conflicting Parties
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
United Democratic Party (UDP)
NEW YEAR MESSAGE FOR 2013
Greetings to all Caprivians at home in the Caprivi Strip and in the diaspora. As the United Democratic Party (UDP) president, this is that time again when we should reflect on our success and failures in our struggle for the liberation of our territory, the Caprivi Strip from the SWAPO regime of Namibia. Countrymen, commemorating this day of January, we are reminded about the meaning of this important day. It marks the day when the United Democratic Party (UDP) of the Caprivi Strip was founded. It means that we should set our agenda and review the past year by checking our activities whether they are in line with what the people of the Caprivi has mandated us to do or otherwise. It is an anniversary and time that brings us to look back at the bad and good times, and a time to look ahead to live our dreams together. Let us also be reminded that, when only one person is missing, the whole world may seem desolated.
Allow me once again, to say that success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pocket. It means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be. As you climb the ladder, be sure it’s leaning against the right wall or building. Struggle is the right term describing the route we chose to free ourselves from the yoke of colonization experienced at the hands of the SWAPO regime of Namibia. We once said that SWAPO will stop at nothing to destroy the people of the Caprivi and its resources, and if you look at Caprivi today, what you can see is a fragmented territory and people so divided that they even forgot their origin.
Despite the hardship the struggle could through at us, we are always focused and determined as the freedom train is on its cause approaching its destiny, the Caprivi Strip. I am proud to report to you that we have, in this past year, made some inroads as the international community has started opening their doors to us. However, we all are aware that the SWAPO regime of Namibia is relentless in their efforts to exterminate all Caprivians from the face of this earth, which means that we should always remain vigilant and double our efforts to free ourselves from those murderers.
It is now the fourteenth year since those poor Caprivians have been put behind bars in Namibia. Many of whom have perished at the watchful eye of the Namibian government. Where is justice if people could be kept behind bars for fourteen consecutive years without fair trial? The death toll has now risen to at least twenty five or so, but Namibia still keeps on postponing their case to a further or unknown date(s). Question is, how many dead people would Namibia want to claim before considering releasing those poor Caprivians in their prisons?
It is my belief that the only crime they committed, if any, is that of wanting self determination which is political. Political conflicts need political solutions which can be determined through negotiations and mediation on a round table. This is the normal and proper way to resolve problems of political nature in a democracy. But SWAPO of Namibia chose to punish and kill all those they can lay their hands on. Most and if not, all those that died in their prisons complained of stomach and chest pains. Some had suffered the experience of their intestines rotting while being alive, like the case of the late Branson Mudala Kwala and many others, a plausible fact that poison caused their deaths.
Wise people say that right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. It is wrong to imprison people to serve your own ego, and let me say that we shall not simply bandage the wounds of those victims beneath the wheels of injustice; we shall drive the spokes into the wheel itself to attain justice. You know it as well as we do that, to fight for one’s country is not a crime but a right as enshrined in the UN Charter and other protocols.
Let us also, remember that, in this past year Namibia had plotted to kill the United Democratic Party (UDP) leadership. They managed to kill the late Mr. Matongo whom we know he was administered with a peaceful sleep dose (slow death) that claimed his life on his way from Windhoek. They further sent assassins to go and kill some of us in exile, but the plot only botched when it was averted that they were in that mission to do just that.
By the way, information has it that, of recent when the Namibian president had a party with the Basarwas at Choto, he was asked why the government keeps moving the border plate board from Mukuvi to where it has been placed at the moment, he dogged and could not respond to it. But know what Namibia, the answer was and is simple; the Caprivi Strip territory stretches from Andara via Mukuvi to the Botswana border in the West which is the shortest of all the four borders. It has the long border with Angola in the North West, a long border with Zambia in the North, and the longest border with Botswana in the South. The action Namibia took to include the Western Caprivi to Kavango in order to have access to the natural resources of that territory is something unfounded and provocative to the people of the Caprivi and in the eyes of the international community. Kavango region begins at Andara going west and leaving the Caprivi Strip stretching east from Andara.
You cannot change history as every Caprivian knows where they come from and will not be blanketed by your bribes. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time one stands up for an act (s) to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. You know, where there is a will, there is a way. Let us double or triple our efforts to free ourselves and most importantly, we are getting there and so, let us all soldier on.
Finally, given Namibia’s murderers attitude towards Caprivians both those in their prisons, at home and those in exile, I would with the agency it deserves, request the United Nations Human Rights and the Red Cross to come to their rescue by investigating all these forced deaths before they kill them all.
Forward ever, backward never.
Mishake Muyongo
President
United Democratic Party (UDP)