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Caprivi the Controversial Land
August 30, 2013
Caprivi the Controversial Land

I wish to acknowledge all those who have positively contributed to or aired their displeasure to the move taken by the President and his henchmen in Caprivi. Other people consider the art of asking first as a wage paying wisdom. What comes with the name change? Wise leaders leave legacy behind them, that people can cherish in life on the other hand we have leaders that come and go leaving symbolic heirloom that his predecessor struggle to clean up. “Geingob there you are”. I have seen much of same with the first President Mr Sam Nujoma who left Caprivi in tartars and Caprivians in a messy and tears, now is Mr Pohamba dusking Caprivians into war with Kavango, implementing the divide and rule tactics well ahead before retiring. Mr President we are Caprivians, could you please learn to respect other people's history and territory. To be frank, the question behind the name change is more political, tribal and strategic aiming at destroying and creating confusion among the people of the entity. We will not embrace idiotic action taken by uninformed decision.

The history of Caprivi is so clear ultimately I am sorry for those of the likes of Dr Kangumu, Charles Mubita, with their distorted and selective history of what suited them with the name change. This in itself shows that they have no regard to the true history of Caprivi with misleading ignorance of the reality. Both of your history creates more trouble than assisting. From time immemorial, Caprivi has been or undergone different pre-colonial and colonial administrations. Before that Caprivi had its original name from the first inhabitant of the entity. The majority of the people would disagree but that is the reality and no amount of spin of history will change the facts and what is in black and white. There is no fear to say it was called Linyandi and Imataa Kabainda as the custodian of the land. I was wondering why this was not mentioned. We have more of academics in Caprivi who totally disagree with the version of your lecture of history. We have more history sources to draw the correct history of Caprivi than to give false history to your own children in return of protecting your position.

Needless to say the people of Caprivi deserve better educational information that is beneficial to all the inhabitants of the entity nor our beloved motherland. The people of Caprivi do not need a name that is intended for the sake of unifying purposes while it has its historical name. Its ridiculous to instil fear that using the historical name will divide the people. All the articles that was written after the announcement in favour of the name change, I remain unconvinced that there is any satisfying reason given as to the need for the name change. Saying Caprivi is a colonial name is not an issue in itself because no argument about it- that’s a fact. However, using it as a reason for changing it holds no water because any normal person can make reference to other places of interest that bears colonial connection that remained unchanged and no prospects for them to change in the future. The question comes to all Caprivians, why Caprivi? I guess you get to the core of the question as many have already named places of interests mostly named like Windhoek, Swapo, Lucas, including famous places under hardliner leaders, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe ( 33 years after independence), Kruger National Park in South Africa as well as Francistown in Botswana never changed. One would ask as to what is so special with changing other colonial names and leaving others? This clearly shows that there is something sinister behind the scene no wonder the people were not appropriately, methodically and accordingly consulted. If names matters much to the President he should consider changing all other names that bears colonial connection, you have a number of them in Windhoek.

I am totally against the name change because it comes with controversy that leaves historical brothers at war with each other. This is the worst ever action undertaken by any reasonable president in the world to change the name of an entity that was named before he was born and where he was never born, more strangely without any legal process. Surprisingly, the President and his henchmen changed the name Caprivi for being a colonial name but could not reject it when the Germans annexed Caprivi to SWA/ Namibia and they did not bother then to change its name. Why embracing the annexation and fail to recognize the name? From the change I don’t think there is anything special that would benefit nor change anything in terms of the lives of the residents of the entity. The President should be ashamed for poor judgement that make him sleepless because of petty issues of changing names. This demonstrates and cast doubt on the leadership of Namibia focusing on simple name change leaving big agendas facing the country. How embarrassing two full terms in office, the achievement is only changing colonial names, what a shame to the highest office of the land addressing the country over re-renaming schuckmannsburg to (Luhonono). Imagine, somebody in the status of the President spending time on renaming a village, not a town, district, or centre. What a move against the colonisers but goes back to them to ask for money. The President need to explain to the people of Caprivi and the country at large which is thrown in the steam of confusion in terms of the reasons for the name change. Some of us we are worried and concerned with the deterioration of the President’s leadership and mental state of phobia brought in by colonial names.

Services

It remains yet to be seen what is contained in the name Zambezi. Mr President, Caprivians are wise and mature enough if you don’t mind that they are more than capable of making decision of their own for their own good. Can you please leave us alone for God’s sake? Services to the regions from the government I guess do not come through regional names. But this is beyond doubt it is made clear that Caprivi was neglected because of the name and what is attached to it. We are not blind we see and realise what is happening. We know for sure East Kavango was created with the intention of loathing the Caprivi resources.

Development and employment

It is hard to imagine whether development, employment and service delivery comes with name change. The agenda for vision 2030 is pressing and abandoned to confront the issue of Caprivi which is more worrying in Namibia than anything else. Mr Pohamba and your advisors, clearly this shows how out of touch you are to other people. What have the people of Caprivi did to deserve this? We have no choice but forced to think that this is a war against Caprivians, Mr Muyongo in particular.

The name change is associated with radically minded individual some of them who believe democracy is a crap. There is no correlation ( a reciprocal relation or mutual relation) between name change and development. Imagine the fever that this issue brought and how it was rushed into parliament bubbled to avoid scrutiny. Issues of this magnitude in a fragile region require plebiscite (referendum), a vote for the people to decide on a question of national importance. The government and other cadres claim to say all chiefs signed for the name change is a lie yet this was done by their remote controlled council and for swapo led government to achieve their undisclosed objectives towards Caprivi.

Muyongo

People of Caprivi should not be victimised because of the war the government of the day is wedging against Mr Muyongo. With him (Mr Muyongo) being still alive the swapo led government will be restless and would want him dead because he knows the truth.Yet again here we can see the silencing of the name Linyanti. The reason for this to my knowledge is that Linyanti is associated with the name of Caprivi. I fail to understand the mechanism and realistic understanding of the president H.E Mr Lucas Hifikepunye Pohamba of understanding the rights of minority people for example Mayeyi people’s right to be on their own if it is constitutional, how is the same or related close or section interpreted to Caprivians having their self-determination differ in contexts? Citing the Mayeyi as an example does not mean I have anything against them rather to make my point clear to the sitting president and her government.

Given the problems in the Caprivi as well as the responses that people provided it was enough and pervade for the right decision to be taken. If the reasonable test hypothesis would be used, I doubt that any reasonable person of his position (the president) or even a village headman would have taken such a decision. No wonder, some of the people referred the president as a strait jacket.

This was the poorest move ever done by a sitting President in my entire life what a shame because he has proven failure in understanding the magnitude of issues his country is facing that he decided to put ice upon for taking a ridiculous damaging decision without significant consultations. I cast doubt that this is the work of the delimitation commission because this issue has been playing in the mouth of the government for sometime. There is no amount of spin will ever change the reality on the ground.

I do understand that this is a genuine intended error done after being influenced by misguided remedying the situation that is escalated by the same hand that fuelled the fire.

I don’t think saying Caprivi is a colonial name as a reason for the changing is conversing because there are quite a number of colonial names that Pohamba calls every day but never changed them and I remain optimistic if ever they will be changed in the near future. This is questionable. Colonial or not colonial name, the name Caprivi was long before attached to our lives not only that our history and no matter what that history remains. If change for the name “Caprivi” was inevitable with the recommendation of the people of Caprivi well and good people have spoken then we are waiting to here again when will the will of the people be done to have self-determination leading to total freedom of the Caprivi.

However, this issue remains in the hands of all Caprivians to come together as one and clean up their house to and to put it in order. For sure no one else will ever help us to solve this problem if we don't do it ourselves. Komu ku tusa ye itusa!

Time is now for us to speak with one voice.

FORWARD EVER AND BACKWARD NEVER!!!

Nalisa


Source: Caprivi Strip


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