The first part of this 'diary' is an historical summary of the troubles there. About half way down the actual 'diary' starts. I thought I'd include it in my little blogette.
Randy
Namibian Diary: Reflections of an International Elections Supervisor, 1989
Diary with pictures: http://members.shaw.ca/reschulz/namibian_diary.html
I was sound asleep on the top of my barracks' room bunk bed, in the middle of what had become a regular noon siesta, when I was awakened by the singing and clapping. I knew immediately what it meant, and I carefully climbed down and leaned out my second floor window for a better look. About thirty students of the Teacher's College had taken to the road adjacent to the Atlantic Fish Market, a small store that was doing a brisk business with all the UN personel stationed in town for the past three months. There they were, barefoot and stirring up clouds of fine yellow dust in the heat of the early afternoon, dressed in their tan school-issued bermuda shorts, singing what I made out to be the SWAPO anthem - the ANC's 'God Bless Africa'. Half march, half hymn, all dance, I witnessed a spontaneous celebration; absolute joy really. For those young Namibians going to school in the small district center of Rundu on the Namibian-Angolan border it was a climax to a process only dreamed of just a few months before. SWAPO had won a decisive electoral victory in Namibia's first free and fair election, showing the Republic of South Africa a different path than the bloody one which then seemed so terrifyingly possible.
The hauntingly powerful rhythm the students chanted was repeated in Windhoek, Gobabis, Oshakati, Keetmanshoop, Swakopmund, and all over Namibia, really. In these and other large centers, SWAPO supporters, representing 57% of the voting population, flooded the downtown areas in similar exuberant celebration.
For me and for the other U.N. personnel in Namibia witnessing these celebrations, scenes like this would be the climax of our Namibian experience as well.
Namibians had reason to celebrate, I think. The free and fair election held there between November 5th and 11th, 1989, was an extraordinary event in the history of southern Africa. In just a few months, the former Republic of South Africa (RSA) colony of South West Africa-Namibia would be transformed from illegally administered and abused territory to independent nation, thus fulfilling the United Nations Settlement Plan for Namibia and Security Council Resolution 435, the legal framework for the Plan's implementation.
The Settlement Plan for Namibia was itself an ambitious and long-standing attempt by the world community to recognize Namibia's right to independence, pure and simple. What was less pure and more complex was the overall political situation in southern Africa prior to the implementation of the Plan.
Conflict in wars of liberation and proxy superpower confrontation vexed the bushveld and its people for over twenty years. Upon our arrival in Namibia, and upon grasping the enormity of the task that lay ahead for both the United Nations and Namibia, I was pessimistic about the prospects for the independence process and the development of a democratic ethos. Now, after having experienced their elections and their politics, albeit for only a brief period, Namibians have a right to be optimistic about their future, notwithstanding the daunting challenges that lay ahead.
Namibia: Background
Namibian Geography & Socio-Economic Characteristics
Namibia's history and economy have been uniquely shaped by its geography. It's the same for every country, I guess. But the phrase 'Africa's harsh paradise' fits Namibia perfectly. Namibia can be divided into three main geographical regions. Firstly, there is the Namib Desert, consisting of a narrow plain from 65 to 130 kms wide, extending along the entire coast. Mainly composed of arid plains and long lines of some of the world's largest sand dunes, the Namib is almost entirely devoid of vegetation. The second region is the central plateau, the watershed of the country, covering half its total area. The third region is the Kalahari Desert, composed of level monotonous plains, covered with sand dunes and virtually no surface water.
Namibia's climate is semi-arid and subtropical, strongly influenced by the cold Benguela Current along the coast, and the altitude of the central plateau. Temperatures in the dry summer season are severe. You and everything around you bake at temperatures closer to 50C than to 40C. Even within the context of Africa, the wildlife of the region has had to adapt uniquely to Namibia's harshness.
Namibia has about 1.5 million inhabitants, one of the lowest population densities in Africa at around 1.5 people per sq. km. There are 78,000 whites, most of whom live in Windhoek where 10% of the population lives. About 70% of the population lives in the northern part of the country. But 80% of the viable farmland in the country is owned by 4,000 farmers, the result of RSA emigration policies and incentives begun after W.W.I.
The largest ethnic group is the Ovambo, really seven different tribes, estimated at 46% of the total population. They are followed in numbers by the Kavango, Herero, Damara, Whites, Nama, and other small ethnic groups, including the San or 'Bushman'.
Namibia is a country of great economic disparity. Prior to independence, only 30 of Namibia's 293 doctors were based in Ovamboland where half the population lives. Over 25% of pre-school children were malnourished, 11% suffering from acute malnutrition. Infant mortality was 178:1,000 for blacks, 28:1,000 for whites. Life expectancy was 42 years (male) -52 years (female) for blacks; 68 years (male)- 72 years (female) for whites. The teacher/student ratio was 1:13 in white schools, and 1:44 in Ovambo schools. Water is both life and death to Namibians. Water-borne diseases are the scourge of Africa and the developing world. Clean drinking water is the giver-of- life. Unclean water causes great human misery, and there was much of it in northern Namibia. While we were in the bush, FinBatt (Finnish Battalion) supplied us with potable water, brought to us in large plastic containers.
The Namibian economy consists of a modern commercial sector and a traditional subsistence sector. Its productive capacity is based in the mining of valuable Namib deposits of diamonds, uranium, copper, zinc, and manganese, and on the cattle and karakul sheep farming. These activities account for 40% of the GDP and about 90% of exports. The subsistence sector, in which half the population is engaged, produces about 5% of the GDP. In 1989, unemployment was about 20%.
Namibia has considerable potential of oil, gas, and coal, none of which has been developed. A major source of hydro-electric power can be found on the Kunene River, which serves as part of Namibia's northern border with Angola. The Ruacana Project located there waters Ovamboland as well, its pumping station nearby on the Angolan side. However, as hostilities climaxed, it was bombed out of commission by Cuban air strikes. Namibia is completely dependent on imported supplies of oil and coal shipped by sea through Walvis Bay or by rail from RSA.
Walvis Bay, located approximately in the middle of the Namibian coast, is the only deep water port between Lobito, Angola, and Capetown, RSA. Of obvious economic importance, Walvis Bay is the key to the successful development of the Namibian economy. Unfortunately for Namibia, RSA claimed it and continued to administer it for a number of years after the elections. The Walvis Bay Chamber of Commerce wanted to be a part of Namibia, by the way. It worried that the independent Namibia would be forced into developing an alternative port. Sanctions had hurt, and an independent Namibia would be good for business. (Ed. note: Namibia successfully negotiated the annexation of Walvis Bay)
As a matter of record, during the elections, over 20,000 RSA troops were located within the Walvis Bay enclave, able to reoccupy and secure the country in 12 hours.
German South West Africa, South West Africa, South West Africa/Namibia, and Namibia: Colonization & Genocide, Annexation, Apartheid, and Decolonization.
Namibia's history is sadly typical of many African countries, and the conflict on its borders, north and south, to this day, threaten to consume it. And if Namibia is itself to play a constructive role in the region, meaningful economic development must be accompanied by the development within of a democratic society free from the external threat of war.
German South West Africa, South West Africa, South West Africa/Namibia, and Namibia: Colonization & Genocide, Annexation, Apartheid, and Decolonization.
Namibia's history is sadly typical of many African countries, and the conflict on its borders, north and south, to this day, threaten to consume it. And if Namibia is itself to play a constructive role in the region, meaningful economic development must be accompanied by the development within of a democratic society free from the external threat of war.
Early History.
The first European explorers setting foot on south-west African shores in the late 15th century were Portuguese. That is all they did: the sands of the Namib were too foreboding an obstacle to merit a more substantial exploration of the territory. It wasn't until the mid 19th century - over 300 years later! - that German and British missionaries, traders, and explorers first made meaningful contact with the native peoples of the area. These explorers came overland from the Cape Colony and found the Herero and Damara peoples recently settled in central and north-western parts of what is now Namibia. The Herero and Damara were pushed south by the Ovambo who extended their area of residence into what is now southern Angola and northern Namibia. Driven still further south by these migrations were the Nama.
German South West Africa.
After initial German commercial settlements at Luderitz and Walvis Bay, the territory became a colony of Bismarck's Germany in 1884. The competition for territory increased soon after and , in due course, the Herero and Nama tribes revolted several times against Germany's egregious colonial rule. These revolts were brutally suppressed and between 1904 and 1908 as many as 100,000 people were killed. The Germans introduced to the world its first Vernichtungs Befehl - extermination order- authorizing the elimination of every Herero man, woman and child. Today we call it genocide.
After the occupation of South West Africa by the Union of South Africa in 1915, and after the defeat of Germany in W.W.I, the League of Nations granted South Africa a mandate to administer the territory on behalf of Great Britain, one of the victorious colonial powers. After W.W.II, an independent South Africa argued that the UN mandate over the territory expired with the demise of the League of Nations. It further argued that South Africa's sovereignty over South West Africa was therefore unrestricted. Although this typically colonialist rationale made sense to the European powers time and time again, the same powers were not about to let South Africa into their exclusive club.
The UN subsequently rejected the South African argument and decided to place South West Africa under the trusteeship system of the UN with a view to granting it independence under an agreed timetable. In 1966, in the face of the RSA's illegal administration of South West Africa and in the context of the winds of change which were blowing across the continent, the UN General Assembly unilaterally terminated its mandate and called on RSA to withdraw from the territory.
The Emergence of SWAPO and the Settlement Plan for Namibia.
Accompanying these geopolitical machinations were the emergence of a number of nationalist organizations in the territory. Later in 1966, as the RSA occupation became entrenched, the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), took up arms, and since then a 'bush war' fought mainly in the northern part of the country affected the lives of over half the Namibian population.
In the 1970's there were continuous efforts to secure an internationally acceptable plan for the independence of Namibia by the UN Security Council, western powers and the 'front-line' states. The RSA participated in these diplomatic efforts while pursuing its alternative policy of 'internal constitutional development', a euphemism for the extension of apartheid.
In 1977, three western permanent members of the Security Council, France, the UK, and the US, joined with two non permanent members, Canada and West Germany, to form a 'contact group' to negotiate a settlement with the RSA and SWAPO.
After a year of talks between the contact group, RSA and SWAPO, the western powers submitted a proposal to the UN Security Council which was accepted in principle by the RSA. This proposal consisted of a ceasefire which included a phased withdrawal of all but 1,500 RSA troops. This same proposal included a free and fair election to elect representatives to a constituent assembly which would draw up a constitution for an independent Namibia. These elections would be held under the supervision and control of the UN and a Special Representative appointed by the Secretary General, who would assess the fairness and appropriateness of all measures affecting the independence process before such measures took affect. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) would work together with the RSA appointed Administrator General (AG) to ensure an orderly transition to independence.
Implementation of this proposal required the establishment by the Security Council of a UN Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) consisting of a civilian and military component assisting the SRSG. During the Plan's implementation, legislative and administrative authority in Namibia would continue to be exercised by the Adminstrator General.
On September 29, 1978, the Security Council adopted Resolution 435 (1978) constituting the basic legal framework for the Settlement of the Namibian question. Agreement was later reached that the Constituent Assembly would adopt the constitution by a two thirds majority of its total membership under a system of proportional representation. That same year the Secretary General appointed a Finnish national, Martti Ahtisaari, as his Special Representative. (Ed. note: Ahtisaari would later become President of Finland, and chief NATO/UN negotiator ending the NATO vs Serbia conflict.) It would take no less than 10 years for the various parties involved in the dispute to give their formal assent to the implementation of the Plan.
South West Africa/Namibia: Psuedo-independence.
Before the border war ended, there were two patently false independence processes. The first occurred in 1980 when a somewhat cosmetic administrative change was discussed. After the territory's first multi-party gathering, the RSA announced its support for eventual Home Rule. No outside observer doubted that the conference and the announcement were purely public relations exercises.
The second false start occurred in 1985 when the RSA appointed a "National Assembly" from the multi-party Turnhalle Conference. The country's name was changed at that point from South West Africa to South West Africa/Namibia - a weak attempt to hide the reality that no fundamental change in the territory's status vis-a-vis RSA had occurred. RSA continued its control over SWA/Namibia's foreign affairs, finance, police, and army. The RSA's State Security Council continued to make strategic decisions. The impasse in negotiations was bridged by a change in the superpower relationship. The USSR has pressured Cuba into reducing its troop levels and assistance in Angola in exchange for the reduction and removal of most RSA troops in Namibia. As a result of this pressure, in August, 1988, Angola, Cuba, and the RSA signed a tripartite agreement at the UN. Angola and Cuba signed an ancillary bilateral agreement as well, thus eliminating potential military irritants and clearing the way for a political settlement of the Namibian question and the Angolan civil war.
UNTAG was eventually deployed into the field on March 1, 1989, and all but 1,500 RSA troops were withdrawn from South West Africa/Namibia. By early June a plethora of discriminatory and restrictive laws were repealed as part of the agreement. South West Africa/Namibia had a parallel regulated and codified system of apartheid. The following are examples of RSA's apartheid administrative infrastructure: the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Amendment Act governing the sexual conduct between races, the Group Areas Act, the Population Registration Act, the Bantu Authorities (homelands) Act, the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (toilets and cafeterias), the Bantu Education Act, the Resettlement of Natives Act, the Industrial Conciliation Act barring blacks from trade union activity, the Extension of University Act removing blacks from universities, the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act,
the Prohibition of Improper Interference Act banning multi-racial parties, and other acts giving the government powers to imprison people without trial.
The Settlement Plan included a general amnesty for Namibians living in exile and over 41,000 people living abroad returned: an incredible number of people and a formidable logistical relocation challenge. A voter registration period between July and September 1989 under the supervision and control of UNTAG preceded the elections.
There would eventually be ten political parties on the ballot. Two of them, SWAPO and the DTA, were the main contestants. The South West Africa People's organization (SWAPO), led by Sam Nujoma, is mainly grounded in the populous Ovambo people, but had a strong following as well within the other tribes of Namibia. SWAPO's socialist orientation and support by the USSR, Cuba, and other east bloc countries made for uneasy relations with many western countries, notwithstanding its platform of a mixed economy. The Scandanavian countries and Canada didn't appear to have a problem with SWAPO either.
The Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), led by Dirk Mudge, was a multi-party coalition advocating a market economy and close ties to the RSA. Many of us believed the DTA campaign was financed by the RSA, and subsequent revelations by RSA's Foreign Minister Pik Botha were proof of their clandestine interference in Namibian affairs. The number of political parties on the ballot made for a potentially confusing situation. There was even a party called the SWAPO-Democrats led by a disaffected senior SWAPO leader. Their symbol on the ballot seemed intentionally designed to confuse the voter. It was not confusing enough, however, for it received a paltry .04% of the vote. The people of Namibia, with a 30 to 40% illiteracy rate, distinguished the differences between the parties and made informed choices. No RSA vote-splitting scheme was going to fool them. (Ed. note: The Filmon Conservative Government engaged in a similar vote-splitting scheme in the 1995 Manitoba provincial election, albeit on a smaller scale)
The RSA administered every aspect of Namibian life until Independence Day, March 21st, 1990. To those of us involved with the elections process, it was particularly gratifying to know that we played a part in Namibia's birth, however small.
When the images of Namibia's new flag being raised at its independence ceremonies were televised, I felt a deep admiration for a people who survived 25,000 to 40,000 conflict related deaths in the 25 year border war and the illegal occupation by the RSA. Moreover, they had found a way out of the morass. They were a symbol of what could be accomplished not only in southern Africa, but anywhere. Their Constituent Assembly no less than transformed an alien administration into a functioning democratic infrastructure, including human rights, an Executive Presidency responsible to a bicameral legislature, regular multi-party elections, and an independent judiciary.
The Namibian Question
The Angolan Civil War
Unita is the key to Angola, Angola is the key to Africa, and Africa is the key to the west. Jonas Savimbi
To fully understand the Namibian question we must first look north to Angola and its colonizer Portugal, because the Angolan civil war more than complicated the implementation of the Settlement Plan for Namibia. It prevented it.
To fully understand the Namibian question we must first look north to Angola and its colonizer Portugal, because the Angolan civil war more than complicated the implementation of the Settlement Plan for Namibia. It prevented it.
While the winds of change were blowing in Africa in the 1960's, insurgencies in Portugal's colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola brought the colonizer to the brink of financial collapse. The strain was too much, and in 1974 its conservative dictatorship was overthrown by a group of left-wing generals who believed that Portugal had to divest itself of its colonies if it was to recover economically and spiritually. Unfortunately for these colonies, divestiture meant being cut adrift.
The situation in Angola was complicated by the existence of no less than three competing liberation armies, each controlling a significant area of the country. Further complicating the civil war was the new Portuguese government's policy of blatant favoritism towards the Marxist Leninist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and its leader, Dr. Agostinho Neto. Portuguese policy facilitated MPLA control over the capital, Luanda, Angola's other harbors, and the economically vital Benguela Railway. It also effectively guaranteed the installation of the MPLA as the Government of an independent Angola, notwithstanding an agreement to hold elections scheduled in the independence process.
It also just so happened that talk of independence elections was just that, talk. Conventional wisdom had it that the MPLA would lose. Faced with the fait accompli of an MPLA government, the other two armies continued their insurgency in an effort to defeat them, or at least strengthen their position at the bargaining table.
UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, initially controlled the remote south-east province of Cuando-Cubango. As the civil war progressed after the defeat of the FLNA, it would grow in strength with RSA and later US support under the leadership of Jonas Savimbi, and control of a large portion of Angola, giving proof to its resiliency and pragmatism. (Ed. note: UNITA is generally viewed as being solely responsible for the continuing bloody Angolan civil war, after having lost free and fair elections recently).
Prior to Angolan independence, the US Central Intelligence Agency believed the FLNA were the 'good guys' and worthy of clandestine support. The USSR and its Cuban surrogate supported the Portuguese favored MPLA, naturally. But after the military defeat of the FLNA in 1975, the Americans looked to UNITA for help in containing what it believed to be a communist foothold in Africa. A peculiar alliance given that UNITA and Savimbi were communist Chinese trained and initially Maoist in orientation.
The RSA also increased its support to UNITA; for the changed political and military situation in Angola would give SWAPO and its military arm, People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an external protected base from which to continue their insurgency into South West Africa/Namibia. The prospect of an escalating insurgency and the presence of Cuban troops on the Angolan government side signaled a serious threat to the increasingly isolated RSA regime; a regime that believed it was better to confront the communist and insurgent menace inside Angola.
As nominal independence day approached, the FLNA forces assembled for their assault on Luanda. The moment of crisis arrived, and the RSA seized it as an opportunity to intervene on behalf of the anti MPLA forces. On the pretext of the inadequacy of the MPLA's guarantees concerning the protection of the joint water project at Ruacana and its nearby Angolan pumping station, the RSA launched Operation Savannah, a secret full-scale invasion of Angola and an attempt to destroy SWAPO's ability to attack from its Angolan refuge. A few days later, the FLNA's assault on Luanda turned into a rout for the MPLA.
This was a calculation which sucked the RSA into the ever widening vortex of the Angolan civil war. Although troops would eventually return to base, world opinion would rally against its intervention. SWAPO activity would rise, and Cuban involvement would escalate to the extent that the RSA would feel compelled to invade Angola once again in 'hot pursuit' operations against SWAPO insurgents over the next decade and a half. It would soon be fighting MPLA and Cuban troops and their Soviet advisors. Imagine 4 armies fighting a modern conventional war. From Operation Savannah on, the border war was, in its most peaceful phase, a prolonged aggressive low intensity insurgency.
If the Angolan civil war was an impediment to the implementation of the Settlement Plan for Namibia, RSA's invasion and the subsequent escalation of hostilities became its major obstacle. Ironically, from that moment on, the Plan took on an even greater significance for both Namibia and the RSA as a potential vehicle for disengagement from the destructive forces of the Cold war. Besides exacerbating the obvious trauma of the border region's entire population, the invasion made more uncertain Namibia's capacity to shirk the legacy of the previous 25 years of illegal and corrupting occupation by the RSA.
Cuban withdrawal from Angola in exchange for RSA withdrawal from South West Africa/Namibia was a linkage the RSA sought in negotiations on the Settlement Plan for Namibia. At first the international community would have none of it. But events moved apace and the indeterminate length of the war and the subsequent onset of war fatigue on both sides meant that strategies had to change. Economic sanctions and internal pressure were hurting the RSA. Glasnost and Perestroika affected Soviet support for Cuban involvement. The result: a reluctant Afrikaner acquiescence to an independent, peaceful, and, if possible, obedient Namibia, and a reluctant MPLA acquiescence to a significantly reduced Cuban presence in Angola and an increased vulnerability to UNITA attack.
Signs of this RSA reluctance would be found everywhere. Among the signs were the clandestine financing of SWAPO's competitors, and a disinformation campaign climaxing just days before the start of the election when Foreign Minister Pik Botha charged that 600 SWAPO insurgents had crossed the Angolan border into South West Africa/Namibia.
When it employed this strategy, the RSA exposed for all to see the lengths it would go to protect its interests. In the face of a massive SWAPO electoral victory, it was simply one more option worth pursuing, however subtly, because, in the final analysis, there was something else at stake - its deleterious internal administrative policies and the consistent application of the external policies need to protect them; policies that continued to dominate the region and colour every economic and political decision of the front-line states - including Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Namibian independence would come as the result of social and economic pressure proving too burdensome for everyone. It would come when the Soviets and Americans were confronted by the realization that their policies were anathema to the peaceful development and political stability of the region. In Cuba's case, it would come in the form of a signal from the Soviets that an end to their Angolan adventure must be found soon, but not before one final high-risk face-saving Cuban offensive, and not before the border war had taken its terrible toll. The dead alone in this war may number 50,000 people. It is impossible to know.
The Independence Challenge
The real independence process took place under the auspices of the Settlement Plan for Namibia and United Nations Resolution 435. The length of the prescribed voting period helped facilitate a remarkably high voter turnout, fully legitimizing the new unanimously adopted constitution drawn up by the elected Constituent Assembly.
It must be said that independence alone is not the answer to the challenge confronting Namibia. It must stand vigilant against the diminishing but still threatening potential for continued manipulation and underdevelopment by the white supremacist regime of the RSA; for the Namibian question has been and will continue to be an important element in that regime's overall strategy of maximizing its domination over the economic, social, and political life of southern Africa. (Ed. note: RSA is now a democratic multi-racial, multi-party republic.)
It must also be said that independence offers a new hope to Namibians in that it provides a vehicle for meaningful change. But there are some things it cannot change. No matter how the conflict to the south is resolved, Namibia's and other frontline states' fate will be intrinsically linked to the RSA's. For example, Namibia will continue to be of strategic importance to the RSA and anti-apartheid 'liberation' forces so long as the difficulties to the south remain unresolved. Namibia will continue to be of strategic economic importance as well, having considerable natural wealth which, until independence, was exploited by large trans-national mining interests. Now, with independence, comes an opportunity for Namibians to reverse the insidious trend towards comprehensive underdevelopment.
While the past 25 years have been truly bloody ones demanding great sacrifices from its peoples, the post independence challenge of nation building will require no less courage and determination than that which enabled Namibians to survive the climate between the Namib and the Kalahari; the two great deserts guarding and isolating its native peoples for centuries, until displaced African populations and European colonization brought with it the same seeds of conflict which have so indelibly shaped its history.
The United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG)
The UN transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) consisted of 500 police officers, 1,000 legal and election officials and a military component, consisting of 4,650 people. Police officers monitored SWAPOL (South West Africa Police) and were responsible for investigating allegations of brutality and intimidation. This responsibility was the root of many worries because UNTAG police had few immediate powers at their disposal. The time between the signing of the peace agreements and the actual deployment of UNTAG turned out to be a serious problem. In April 1989, SWAPO, anticipating UNTAG protection within Namibian boundaries, ordered PLAN troops to cross the Angolan-Namibian border and take up new base positions. The RSA feared a new SWAPO offensive and reacted ruthlessly with about 600 SWAPO fighters killed. Threats and bitter recriminations flew back and forth between the antagonists. The Secretary General could only plead for the RSA to use minimum force. It was a tragic miscalculation on the part of SWAPO. They accused the RSA of breaking the peace agreement, but given their knowledge of the RSA's proclivities, they had played right into the RSA's hands and almost derailed the independence process before it really had a chance to begin.
UNTAG's military component consisted of peacekeeping troops and support staff whose job it was to ensure that the ceasefire between SWAPO and RSA was observed and that no infiltration across the border by any force occurred. SWAPO forces had to stay at their bases and RSA troops were withdrawn. The police also monitored the disbandment of the counter-insurgency units called Koevoet (Afrikaans for 'crowbar') which ruthlessly suppressed PLAN incursions during the war and later continued to intimidate the local population. They were a major presence throughout the north, especially in Kavango District.
The total cost of UNTAG was estimated to be $416 million US. Canada's contribution would be $12.5 million, not including the 4,000 ballot boxes it supplied or the $2 million in aid for refugee repatriation and other financial assistance for travel of NGO observers. Over 700 Canadians participated in UNTAG: 500 military in two rotations, 100 RCMP, 50 supervisors, 12 technical experts, 6 diplomatic observers, and 4 Parliamentary observers.
UNTAG personnel came from every corner of the planet. Of UNTAG's 4,650 military personnel, 255 were Canadian logistics personnel. The Canadians and Finns carried the major load of election supervision along with UN Secretariat personnel. In Kavango and Caprivi Districts, non-UN Secretariat team leaders came largely from these two contingents.
The Soviets and the Chinese were two of the larger contingents sent to Caprivi District where the potential for trouble was thought to be much less than in Kavango or Ovamboland. With the exception of a grenade tossed into a local official's home in Bagani, Caprivi District was quiet.
The Namibian election was scheduled to take place November 7th to 11th, 1989, and with time allowed for acclimatization, training and preparation, we flew off to Windhoek. There were six of us from Manitoba: Muriel Smith, Cyril Keeper, Andy Anstett, Carol Scrivener, Jim Treble, and myself, giving the province ample and experienced representation among the 50 Canadians serving as election supervisors.
"Are you interested in going to Namibia for the elections?"
Late one Friday in October, 1989, I took a message off my answering machine from Bill Blaikie's office. He wanted me to get back to him "regarding Namibia". I knew elections were scheduled there and I thought to myself that he might be asking me if I wanted to go there as an 'observer'. After all, why else would he be calling me "regarding Namibia"? I also knew that Bill, in his capacity as NDP external affairs critic, was a member of a parliamentary delegation that had visited Namibia some weeks before. Still, speculating on the phone message didn't prepare me for the question put to me the next day. My only concern was whether or not he knew of any reason why I shouldn't go. The answer was 'none', and so I gave an instant and enthusiastic 'yes'!
I found out later that I was a last minute replacement to the late Cliff Scotten, whose heart ailment kept him from going to Namibia. I felt very good about being able to thank Cliff in person a few months later. 'Your misfortune', I said, "was a blessing for me". It certainly was.
An exhilarating image struck me when Bill asked me if I was interested in going - a sea of raised black fists at a political party rally I had seen many days before on CNN.
Apart from our briefing material, the forty of us who were initially asked to go, and the ten of us later added to the contingent, had little information as to what our duties might be. We had a unique and exciting adventure ahead of us; to see and experience Namibia, its people, and the many other nationals participating in the elections - a once in a lifetime experience. No amount of research or briefing could prepare us.
Once the idea of going to Africa sunk in, the image of shouting masses gave way to the standard North American preconceptions. Mine fell into three main categories. The desert, of course, was one image. I dreamt about sleeping uncomfortably under the stars in temperatures below freezing. Our briefing notes included information on temperature variations and recommendations for warm clothing! I knew there were two deserts in Namibia; the Namib on the coast, and the Kalahari, which lay on the country's eastern border with Botswana.
Jungle and malaria infested swamps were another of my preconceptions, the baggage of a higher education and an assumption that beyond tribal differences and the colonizing forces, Africa was, after all, homogenous from the Sahel on south. I would soon find out a different, drier, and much more complex reality.
My third image was less an image I suppose and more a feeling about apartheid and its attendant evils. We were on a mission to deal the beast a blow for freedom, albeit an indirect one.
Although all of us appointed as election supervisors were supposed to be healthy - hadn't we all had our anti malaria medication, our Yellow Fever injections, and tetanus, typhoid and hemoglobin shots? - I had assumed I would be one of the younger ones and therefore assigned to the north-east of the country where I guessed the most primitive conditions existed. Sure enough, upon arrival in Namibia's capital Windhoek, I was eventually assigned to Kavango District in the north-east along with about half the Canadian contingent, not on the basis of age or comparative health, but on the arbitrary basis of where our names showed up on an alphabetized list. Only a few senior election officials were the exception. Most of them were stationed in Windhoek. This was the UN modus operandi, arbitrary and egalitarian.
We're Off.
I left Winnipeg at dawn, 0745 hrs Winnipeg time, arriving along with the rest of my Manitoba colleagues at Dorval, Montreal at 1255 hrs, just in time to catch a buffet lunch and an External Affairs and Elections Canada briefing session at the Ramada Inn. The 50 member Canadian UNTAG contingent consisted of provincial Chief Electoral Officers' staff, staff from the Chief Electoral Officer for Canada, federal returning officers and nine of us from the three major political parties.
There were thirteen women in our contingent and ,although it was far from gender parity, it was a surprise to many of the other contingents. The Russians and the East Germans viewed this female participation with some consternation. The Chinese (PRC) delegation was also composed entirely of men. Suffice to say that the varied experience and the composition of our contingent enabled us to make an important contribution towards fulfilling UNTAG's supervisory mandate. It was no disadvantage in enabling UNTAG to make judgment as to whether or not the Namibian elections were free and fair, notwithstanding the attitude of most Afrikaners and some Muslims in UNTAG's police component.
The session in Montreal was part pep talk, part briefing. A short summation of the political situation in Namibia was outlined, complimenting the briefing notes sent to us some weeks earlier. Very few specifics about the elections process itself were available, largely because the most recent agreed upon details from Namibia were unavailable. What was clear to us was that our actual role as "international election supervisors" was unclear, and assignments and logistical details were, at the time of our departure, unknown. Unanswered questions simply added to the mystery and the excitement of the journey ahead.
Three speakers were of particular note and had significant experience on the Namibian question. The Very Reverend Ted Scott, one of the authors of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Report on South Africa, spoke to us about the importance of the election and the elections process to the entire region. I remember, in particular, his description of Nelson Mandela, still in prison at the time, as "a man of great courage, great moral authority and integrity, unquestionably the leader of his people." How right he was.
Sen. Al Graham, another speaker with first-hand knowledge of the region, commented about his experiences in other international elections. He and some other provincial elections staff spoke about their interesting, challenging, and sometimes dangerous assignments in places like Haiti and Guatemala.
We also heard from a Namibian who gave us a jaded, yet revealing, briefing about the negotiations leading up to the elections process. He left me with the distinct impression that if SWAPO did not win the necessary 2/3 majority required to write the country's constitution, the exercise would "hardly be worthwhile." This politically immature statement was, in some ways, a reflection of SWAPO's approach to the campaign at the beginning of the process; an approach soon discarded as the campaign wore on, a signal of SWAPO's growing maturity as a party willing and able to function in a democratic society.
Later that same evening we departed Mirabel for London via British Airways, all of us excited and looking forward to the flight and a chance to sleep a little before our sight-seeing tour of the city.
Ah, the naïveté of the inexperienced traveler. Didn't sleep much. The long flight dehydrated me more than I ever thought possible. By the time we arrived in London I was suffering from "severe intestinal disorientation". At first, I thought the potato salad served at the earlier buffet was to blame. As it turned out, I was only the first to suffer 'tourista'. Everyone was hit eventually - I was just the first. A delicate constitution? If only I had discovered the magical properties of immodium earlier, I would have been spared the discomfort and enjoyed London. I did get the chance to see a bit of the high-tech Boeing 747 cockpit from my aisle seat in the first row, however. It resembled a video arcade with its bright colours on video screens.
London
Our uneventful but pleasant British Airways flight landed at Heathrow at 0930 hrs GMT, but not before participating in the usual stack-up above the English countryside while our flight awaited final landing clearance.
During the flight I found out we would be traveling Ethiopian Airways from London via Rome to Addis Ababa. By now we were familiar with reports of the RCMP's earlier flight on the same carrier, including horror stories of backed-up latrines. All of us were a bit apprehensive. I asked our British Airways flight attendant about the airline's reputation and she replied that it was actually very good, and this gave me a bit more confidence in the carrier. Later, over a few beer at a safari hotel near Rundu, an RCMP officer told us of their flight in an old crate that had its emergency exits boarded up, among other things.
One memory I have from this leg of the trip had to do with my taking one last advantage of the amenity situated directly between me and the cockpit -yes, the ‘can’. When I got out I found myself completely alone on the 747 - an eerie sensation. I disembarked and sauntered casually down the labyrinth of empty, quiet corridors of Heathrow and eventually, after turning one last corner, found people, actually the rest of the flight waiting to get through British customs. I don't know what would have happened if I made the wrong turn somewhere. I'd still be in Heathrow, I guess.
We had a few hours to kill in London by virtue of a pre-planned 12 hour stopover. The London I saw was much different than the one I imagined. Yes, everything was on the wrong side; steering wheels, cars; a sample of what was ahead in Namibia as it turned out. I was struck by the city's overall appearance, which was rather dirty. I assumed Maggie Thatcher and her systematic evisceration of local authorities' powers and resources were responsible. The British surely couldn't have been satisfied with their state of affairs, I thought.
What truly made an impression on me was the human scale of London's landmarks. Somehow I imagined Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster, Old London, the Tower of London, and Albert Hall, which we either visited or drove by, to be much larger. Old London brought to mind H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'; the ethnocentricity and quaintness of the British, an underlying confidence, if not arrogance; a stuffiness the consequence of an unspoken assumption that London was truly the center of the civilized world.
Our five hour bus tour of London was, in my case, filled with discomfort and irritation. The sights and the tour operator had nothing to do with this. My intestinal discomfort, exacerbated by a solid case of jet lag, was the culprit. I hadn't rested properly at all. I hadn't so much as taken my shoes off, and I remember saying to anyone that would listen, that instead of touring the Tower of London, we needed the 'Shower of London'. I skipped the Tower tour so I could catnap in the bus with about 2 or 3 other colleagues who, like me, knew the larger and tougher part of the trip was still ahead.
The weather in London was cool and windy, very windy. On our way back to the airport we saw a great deal of wind damage to scaffolds and plywood at various construction sites.
After a truly forgettable meal at a downtown restaurant - man, 'British cuisine' is an oxymoron, I think - and a much needed washroom break, we drove by many more sights including, in the distance, the Canary Wharf project before heading back to Heathrow for our Ethiopian Airways flight. We left at 2000 hrs, but not before the airline security personnel carefully searched our baggage for batteries. They had to be disconnected lest they explode with the sudden change in air pressure we were told. This additional security measure gave me a bit more confidence in the airline, strangely enough, though I was never sure why the batteries had to be disconnected from whatever apparatus. Maybe this airline had a security policy of dismantling all bombs before placement on an airliner. Many bureaucrats may consider this to be a fool-proof procedure. I don't know.
At about 0100 hrs we landed in Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport; an opportunity to tell the Italian Airliner joke to two unsuspecting British UNTAG members seated next to me. They accepted the tastelessness of my joke in exchange for my commiserations about Margaret Thatcher and her unwillingness to apply meaningful economic sanctions against the RSA. The Iron lady was that day also in the midst of a political crisis typically brought on by her hectoring style of politics. Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had just resigned because of a Thatcher sponsored sabotage of his exchange rate policy and her reluctance to allow British participation in the European Monetary System, one of the necessary prerequisites to economic union with the rest of Europe.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
I experienced my first African sunrise, reddish and dusty through the small airline window. We were somewhere over southern Egypt or northern Sudan by my reckoning. In perfect 20C cloudless skies and rarefied plateau air we landed at slogan festooned Addis Ababa airport. It was 1000 hrs and in the bright Ethiopian sunshine our baggage was unloaded onto the tarmac in anticipation of the next leg to Windhoek.
By this time I was feeling much better, having managed a few winks. I held down a better than expected meal on the flight, too. We sat comfortably in the airport waiting area until 1400 hrs - a time for supervisors to get better acquainted with one another and talk about the local political situation.
One important bit of advise for travelers to these faraway places. In addition to requiring your own pharmacy, don't forget to BYOTP, Bring Your Own Toilet Paper. The section of the airport we were confined to had two toilets and a couple of urinals, but no toilet paper. I left my roll in my suitcase, so I had to walk out about 200 yds to my baggage on the tarmac. Under the watchful eyes of the ubiquitous armed guards, I held up my prize and stuffed it into my suit jacket pocket . A wink and a nod to the serious looking soldier did the trick, I guess. I mention this also because I remember well the 'bunker' feeling at the airport. Security and army personnel were everywhere.
Prior to our afternoon departure from Addis, we trotted back out onto the tarmac to identify our luggage so it could be reloaded onto the same Ethiopian Airways flight for the next leg of the trip. The question in all our minds was, 'Why was the luggage unloaded in the first place?' It didn't leave us confident in the efficiency of the airline, if indeed they were responsible, or the travel arrangements. So there we were in Addis' airport, the great UNTAG staging point; the Canadians, British, Northern Irish had linked up in London; the Portuguese and Italians had joined us in Rome; and the PRC contingent, Ghanaians, and some East Asians joined us in Addis. At the time I thought some UN bureaucrat had thrown a dart at Addis. The arbitrariness of it all seemed to solve his problem, but created a travel inconvenience for the rest of us. I formed this opinion after listening to other nationals describe their convoluted journeys to Addis, particularly the Ghanaians, who flew north to Algiers and Cairo before coming to Addis. The PRC's came via Hong Kong, Bangkok and Ankara. But I guess in the end it made economic sense for the UN to arrange a charter the way it did.
While all this was going on, Andy Anstett had the idea of getting his visa stamped. He actually made it to the main entrance of the airport and took a few pictures before being questioned. All of us were aware of the civil war raging across Ethiopia. There was also a rumour that Col. Mengistu was under threat of a coup d'etat as the result of a major military setback in Tigre province. There was another more relevant rumour, namely that we were stopping off at Harare, Zimbabwe, but this turned out to be just that, a rumour.
The Portuguese were quiet on the last leg, having partied themselves out on the way to Addis. The bridge playing PRC contingent was superbly briefed, chain-smoking followers of the Party line. I found this out in the back of the 707 where they took their smoke breaks. All of them smoked. One fellow, a member of the Foreign Service, African Affairs Branch, as they all were, insisted that the Tienaneman massacre and the 'democracy' movement were but figments of the western media's imagination, and, to the extent they happened, were falsely reported: a contradiction I didn't have the energy or the inclination to pursue.
Talking with other nationals and the excitement of nearing our destination helped make the flight to Windhoek quite enjoyable. On take-off at Addis we were amused to see a rather large white plane, nose down, tail up, in a ravine at the end of the runway. We also saw a bit of the Ethiopian countryside from the air, including the latest in Marxist Leninist village design. We flew in clear skies and took great delight in matching our detailed African map to the geographical features appearing below us. We identified many soda lakes along the Rift Valley by their purple colour, and many towns and villages in Zimbabwe. We passed over the Zambezi River and noticed many cut lines over Botswana's Kalahari Desert. Although I thought they all were international border cutlines, I later learned most were fences separating domestic cattle from wild herds roaming the Kalahari Desert and Okavango Delta regions. Fences ostensibly prevented the spread of cattle borne diseases to the wild populations and visa versa.
The Kalahari Desert was truly an endless expanse of sand, scrub, and bush, broken only by the odd small mountain similar to those found in the Sonoro Desert, and it seemed a long time before we finally descended into Windhoek's airport from the east at about 1800 hrs local time, an eight hour time difference from Winnipeg.
Windhoek, Namibia
The J.G. Strijdom Airport, as it was known before independence, was named after the forgettable South African Prime Minister. It is 20 km north of the capital and is one of Windhoek's two airports. The other airport, Eros, is located on the immediate outskirts of the city. Immediately upon arrival, and what would later come to be a shockingly efficient registration, we were arbitrarily assigned to various regions of the country. A to M were assigned to Ovamboland District center at Oshakati in the north, and the rest of us were assigned to Kavango and Caprivi District Center at Rundu in the northeast. The first group would fly to Oshakati at sunrise and the rest of us were to fly to Rundu at noon.
These two districts were the most populous and most sensitive in Namibia; Ovamboland because of potential SWAPO intimidation, and Kavango because of potential DTA and Koevoet intimidation. As it turned out, there was one land mine fatality in Ovamboland during the election. Someone tried to intimidate the heavily SWAPO supporting population from going to the polls. Didn't work. There were, however, a few beatings in Kavango during the pre-election period, and a grenade thrown through an official's house window in Bagani, Caprivi District.
My initial impression of J.G. Strijdom Airport was an unfavorable one. The public phones had been removed from the walls and the facilities and general upkeep of the place were below standards I expected from an international airport. My goodness, the toilets were overflowing! Things were better in Addis. Stripped and abandoned, it was as though Strijdom was going to be a symbol of a hasty 'white retreat' from Namibia. I remember vividly the 'modern' clock on the wall, its roundness totally and purposely distorted. It looked like we all felt, tired and a bit disoriented. We spent three of four hours waiting for transport to the Safari Hotel. For the first time I found myself getting impatient. At least we had a chance to down a few beer in the small airport bar which was capably staffed by a couple of Danish soldiers.
After the long wait we finally loaded onto a comfortable bus, our luggage packed onto a smartly marked UN 1/2 ton and driven in convoy, a dark winding 20 km to Windhoek. During the daylight hours the city reminded me of Tucson, an urban island in the desert. There was a new moon that night so we didn't get to see much of the city on the drive in. We had driven around the edge of the seemingly unlit city. Travel fatigue had taken its toll on everyone and many of us had fallen asleep during the 1/2 hour trip to the hotel. When we finally got there at 2000 hrs. We were dead on our feet!
When we registered at the hotel I was witness to a fascinating scene. In addition to the 16 Kavango-bound Canadians, there were 17 PRC traveling with us to the Safari. We were assigned rooms, four people to a room, and I remember standing patiently in a short lineup in front of a temporary registration desk set up in the reception area. I was waiting to see were I would be assigned and I must say at that stage I wasn't particular about who I would be bunking with. While I watched the PRC delegation's full panic, I began to have second thoughts. Sure enough, chaos erupted.
The Chinese contingent, I found out then, was unfamiliar with the etiquette of lineups to which we Canadians are so accustomed. Rather than displaying a bit of patience, they stampeded the clerk, insistent on being placed together in groups of four, which I gathered was the purpose of the exercise anyway. Their lack of manners got to the clerk, a white 45 year old Afrikaner who exhibited for all to see his belief that serving any UN personnel was beneath his station. His reaction was red-faced intolerance. His blood vessels nearly burst when he shouted at them. Was he an archetypal Afrikaner? If he had a gun he might have shot them instead of registered them. After his shouts, calm was restored and I was fortunate enough to bunk with MacDiarmid, Treble, and Reid, who were looking for a fourth.
After we found our rooms we freshened up and headed over to the hotel's restaurant before it was closed for the evening. It was about 2130 hrs when we hit the smorg, but the food was still excellent. The restaurant was no different than any four star restaurant in Canada or the US, and because we traveled through the outskirts of the city in total darkness, unable to get any impression which would prepare us for the hotel, the obviously modern comfort and delicious food came as a most welcome and pleasant surprise.
Exhausted but fed, we finally made our way back to the rooms. I remember struggling with my boots, barely being able to get them off. I realized then that I hadn't taken them off for two and a half days! How did I avoid phlebitis, or worse, I don't know. Travel hint #2: take off your shoes whenever you can. Before my head hit the pillow I made an effort to catch a bit of news on the Afrikaans channel. It was goobeldy gook to me and I was too tired to listen to it.
The next morning came quickly. Well rested, we were ready for our next leg. At breakfast, however, we learned that one of our colleagues had suffered a heart attack and would have to stay in Windhoek for the duration. The considerable stress of travel was no doubt an important factor. Looking back, I'm sure anyone with a heart condition would surely have been in some difficulty after 2 and a 1/2 straight days of travel.
Eros Airport was a short 400 yard walk from the hotel, as it turned out. Why couldn't we land there? At 0900 hrs the sun was already hammering down on us. 9 o'clock and it was already over 30C! You had to wear a hat, and I had my UN blue golf hat on for just such a contingency. There, on a patch of grass in the shade of a group of palm trees in front of the terminal we waited for our two Hercules.
Small Spanish planes, painted white with black UN markings waited on the black tarmac against a landscape of small scattered desert mountains. The terminal's small concession sold, among other things, drinking yogurt, and I quickly took advantage of its bacteria fighting properties while we waited. It wasn't long before the others availed themselves of the same opportunity. You might say I started a run on drinking yogurt. Ouch.
As an aside, I spotted Eros Airport in an old movie, "The Sands of the Kalahari", I think it was called, with Peter Lawford. Just the way I remember it with the staircase up the middle of the terminal to the concession area. They didn't show the golf driving range in the back though.
Rundu, Kavango District
The first Hercules was a Canadian one, camouflaged with visible UN markings. It flew half our contingent 500 ft above land in order to avoid ground-to-air missiles. This was Canadian-UN military protocol. The second half of the UN contingent, my half, flew in a RSA Safari Airlines Hercules, also visibly marked, at a smoother 24,000 ft. I guess they really didn't care about us that much given the first load made it. When we refueled at Grootfontein, a few of us in the front row had a chance to disembark. Yes, I was in the front row again! Too bad there really wasn't much to see. It was supposed to be the second major UN air base in Namibia. After another 15 minutes of flying we arrived at Rundu, but not before a few of us stepped up inside the cockpit and saw some of the landscape from a few thousand feet; sparse desert vegetation on golden semi-arid plateau; no green jungle, just Mopane scrub and bushveld below us.
The Rundu airstrip was of particular military importance during and after the border war. FinBatt HQ, named so because it was the Finnish Battalion's HQ, had about 400 men stationed there. They were Kavango District's UNTAG military support. MalBatt, Malaysian troops, were next door in Ovamboland. During the border war against SWAPO, Rundu's base enabled the RSA to supply UNITA, whose forces controlled the area immediately to the north of Kavango District, just a few hundred yards away.
Allow me to digress on the subject of airports and roads in Namibia. There are a plethora of airports throughout the country - over 40 of them - giving proof to the common knowledge that the RSA could and would re-occupy Namibia within 12 hours should the elections process jump off track. Some 20,000 RSA troops were stationed at Walvis Bay. The withdrawal of these troops from Namibia proper as part of the peace agreement was clearly not a serious impediment to any re-occupation should RSA have deemed it necessary.
With respect to Namibia's road system, look at any road map and you are forgiven if you assume the entire population lives in the southern half of the country. The reasons for an efficient road system in the central and southern areas are economic; it serves the farm economy. The reason for the lack of roads in the north where most of the people live is fairly obvious, I think.
As we disembarked from our Herc at Rundu, we were met by a Swedish officer and bussed in air-conditioned comfort to the local teacher's college where we barracked and attended our training sessions. It was during this short 10 km bus ride we received our first exposure to the Namibian election campaign. Many people waved enthusiastically at our bus. Political party banners were everywhere, stapled to telephone polls. I recall seeing the red, white, and blue DTA flags flying from the top of huts along the road. Imagine having political party flags flying atop homes in Canada!
A few words about Rundu and the Kavango District. Rundu is a small town located on the southern bank of the Okavango River. Most of Kavango District's population lives along the river, which doubles as a border between Namibia and Angola for over 100 km before it crosses the western edge of the Caprivi Strip and drains into the Kalahari Desert, creating the world's largest inland delta. I've said that before haven't I?
For the Gciriku, Kavango's largest tribe, Umgali speakers, the Okavango international border flows through the middle of tribal territory, and it isn't unusual to see people simply walk across the river, especially during the dry season, to visit or shop in Rundu. Rundu has a few small grocery stores, of course, including one by the teacher's college called the Atlantic Fish Market. It seemed strange, at first, to visit this market and hear a ghetto blaster pumping out Peter Gabriel. Main Street's major buildings included a SWAPOL station, a Post office, and a liquor and beer distributor's warehouse and store. A small hospital facility staffed during UNTAG's mandate by the Swiss Army medical unit was located in the residential section of Rundu. There were also a few small businesses including pool halls, a couple of local restaurants, souvenir shops and a hardware - sporting goods -lumber store. Cuca bars were here and there in the north east part of town. Cuca is a popular Angolan beer that once dominated the area. Of course, on all the roads in and out of Rundu, there were the ubiquitous roadside souvenir
The liquor store did a brisk business with UNTAG - two bottles of Captain Morgan Dark Rum for me and a couple of bottles of White Horse Scotch for the Germans and my Russian Team leader, Dimitri. The booze was for the bush and the traditional 'South Wester's' evening campfires.
There was a safari farm on the Okavango River about 10 km outside of town where a few of us had a fine dinner - a garlic steak pour moi and a few glasses of wine. Here at the safari farm we found out there were indeed a few places in that far away corner of the world where one could enjoy the full amenities of 'civilization'.
It's no contradiction, however, to say that civilization meets bush in Rundu. Garbage was strewn everywhere; a sight that takes a great deal of getting used to. Imagine going to a popular beach and having all manner of garbage strewn as a permanent sate of affairs.
Kavango District was one of the regions designated by the RSA as a tribal homeland under its alternative policy of 'internal constitutional development'. Among other vestiges of the apartheid system, white land ownership was restricted in this area. Land could not be owned, only leased, ostensibly in anticipation of the creation of another 'homeland'. The prospect of actually owning land was one of the major reasons why local white farmers were supportive of the idea of independence from RSA.
Just to the east of Kavango and the district center of Rundu is the Caprivi Strip, the Caprivi Zipfel or 'fist' as it is sometimes called. Its colonial history amounts to a joke played on the Germans by the British when the former thought they were getting access to the Indian Ocean via the Zambezi in exchange for rights to the island of Zanzibar. True, the Zambezi flows east to the Indian Ocean, but they didn't know about the Victoria Falls. I imagined some German sailing down the Zambezi wondering what the heck that sound was in the distance.
Today the Caprivi Strip's once abundant wildlife suffers from the pressures of farming and poaching. The area to the south in Botswana includes the Okavango Delta, one of the last places where Old Africa still survives. The Germans never really enjoyed it, but an independent Namibia can still reclaim Caprivi as a second natural wonder rivaling Etosha. Today Namibia and Botswana are feuding over a small island on their borders.
The Caprivi Strip is a classic example of what happens when European ignorance meets geographic reality. Drawing straight lines through communities and homogenous tribal areas was a practiced European art in the 19th century. Why did they assume rivers were borders? For Caprivians, the Kavango tribes, and Ovambos further east, the irritant of the artificial Angolan-Namibian boundary would be a complicating factor in the 20 years border war.
Rundu would serve as our contingent's regional training center, serving two districts, Kavango, with a population of 64,000, and Caprivi, with a population of 25,000. The Rundu site would be the training center for 174 'Government Specialists', as we were called, and 100 UN Secretariat staff. The specialist breakdown was as follows; 1 Australian, 16 Canadians, 36 Finns, 36 French, 22 DDR's (East Germans), 19 Swedes, 27 Soviets, and 17 PRC's. FinBatt was assisted by 180 military police from countries such as Pakistan, Finland, Sudan, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Peru, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, and others.
In two and a half days of travel we were a world and a season away from Canada. The heat was barely tolerable the first few days. We were simply not used to 45C temperature values and a baking sun. There was little escape to the shadows; at noon the sun was directly overhead.
The sun. It disoriented me at first. My senses told me north was south and east was west. It took me a while to figure it out. Living as we do north of the Equator, we are used to the sun appearing in the southern sky. In Namibia, as everywhere south of the Equator, the sun appears in the northern sky. Think about it. The night sky, too, was supremely different, and I was astonished at how noticeable this was to me.
We were barracked in various buildings at the training site in rooms which held up to 8 people each. Stationed at the front of each barrack were armed FinBatt soldiers. These security arrangements were adequate and we felt quite secure. During the training period there were only two incidents worth mentioning. One involved a fellow running through one of the women's barracks shouting 'Viva UNITA'. The other one involved a burning mosquito net in the barracks downstairs. It seems one of the East Germans had badly burned his hand, severely enough to require first aid treatment. More about him later.
Kenyan soldiers (KenBatt) shored up FinBatt's security arrangements, although we didn't take particular comfort in this because a Danish soldier told us during our departure from Eros airport that they were growing bored and resentful of their assignment to UNTAG. However, none were charged with something as serious as rape as was a Nigerian army colonel. Unfortunately, this one incident gave the Nigerian contingent an undeserved reputation.
Working and sharing living quarters with different nationals was an interesting experience. Initially, there were four Ruskies, as they preferred to be called, and three other Canadians in my barrack room. After introductions, I napped on an upper bunk until I was awakened by my Canadian roommates. When I sat up on my upper bunk bed, my glasses fell to the cement below and shattered. What a sinking feeling. My only backup was a set of contact lenses and this didn't appeal to me at all. I remember looking at the smashed glasses and realizing how stupid I was for not taking along a back-up pair. I'm sure I would have suffered an eye infection were it not for the intervention of one of my new Russian roommates.
I thanked my Canadian colleagues for the invitation and replied that I would stay in the room. As far as I was concerned, the Russians were part of my Namibian elections experience. I remember feeling uncomfortable about leaving people who appeared to be very friendly and as curious about me as I was about them. It would have been bad manners to leave. It was one of my better decisions. When my Russian law professor roommate realized I had shattered my glasses, he thoughtfully offered me his spare. Luckily they were a close prescription. He saved the day. I eventually gave him 100R for them, a sum he thought fair compensation. The frames weren't the ones I would have picked for myself, but that was irrelevant. I could see! I could see! What a relief, but I know I looked suspiciously like a Comrade to some of the other European nationals. 'My your English is good'. Had that the first few days.
Igor the Law Professor was accompanied by a young fellow who was the delegation's expert on religion. He even gave me a book. Seemed Glasnost and Perestroika had revealed a spiritual vacuum in the new Russia. On my side of the room were the two Vladimirs -Vladimir Pushkin and Vladimir #2. Vladimir Pushkin would wake up at sunrise with the rest of us and run down to the Okavango for his morning workout. He obviously kept in pretty good shape. I guess he was close to 50 yrs of age. He had a 26 year old son who was following in his footsteps as an engineer. You saw his picture earlier.
My Russian friends didn't know what to think of me, I think. We hit it off though, when I told them my family emigrated from the Ukraine in 1923. I also told them I was a political appointee to the contingent whose party was a member of the Socialist International. They asked me whether or not my workplace required my membership in the party, and whether or not I had suffered from any discrimination at home. Interesting questions.
I remember a question from my Soviet law professor concerning the voluntary nature of our income tax system. The Hon. John Reid, the former Trudeau federal-provincial affairs minister, fielded that question as he joined in the discussion. I also remember a discussion about Boris Yeltsin, an obviously controversial figure in the Soviet contingent. I said he had the image of being a 'shit disturber'. There were many revealing discussions about what Canadians think about Russians and visa versa. I know I shocked them when, after noting their pictures of Gorbechev in every room, that I was sad that I hadn't a picture of my Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney. I wanted so badly to post him on the inside of a stall in the second floor communal washroom.
Most rooms in the barracks were a maze of mosquito netting. This was especially true of the Canadian rooms. Malaria is a serious enough threat, but the anti malaria medication, chloroquine and paludrine, were supposed to minimize the health risk. My Soviet friends, I discovered, weren't on any anti-malaria medication, whatsoever. They couldn't have cared less. Well, maybe they cared more than they let on. They avoided the medication because of its ostensible side effects on 'one's ability to perform one's marital duties' as one of the Ruskies told me. They were macho men, those Ruskies.
In my case, the heat was particularly difficult to take those first few days and I slept without covers with the windows open and without a mosquito net. It was the dry season and there were few mosquitos around, particularly at 20 ft above the ground where our room was.
The threat of dehydration was more immediate. One of our number didn't drink enough fluids the first day and a half or so and was temporarily hospitalized at the Swiss Army Clinic.
It may have been the first night when I heard the tom toms. There were a series of election rallies on the common ground, about 500 yds away on the banks of the river. It was an incredibly powerful and aggressive beat, and somewhat disconcerting to hear this 'call to arms' at the beginning of our stay in Rundu. We didn't yet know those rallies took place at 0500 hrs, the coolest time of day.
During the training sessions there were opportunities to do a little sight seeing. My first outing was with my Swedish teammate, Gabbi Winai-Strom and fellow Manitoban Jim Treble. We saw recently burned bush, an involuntary land clearing technique we learned, and what I guessed to be the remnants of defensive gun positions in the valley. Having heard about the snakes sensitized me to any movement along the trail, and I recall now, only partly with a sense of humour, turning with a start when I mistook a disgarded, mangled black bicycle tire nearby for the dreaded Black Mamba!
Yikes!
Whew!
Each national group had their own proclivities, naturally. The Ruskies liked to party at night, drinking their gin and tonic -their malaria prophylactic. The Chinese were adept at queue jumping, playing bridge, and reciting almost encyclopedic knowledge of the domestic affairs of every nation. "So how are your equalization payments this year?" The French met as a group every couple of hours to discuss whatever they felt needed to be discussed - I had the feeling they discussed strategies for being more important. The Swedes and Finns seemed to make themselves at home. The Canadians naturally organized a Saturday night BBQ, a big hit and profitable one for its Tory organizers.
Our last briefing session was one of the more eventful ones because we actually received some important information. We finally got our poll and location assignments! While this last session was taking place a few Canadians and a few French judges were on a 'boat cruise' on the Okavango. They found a boat. Some of them actually disembarked on the Angolan side. They were a brave lot. At the time I thought there were crocodiles around. But more to the point, the real danger was the Angolans, if they caught you. They were in UNITA territory. Arrest was possible. It was a long march to the regional capital and deportation back to your home country via Luanda or UNITA authorities. I understand UNITA police were called when the boat landed on the other side of the river. This incident was exceptional because all supervisors treated our UNTAG responsibilities in a professional manner.
Koevoet, the South-West Africa counter-insurgency force was disbanded on our second day in Rundu. These killers had a fearsome reputation in Kavango, not to mention the rest of the country. The population dreaded them. South African trained and led, almost all People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) guerillas were 'neutralized' at their hands. Fired from their jobs and without a paycheck, they blamed UNTAG for their predicament. These same fellows went on to terrorize Soweto, killing people for cash at train stations in an effort to destabilize the resistance to the DeKlerk regime.
The day they were demobilized they marched down Rundu's main street chanting 'Death to UNTAG', swinging their knives rather menacingly. Our sources told us these people were well disciplined and their white RSA commanding officer ran the show on orders from Pretoria. This was a good thing for us, because they had orders from their immediate superiors not to go beyond protests. There were a few instances of intimidation, beatings, that sort of thing, prior to the elections, but none that I am aware of during the voting period itself. It seemed that it was as quiet as could be expected given the history of insurgency which dominated the region over the past 20 years. The RCMP and other police forces in UNTAG deserve a great deal of credit for the success of the elections process. We met a few of them having a few cold ones down at the safari farm, including one fellow from New Brunswick who had the unenviable task of supervising the demobilization and disarming of one of the Koevoet squads - 200 men. Their leader went nose to nose with him and, in an obvious attempt at intimidation, refused to hand over the weapons. He said he got through it without flinching, but it took all his training and more than a little chutzpah to pull it off. He was unarmed
Training at Rundu
The days began at 0530 hrs. This was the coolest and most comfortable time of the day. By the end of our stay in Rundu I was acclimatized enough to require a light bed sheet by sunrise. Every morning the routine was the same. I woke up with the sun and headed directly into the showers. There was no hot water or cold water, just the natural temperature early in the morning. Those first showers were our only relief from the heat. They were particularly valued during the heat of mid-day. Everything was relative, though. There was one fellow from Ghana who found the water too cold and used a damp cloth to clean himself.
Breakfast began at 0830 hrs and consisted of cold cereal, buns or bread and jam, and, of course, the necessary two bottles of guava fruit juice, in addition to the morning coffee. Training sessions began at 0930 hrs and stretched until 1130 or 1200 hrs. The first couple of sessions were led by the lone Australian UN staffer. Throughout the morning and the afternoon we drank about one bottle of orange guava fruit juice, pop, or beer every half hour. You had to to prevent dehydration. Each drink cost about .5 or .75R (Rand), about 30 cents Cdn for pop and 50 cents Cdn for a beer. Guess what I drank?
Lunch and dinner were inexpensive and actually very tasty. Our Portuguese chef gave us a wide variety of food. His spouse sold wine, beer, juices, and pop, all inexpensive. Business must have been good because he drove an Audi, and carried what I guessed to be a .44 magnum. You didn't argue with this chef.
Our instructions at the training center were fairly straight forward. We Canadians were well acquainted with the democratic process and the logistics required for free and fair elections. The Finns and the Swedes were similarly comfortable with the process.
The East Germans, the Soviets, and particularly the Chinese had more 'conceptual' difficulties because of their inexperience in this process. This election would also have the distinction of being contested by 10 political parties. They were used to one party or one name on the ballot -'yes' or 'no', 'da' or 'nyet'. "Secret ballot?"
English was the second language of most of the supervisors at Rundu and there were occasional difficulties getting used to the Aussie's slang. I can still see the turned heads of the Ruskies, "What the hell did he say?" I had to shrug most of the time. Supervisors gave high marks to Linda Cohen, the Canadian UN District Head. She made the best of circumstances made more difficult by a dysfunctional central decision-making process in Windhoek. During these training sessions and later during the actual deployment of personnel, we were able to get a truer perspective of the UN way of doing things. It seemed to us that the lowest common denominator prevailed. There were two operative mottos. One, "Canadians, first", was the result of all business, queues, etc., being done in alphabetical order. 'We're Britain, for god's sake, not the UK!' Motto two was "Hurry up and wait", and that meant we would simply have to wait just as long as everyone else because nothing was done until everyone was accounted for. Nevertheless, it all worked out and we managed, but not without our sense of humour.
The Bush
Namibia is almost as large as British Columbia and has a population of 1.6 million souls of which 750,000 were eligible to vote. The upcoming UN supervised national elections were going to be a formidable challenge and the pressure was on each of the UNTAG teams. My team, team 25, was assigned to the Ndiyona Tribal Station, some 60 km or so to the east, about 2 km from the Okavango River. My team consisted of 7 people, one person larger than the usual team size, because we were assigned to a poll with an estimated 2,700 eligible voters.
Our team leader was Dimitri Pishvanov. 'Dimi' was a graduate of Moscow's Academy of Foreign Languages and an employee of the Information Branch of the United Nations Secretariat in New York. He had spent almost 3 months in this area during the registration process and was familiar with the entire area. He also knew how important the Headman was in tribal affairs. We were in good hands with Dimi.
On Saturday evening after we finally closed the polls, Dimi drove us down to a local white farm about 10 km away, to renew some old acquaintances. Another team in the same area had the same idea and it made for an interesting evening. We socialized in a large open aired thatched roofed bar with a breathtaking moon lit view of the Okavango River below us. It was a picture out of a tourist brochure; the archetypal image of colonial Africa.
My chat with the white landowner was a revelation. I wasn't sure what to expect from them, particularly in view of the younger farmer's wife being so wary and distrustful of strangers that she was compelled to leave the gathering. Though he foresaw problems ahead for the country, he was very much a supporter of independence. He said that it was time Namibia got the show on the road by solving its own problems and cutting the restrictive and disadvantageous ties with the RSA. The younger farmer also shared this view. When one of the other team's East Germans made pronouncements about the deleterious effect illiteracy would have on the voting results, implying that these people were too ignorant to choose, the Afrikaner admonished him in no uncertain terms in his distinctive Afrikaans accent. "Don't let their illiteracy fool you. These are articulate people in their own language and I guarantee you that these people know exactly what they are voting for." He was right! Did they ever!
That same East German was quite funny really. When we were introduced, he began a tirade against the Americans, how their world ended at the borders of their lawns, how they were ignorant of their own history and the problems of the world. He thought I was an American. He announced he was not a Communist, but preferred to be called a Marxist. What I found funny about him was that he reminded me so much of a typical American. I told him so.
When I recalled this conversation to my two East German teammates they chuckled. Not surprisingly, the East Germans were more reticent about the changes taking place in the DDR. These November days were historic for their country, and the daily news they heard over the BBC caused great concern. At out departure from Rundu, one of my team 25 colleagues told me of rumours of suicide by members of their country's leadership, something German leaders had done once before. I remember feeling bad at describing one of the East Germans as looking like your typical Russian KGB type in the movies. I found out later he was depressed about this. I hadn't appreciated the sensitivity of some of our 'communist' colleagues. Don't know when to keep my big mouth shut sometimes. I know Rodrigues had a cruel bit of fun with a PRC chap who found himself away from the group traveling horde, something very unusual. "Aren't you worried that your friends will think you've defected?", he asked. The guy turned white, he said. I still had a good laugh about that one. The rest of my team consisted of Gabriella Winai-Strom from Sweden, Erkki Lyly, a Finnish Naval Officer assigned as our crypto-military back-up, Holger Troll, a DDR Government employee, Michael Ortmann, a DDR journalist for a youth paper, and Bernard, a school teacher and our Namibian Umgali interpreter. Of all the team members, I had the most electoral experience.
On Monday, November 6th, the day before we opened the polls, our team departed from Rundu for our polling station at Ndiyona. Gabbi, Holger, and Michael would travel by UN bus with the designated 'riders', and Bernard, Dimi, and I followed Erkki in our two Toyota jeeps. That afternoon at Ndiyona we met our South West Africa/Namibia Administrator General counterparts.
They were a friendly crew, but naturally suspicious of us. Through it all we got along very well, and they did a professional job. Dimitri said that this crew was much more reserved than those crews active during the registration period. He speculated that their reserved demeanor was largely due to instructions from the AG's office.
Telephones. They were in great demand in Rundu. When I departed Winnipeg I gave the family notice that if they didn't hear from me, everything was O.K.. My colleagues were spending hours waiting to get through to Canada at the phone in the Rundu Post Office. It wasn't unusual to wait three or even four hours to make a call. With all the foreigners around, I'm sure the Namibian phone system was overtaxed. It never occurred to me to try to phone Winnipeg under those circumstances. But after our two hour drive down the bumpy road from Rundu to Ndiyona, in the 'bush', I was surprised to find a working telephone right away, just sitting there, unattended. The surprise lasted one second and I immediately phoned home. Nobody home. So on the second call, I reached my mother at her work. "Will you receive a collect call from Namibia?", the operator asked in her heavily Namibian accent.
"What?" "Where?"
"I think it's for you."
Luck of the draw.
There were fresh rumours circulating in the international press about the situation in Namibia. Just a few days before the election, RSA Foreign Minister Pik Botha held a press conference accusing SWAPO of military incursions over the Angolan border, thus breaking the election agreement. Of course, this was a lie and everyone in Namibia, from Pienaar, the AG and Ahtisaari, the SR, on down knew it was a clumsy attempt to undermine the election. Phoning home provided the opportunity to ease any fears about trouble. The reports were fictional and Pik's tapes were later proved to be bogus. Kavango was very quiet. When I told my colleagues back in Rundu about my instant access to a phone and the quick phone home, they were incredulous at my luck.
We began the morning of the 7th by going about our business of setting up the polling station. It was a quiet morning, the sun shining brightly, and even at 0700 hrs it was beginning to get uncomfortably warm. I stepped outside to see if anyone had assembled yet and was greeted by an amazing sight. About four hundred people had quietly assembled in front of our polling station in the darkness of the early hours. No doubt some of them walked right past us while we slept in our sleeping bags. 'You gotta see this', I said to my teammates.
I remember how silent and serious the crowd was and the humility I felt. I lost whatever sympathy I had for Canadians who leave polling stations in a huff not yet having voted because the polls were busy and a five minute wait preceded the casting of a ballot.
The Headman and the senior members of the villages were at the head of the line, followed by the elderly. They would be the first people to vote.
There were few men between the ages of 20 and 40 voting in our area. Almost every young women was pregnant or nursing. We witnessed the classic demographics of a developing nation. The men would vote in the cities and at the mines where they worked.
There were also many people who came into the polling station only with great effort. One fellow in particular impressed me. Two stumps for legs forced him to crawl on his hands and stumps. We heard he lived 5 km away.
Once the first two days of voting passed, it all became quite boring. On the third day I came down with something that could have been serious. My lungs were filling up. I had no voice and I had the worst sounding cough of my life. I was very worried, actually. I thought I might have to be evacuated if things didn't improve. Although I slept virtually the entire third day, I was able to help process the few people who voted, even though they really didn't need me. That night, at about 2100 hrs, the fever broke and I was able to have something to eat and drink.
My condition was made worse by my aversion to the RSA military rations. They were awful. My diet consisted of mint chocolate energy bars, warm beer, and orange juice. I lost somewhere between 5 and 10 lbs.
Although the last three days of voting were uneventful, I recall two people in particular. One was a San 'Bushman' women who came into a nearly empty voting station, voting, and then turning to us as she left, smiling, shouting, clapping her hands. We all took it as an expression of joy and accomplishment. The other fellow was also a San. He was pleasantly drunk and entertained us with his tiny musical instrument, a thumb harp. He spoke a combination of San, Umgali, Afrikaans, and English. So said Bernard.
There were five Gciriku within the polling station during the election. They included the Headman, Bernard, our interpreter, and three political party agents who remained motionless for the entire period in an incredible display of discipline and patience. The rest of us were non Gciriku, of course, including four policeman, two SWAPOL officers of mixed blood, an Indonesian and Nigerian. It didn't occur to me that the presence of non locals was a problem because I assumed that the presence of UNTAG had ensured the voting was free and fair. However, I do recall the evening when the locals sang a beautiful song a capella whose chorus we learned from Bernard was 'we hate all whites'. We didn't take the song literally. Our AG counterparts may have felt differently had they known what they were singing.
At the end of each day we were entertained by the comic exchanges of instructions to UN teams over the two-way radio. The final day exchanges were the funniest. What caused most of the radio traffic were the change in plans concerning the count. Originally we were to depart immediately back to Rundu after the boxes were sealed. That last evening the instructions were changed in a triumph of common sense.
The last day of the election was memorable. November 11th. It was getting dark and our presiding officer, Wilhelm, Dimitri and the rest of us were about to shut the election operation down. Our chat with Wilhelm, the AG's Presiding Officer concerned his impressions of the process. He told me that he was surprised at how well we got along. I remember replying that people were people, no different in most respects from any others regardless of superficial differences. My little sermonette was accepted, I think, as a revelation to us both.
That same conversation produced another gem when he commented on what to him and other white Afrikaners was the big news of the day, namely the announcement that the Transkei wished to join the RSA; this on the very day the Berlin Wall was being torn down!
The polls were still open when sunset fell, and although we were asked not to take our cameras out for fear of intimidating locals, I wanted to photograph Ndiyona at sunset. Great pictures. At 1900 hrs we set about our task of closing up shop by sealing the ballot boxes by candlelight and with candle wax. I am embarrassed to say that I began whistling the tune of the old negro spiritual, 'We shall overcome', thinking it corny yet appropriate. I didn't think anyone would recognize the tune, but Gabbi commented on it. A few NGO observers visited our polling station during the 5 - day voting period. There was a duo from the RSA observing the elections in the area, and we saw them a couple of times because our Tribal Station had one of the few phones in the area. There was a German Lutheran or Catholic priest, I forget which, from Zambia, representing the World Council of Churches, and a French journalist. The first day I also noticed UN military personnel videotaping the activity at our polling station. I can report that we were too busy to pose for them. Somewhere in the UN archives team 25 and a grubby yours truly are immortalized on videotape.
We left the tribal station the next morning. Bernard, Dimitri, and I had driven the jeep to Ndiyona, with Erkki following us in a second 'borrowed' UN vehicle. The rest of our team was transported by bus. Our mode of transport back was determined by straws. Holger and I picked the short ones. Looking back, I'm glad, because it gave me the chance to see some of the other polling stations, the countryside, and hear the many stories of other returning supervisors. The bus trip back took almost 3 hours - we could have walked back faster, I think, even though the road was now wet sand the result of an evening shower and a pleasantly cool overcast sky - the rainy season was finally coming. I was really tired though, looking forward to a normal shower instead of the make-shift devise we were using in the bush.
As it turned out, supervisors' accommodations varied from team to team, from relative comfort in a priest's home, to our tin roof, cement floored, open aired, sometimes functioning toilet and plastic shower contraption home: the total camping experience without the tent.
On our way back I heard the stories about snakes. Regina's Janice Baker had three Green Mambas in her polling station. One dropped out of a tree on to the back of the regulation yellow AG pick-up truck where they were having lunch. She said she'd never seen people move so fast, and it all happened just after she took some photos and commented on the other Green Mambas she spotted earlier in the same tree.
Someone else found a Black Mamba when they arrived at their polling station Monday afternoon. They shut the door and called the local exterminator, an old man who came in and beat the Mamba to death with his stick. Another colleague saw a recently shot puff adder at his polling station. I count myself lucky in spotting just one dead scorpion.
Snakes were the big hazard. All were deadly. The Green Mambas and the Black Mamba's poison took a while for their deadly neuro-toxin to work. We heard of an interpreter who was bit in the thigh sometime during the election. We assume he died.
The difference between the Green Mamba and the Black one was that the latter was extremely aggressive. The natives said that if your paths crossed, it would attack. Both species, when dead, had to be buried a couple of feet in the sand, because if you stepped on one, it could still have fatal results. Dimitri said that he and his companion were driving at night during the registration period in September when their headlights captured a Black Mamba head a number of feet up attacking their Toyota from the side of the road!
Back home I ran into a former CIDA officer who had worked in nearby Zambia. While he and a young boy were parked, a Black Mamba climbed up the side of the truck on the boy's side. After scrambling out of the truck, they examined the boy closely and found a small puncture wound on the child's toe. They immediately rushed him to the local hospital where it took 5 full blood transfusions to save his life. The puff adder was another deadly hazard. It would just sit there on the trail and wait for prey. If it bit, you had about seven steps before you dropped - that's how it got its name, the 'seven step' snake. Its poison acted as a comprehensive muscle relaxant. Doesn't sound so bad until you realize that the heart is a muscle, too.
Above you see a picture of the Black Mamba. Herpetologists agree it and the Australian Taipan are the world's deadliest snakes, both possessing 'copious amounts of neurotoxin'.. At an average length of 11 ft the Black Mamba is also the world's fastest snake. It's also known for it's unpredictability. UNTAG personnel found it had a proclivity for chasing white Toyotas, too. Got to within a foot of a real big one, probably a 20 footer. Was hard to forget. Good thing it was well preserved in a large glass jar at the Swakopmund Museum. I don't like snakes.
Erkki Lyly regaled us with crocodile and snake stories accumulated over his 6 months of Namibian service. He told us of one incident where the commanding officer had ordered two of his men to clear out the underbrush of a bridge running across a river in Caprivi. While one man climbed down the ladder, he came face to face with an angry Black Mamba, its head up, mouth open, ready to strike. The second soldier, standing above the first, had the presence of mind and the luck to pick up a heavy rock within arm's length and drop it on the Mamba, killing it. The first soldier then calmly walked back to base and resigned from the Namibian service. Can't say I blame him. Erkki himself came across an Egyptian Cobra one morning at his barracks. Walking in bare feet on the cement, he stepped onto the sand and heard a noise behind him. He had surprised an Egyptian Cobra. Its head was up, mouth open, in striking position. You can imagine what Erkki said. With the notable exceptions of the puff adder and the Black Mamba, snakes are easily frightened away by noise and usually retreat. But Erkki found out, surprise one and the trouble starts.
Erkki also told us of a Zambian commander in Zambia who lost three of his men to Zambezi crocs. The men thought they were fishing in a safe place. They didn't know the crocs could strike from the deep water by springing off the bottom with their tails. Even though these men were fishing many feet above the river, they were grabbed, then drowned by the twisting beasts. The man-eaters pincer jaws can't chew, so they roll over and twist their victim's extremities off. They tuck the bodies of prey underwater to soften them up, too. A few weeks before our visit, two small children were eaten by crocs, snatched while their mother was bathing them.
There were also newspaper accounts of a recent croc attack on a local postal clerk. Apparently a woman and her child were bathing on the edge of the Okavango when it ran up past them, grabbed the postie and dragged him to his death. "Postie Loving Croc" was the headline, if I recall correctly.
Springtime is not croc season on the Okavango. The water is too shallow. The swimmers in the Okavango naturally knew this, though they should have been concerned about the plethora of water-borne diseases.
Fishing was also important to the local economy. We saw Rundu women walking to and from the river daily, usually returning at 1700 hrs or so with their open ended cone shaped fishing baskets, which they would use by sticking their hands down the narrow end at the top and catching the fish trapped at the wider bottom end.
By now I was thinking that it wouldn't be long before the election results would be in, supplying the answer to the 64 dollar question - 'Was the countryside, as we guessed, DTA by day, SWAPO by night?'
We got back from the bush in pretty good shape, all things considered. It took some of the Soviets and the Chinese from Caprivi a little longer to get back. But there we were, back in Rundu until the 14th. I visited the Swiss Medical Unit first thing the next morning and they prescribed codeine tablets for my hacking cough. She motioned to the giant jar of tablets and I helped myself to a fistfull. I also took the visit as an opportunity to stock up on immodium at the request of some of my colleagues who were suffering from new bouts of 'intestinal discomfort'. I even supplied my Ruskie law professor with some complimentary codeine, helping him with his bad cough. I was the local pharmacy in my barrack. The Canadians sponsored another little profitable BBQ at the Kavango Motel. It was one of the highlights of the trip. Everyone was relaxed. It was a remarkable experience to be among so many people from different countries and different backgrounds, socializing the way we did. No doubt we were basking in the glory of a mission successfully accomplished.
The Election Results
There were 23 electoral districts in Namibia. Over 97% of Namibians voted. 48 seats were required for a 2/3 majority in the Constituent Assembly. SWAPO received a whopping 57% of the popular vote and 41 of those seats. The DTA received 28.9% of the vote and 21 seats. The Aksie Christelik Nasionaal (ACN), whose slogan was 'whites, Think, Vote', received 3.5% of the vote and 3 seats. The United Democratic Front (UDF) received 5.8% of the vote and 4 seats. The National Patriotic Front of Namibia (NPF), the Namibia National Front (NNF), and the Federal Convention of Namibia (FCN) all received 0.8% and 1.6% of the vote respectively, and 1 seat each. The new constitution required the participation and consent of virtually the entire assembly. The people had spoken.
The election regulations had worked well. The comprehensive nature of the registration period combined with a tendered ballot option was one of the three determining factors leading to a quiet election. Of course, the political will of the warring parties to settle Namibia's affairs democratically was the most important determinant.
Another factor may well have been a more intangible one, but one crucial nevertheless; the presence of UNTAG. Its large and sometimes overwhelming presence in each polling station ensured a free and , to as large a degree as possible, a fair election. All of us were well aware of the Namibia's public's willingness to wear party colours and symbols, more so than in Canada.
Proportional representation was the only way in which the election could have worked. Had there been a system of constituency or district representation, the results would have been much different and would not have reflected the true will of the people. It would have looked like this: DTA 14 districts, SWAPO 8 districts, and the UDF 1 district.
The voting process itself contributed to the smoothness of the election. There were 5 days to vote, although most people voted in the first two days. Voters were registered beforehand. Voters required two documents: an ID card and a registration card. If one or both were missing, a tendered ballot was issued, cast into a separate ballot box and checked in Windhoek against a computerized list. RCMP fingerprint experts were also stationed in the capital to check tendered ballots signed by fingerprint. Most registration cards at my poll were signed just this way. Almost everyone voted with an inked thumbprint on the ballot.
There was a second deterrent to fraud. Voters put their hand in a black box to determine if they had already voted. My DDR buddy, Michael, was in charge of the black box. He was the fellow I mentioned earlier with the bandaged hand the result of the combusting mosquito net. I'm sure many of the locals suspected he had mangled his hand in the box. It was funny to see the expressions on voters faces when they caught sight of his bandaged hand as he showed them with his good hand how to stick their hands in the black box; all this for reasons they weren't quite sure. I ended up doing a demo with Bernard and Dimi the second morning. I figured it would save time at the box if people were shown what to do and why it needed to be done. My fingers were dipped in ink and I put my hand in the box and 'Oula!' Michael's bandaged hand became the object of bemusement, not worry for the voters of Ndiyona.
If they were voting for the first time, no trace of invisible ink would appear and they could continue down the line. Their fingers were then dipped in invisible ink. I never heard of anyone trying to vote twice.
If only the ID was missing, an affidavit had to be signed by an eligible voter. At Ndiyona it was usually the Headman, and a regular ballot would then be issued. Any doubt whatsoever voiced by the Presiding Officer, the UN Supervisor, or a political party agent, a tendered ballot would be issued.
At Ndiyona polling station there were over 400 people waiting for the polls to open at 0700 hrs. We worked non-stop until 1500 hrs, processing some 626 people. Only 30 people voted that first hour, the result of their age, status, physical condition, and our kinks.
On the second day, 357 people voted, most showing up before the polls opened, most voting before noon. On day 3, 30 people voted. On day 4 12 people voted, and on day 5, 5 people voted. We processed over 1,029 voters, not including 36 tendered ballots. This was about half the number expected. We soon found out why. The UN miscalculated the area registration numbers, expecting 2,700 voters in our area. A nearby polling station was naturally caught short and thanks to overhearing a conversation over the two-way radio, we were able to supply them the required extra ballots.
Through it all sat the Headman, the tribal authority and de facto DTA representative in our area. He sat quietly at the entrance of the polling station, available to sign affidavits to attest the voter's identification and to generally give tacit approval to the vote. The illiteracy rate at Ndiyona had to be around 95%. The spoiled ballot rate was at Canadian standards.
The supervisory process was, for our team, more than just supervision in the normal sense of the word. The UN and AG election teams at Ndiyona worked as a unit; each person was involved in the actual electoral process. In our team's case, each member's duties and each counterpart's duties were specialized. I was responsible for supervising and assisting voter signing of registration cards, regular and tendered ballot distribution, supervision of the tendered ballot box, supervision of the AG and UN interpreter instructions to voters, and supervision of the ballot booth, the latter being a dual responsibility with Erkki Lyly.
Erkki was responsible for the regular ballot box supervision and therefore spent most of his time jamming the ballots into the box with a stick. Literally stuffing the ballot box. Good thing we didn't have those 2,700 voters!
As mentioned, the demographics in our area were illustrative of the underdeveloped economy. Young men between 25 and 45 years were few. Most voters were either young pregnant women, elders, or middle aged women. Most me were working elsewhere and voted there.
It took the ballot counting supervisors well into the early morning hours to complete the next day's count. The results were released around noon, the announcement the climax of the election. I was awakened from my lunch nap by a spontaneous demonstration of singing and dancing the likes of which I have never heard before, nor likely will again. SWAPO's victory in Kavango and throughout the country moved the students at the teacher's college to sing and dance in unison in the streets of Rundu. It was a moving and unforgettable sight for those of us privileged to witnessed it.
Swakopmund
Once we returned from the bush to Rundu we found out that we were slated for a week of R & R in Swakopmund, a coastal resort a few 'kilos' north of Walvis Bay. The Soviets, East Germans, and some other delegations were, as far as I know, sent to Windhoek for their holiday.
Swakopmund turned out to be what I imagine the Caribbean to be, refreshingly cool in the evening and mornings, about 15C; the days clear and warm, about 25C; beautiful, sunny, and dry. It was German town. Blacks spoke German in their workplace. As one expected, the town was spotless and modern. It had a wonderful public beach with a huge water slide, a long strand with shops stretching out into the shallow harbour, and sunning Cape seals to amuse the tourists. In the distance to the south I couldn't help but notice a long tall guano platform stretching for many hundred yards into the ocean. Apparently it was on the Walvis Bay side of the border, which was itself protected by special sensors placed underneath the sand, so we were told.
The legacy of apartheid was still noticeable in the community. The black township was located eastward and the absence of blacks in downtown Swakopmund in the evening was striking. The local hospital, too, had its 'white' wing and 'coloured' wing. We found this out when we visited one of our colleagues who had contracted a serious case of bacterial pneumonia, not from me I trust.
We stayed in a pleasant little place called Holiday Bungalows located on the south end of town, a few hundred yards from the ocean. Many nationals stayed there as well, also taking in the sights. Unfortunately, a few men from one contingent partied one night with some local 'talent' and were summarily sent home the next day; an embarrassment to their country.
Well it wasn't goats, as a few men from one unnamed battalion were reported to have used as 'entertainment'. After we stopped laughing, we remembered that 12 Finns in Kavango alone had been sent home HIV positive. A local missionary also tested pregnant women in his immediate area and found the same number of aids cases in a population tested of only 200 women.
During UNTAG's mission some 15 people had died; all in accidents. The roads were treacherous and the sandy landscape meant that if you went off the road you'd likely flip the Toyota. That type of accident was made all the more likely with the cheap Dunlop tires they had on them. While we were in Namibia I know of one accident that claimed 9 locals when their pick-up truck flipped. Traffic deaths were many in this part of the world, because the locals traveled on the back of pick-up trucks and other transport vehicles.
Road vehicles weren't the only dangerous form of transport. One of us had a picture of the plane shot down the day before the elections started. It just so happened this was about 10 km away. The DTA, in addition to the ubiquitous tricolor motif. liked blasting away the Marseillaise, the French National anthem, through powerful loudspeakers mounted on a light plane. The music was impressively loud. Back in Rundu, during our training period, I was awakened by my noon nap by this blaring anthem. Someone brought the plane down with small arms fire. Everybody took credit for it except the DTA. The press blamed SWAPO, but anyone who heard it knew it was just someone fed up with the racket. Fortunately, no one was killed in the crash. Yes, that's the plane. Of course, this was front page news.
An important part of our R & R was planning for dinner. We tried a couple of restaurants and quickly settled on Erich's, its German cuisine responsible for my 10 lb weight gain. Garlic steak, beef stroganoff, prawns, wiener schnitzel, and Nederburg South African white wine did the damage. Everyday we went for walks, and one morning while I relaxed on a beach park bench and watched the surf roll in I was approached by two white vagrants. We talked a bit. These fellows had been out of work for a while and were obviously hard up. They asked for a few Rands, and having none with me, I sent them on their way with a $20 Canadian bill and a promise to share it and spend it on a decent meal. There weren't too many derelicts around and certainly no overt sign of poverty in Swakopmund proper.
The black children were a similar story. They had their UNTAG scam ready when we got to Swakopmund. Their ploy was to have us sponsor them in a race. My German came in handy. when these kids approached I was able to say, "Ich habe kein Geld." Giving money away to kids is not the way to handle things. When they beg and make more hard currency than their parents, the family unit is undermined by virtue of the displacement of the father as the family's breadwinner. Solutions to poverty are indeed complex and Namibia's government has a monumental task ahead of it.
The only unpleasant incident occurred late one night when vandals damaged the Swiss medical unit's UN vehicle parked behind our bungalow. Rodrigues and McMurchy chased them away the first time they showed up, but they came back to do more damage to the Toyota later that morning. It was local 'white trash' and I'm sure SWAPOL caught up with them. Apparently UNTAG license plates were the booty in vogue.
Four of us rented a VW Golf, which gave us the wheels to make a serious attempt at a border crossing into the Walvis Bay enclave. To get there we had to cross the bridge over the empty Swakop River just a few 'klicks' south of Swakopmund. 'River' may not be the right term because it's really an underground river. When it does flow above water, infrequent though it is, the water is brackish and dirty. Ergo its name. Swakop means 'shit', mund means 'mouth', and there you have it. The Golf also enabled us to do a little sightseeing. We travelled north along the desert highway and took a little hike into the desert: an unforgetable experience being alone on the gravel plain. Took a few great pictures there, too. We also stopped nearby a desalination plant on the rocky beach as well. Back in town we visited the local SWAPO headquarters. I managed to convince the local man in charge to accept a little 'donation' of about $50.00 Cdn, about 100R I think, and unexpectedly received a SWAPO pin and a SWAPO shawl. Actually I think I split some of the take with Rodrigues, who also made a donation.
We knew perfectly well that our RSA issued passports restricted us to "South West Africa", so it wasn't a surprise when the RSA sentries instructed us to turn back. But before we did I surreptitiously snapped a picture of the border sign. It didn't bother me in any way to try to get into this part of the RSA. The enclave should clearly be a part of Namibia, but RSA was exercising as much legal power as it could to bolster its claim.
The Walvis Bay question would become crucial to Namibia's economic future, the subject of long negotiations to be sure. The Namib Desert itself was a unique, almost mystical experience. I walked about a mile off the road and took pictures for my photo album. The temperature was about 25C with an incredibly high UV radiation value. The desert in this area was known as the gravel plains; the desert bottom very crusty, like packed gravel. The wind had obviously swept the smaller grains away. Just a few kms south of us, and about 200 km north were sand dunes as high as 500 ft, among the world's highest, and very much a characteristic of the Namib.
Back to Windhoek
After a relaxing week, we prepared for our trip back to Windhoek. it was a short flight by herc, but in typical UN style our 0900 hr departure from our bungalows extended to a 1200 hr arrival at Eros. Finally disembarked and loaded up, we drove to UNTAG HQ for a light lunch and made our way to the Concordia Teacher's College where we stayed the night. The trip to the HQ was also an opportunity to do some banking, converting Rands to US dollars. Rands are restricted currency and we were advised we could only exchange 50R in Canada. The rest would be worthless outside southern Africa. A couple of us didn't realize this was our last opportunity to exchange and we ended up making a side trip to the central bank in downtown Windhoek, filling forms, getting some real money, and listening to a white bank employee's sermon about how there was no longer any discrimination in Cape Town. That afternoon our contingent attended a reception at the Canadian Mission. It was actually a beautiful house with a small swimming pool on a Windhoek hillside suburb. Champagne and hors d'ouevres and a little 'speechifying' were the order of the day. A few words by the mission head were followed by a short greeting from John Reid, humorously described afterwards as representing the Liberals. One of the Quebeckers from Ovamboland made a reference to a missing colleague and the NDP, so I butted in and, in a good humored way, dittoed Reid's remarks and gave the SWAPO salute.
"Viva SWAPO". It got the intended laugh, although SWAPO's image was less than perfect. Accusations of torture were an important issue and the question as to whether SWAPO had abandoned the principle of violence had yet to be fully answered.
After the reception we went to a Canadian army BBQ. After a clumsy bus ride up the winding Windhoek streets we sat down at HQ and sampled copious amounts of beer, South African white wine, and some BBQ'd steaks. At the bar I purchased a special UN consignment Nederburg white wine, which I later opened at Nelson Mandela's prison release a few months later, and rang the special bell, thereby donating some money to a local child welfare charity. After a few beers and good fellowship we poured ourselves back into the bus.
The next morning was reserved for shopping and sightseeing. Walking downtown from UNTAG HQ to the Kalahari Sands Hotel gave me a better impression of the city, its Afrikaner and German heritage and its cosmopolitan character. The breakfast was good, too.
On the walk over I saw the tricolor of the DTA flags flying over DTA HQ, making the building look like the French embassy. SWAPO's red, black and blue flags flew proudly over their HQ - a distinct and beautiful colour combination that would later be the basis for the new Namibian flag, with other party colours incorporated at the borders along with the symbol of the sun.
The headline in the Namibian Times that day read, "Canadian Delegation Says Elections Not Free and Fair". This was a source of some consternation in our camp even though the Namibian Times was about as accurate in its reporting as the Winnipeg Free Press. Some of us were moved to denounce the Canadian delegation - Shirley Carr et al - based on the story. I certainly felt that the headline was quite inflammatory. If that was what the delegation truly believed, they were indeed 'out to lunch'.
After lunch, on the front steps of the Concordia Teacher's College, we finally assembled for our afternoon departure to Strijdom airport. Our bus was entirely UN refrigerator white with large UN lettering, quite conspicuous as we drove through he streets of Windhoek. Everywhere locals waved to us. When we reached the airport I was surprised to see the Aeroflot take-off with the Ruskies, East Germans, Finns, Brits, and assorted others a full 12 hours behind schedule! Imagine, these folks had been in that airport for 12 hours! We worried the same fate was in store for us.
On Our Way Home
As luck would have it, our Air Zimbabwe UN charter flew in from the east at about 1730 hrs. After loading and counting heads we flew about 2 hours to Harare, Zimbabwe, and waited there over a couple of drinks at the international bar, spending our last Rand. Three hours later we were back on our plane for our 10 hour flight to London.
It was a long, boring trip up central and north west Africa in the dead of night. However, about an hour before our scheduled landing our pilot informed us that we would have to land at Manchester because visibility at Heathrow was 'below minimum standards'. An hour later than planned, we landed in the mist on a wet runway.
The fifty of us wandered Manchester Airport for 4 hours. I was part of the lost tribe spending my last foreign currency on orange juice and mint chocolate ice cream cones. At the end of it all we jumped back in our Air Zimbabwe plane and flew to Gatwick where we soon got on to a British Airways Airbus to Montreal.
We finally departed Gatwick at about 1730 GMT. Six hours later, after watching Batman on the in-flight movie, we landed at Mirabel, 1800 hrs EST, welcomed by a brutally cold winter day. At 7 pm we arrived at Dorval, and after picking up a new ticket - I had chucked my original ticket somewhere on my travels -I was the last person to hop on Air Canada to Winnipeg via Toronto. I arrived in Winnipeg at 10:00 CST, some 22 hours of flying, over 2 and 1/2 days later, just as I was getting the knack of sleeping on an airplane. And through it all, my souvenir African cane miraculously followed me all the way home, even though it separated from my luggage five times in five different airports.
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