DATE=12/20/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=NAMIBIA / ANGOLA, INTERVIEW
NUMBER=2-257329
BYLINE=DELIA ROBERTSON
DATELINE=JOHANNESBURG
CONTENT=
INTRO: Last month/In November, Angolan government
forces launched an offensive towards the southern
strongholds of the rebel UNITA movement. Namibia, an
ally of the Angolan government, is allowing Angolan
forces to operate from the so-called Caprivi Strip, a
panhandle of Namibian territory running along Angola's
south eastern border. There have been reports of
human rights atrocities committed by Angolan forces
against the local populations in villages near the
Namibian border. V-O-A's Delia Robertson spoke with
reporter John Grobler who has just returned from a
visit to the area and who describes what he saw.
TEXT:
Grobler: We'd been hearing rumors of atrocities being
committed on the Angolan side of the Kavango border.
But it was very difficult to get to any of that. The
border itself is now heavily lined with soldiers and
police from both the Namibian and the Angolan
governments. And then we traveled to a place just
outside of Rundu, about 20 kilometers outside of
Rundu, and the local people started telling us of what
they had seen on the other side. Basically on Tuesday
morning last week, the Angolan army attacked all of
the villages on the other sides of the river.
Robertson: Who is being attacked.
Grobler: Now these are not UNITA people, they're just
the Pengo community who have been living there for
years and years - long before UNITA moved into the
area in 1975. People were all rounded up at gunpoint.
Homes and huts were looted and then burned - you know
people watched. In fact, a group of tourists,
including American tourists videotaped the women and
children being marched into the bush, and the men in a
separate group. Then later they heard gunshots.
I then, with help of some of the local people, managed
to cross the border avoiding the patrols and took a
look - a brief look I should stress - in an area of
about one kilometer by one kilometer. And found nine
bodies scattered throughout the bush. Always in close
proximity of a village - every hut and house and
little structure over there was looted and burned.
The bodies that we found all showed signs of having
been tortured - you know scalped, hands chopped off,
teeth knocked out, then executed with a single shot to
the forehead.
Robertson: What about the women and children?
Grobler: What happened to the children and women we
are not sure. The local people said, and this is by
way of some of those who managed to escape and try
keep an eye on what is going on and eventually managed
to go and hide on the Namibian side of the border,
said the women and children were marched to an army
base named Boando [or something like that] about 20
kilometers away from the border where the grossest
imaginable things were done to them. There is no
independent confirmation of that, but [based] on what
I saw within a kilometer of the border, I fear for the
worst.
Robertson: John, you were able to visit an area, you
said, of about a kilometer square. Were you able to
speak to people on the Namibian side of the border,
stretching further along, did they observe similar
incidents?
Grobler: All along the border there are quite a few
[tourist] lodges situated along this border, and I
have seen videotaped evidence of what is going on.
They typically attack villages in the early mornings
with heavy weaponry, blasting away at the place, and
then rounding up the bewildered population and
marching them off into the bushes. The local
population, the black population, the indigeneous
people, are very afraid to talk. But in some cases,
people confirm obliquely what is going on. You know
the friend over there is now dead, and his cattle
[are] now being sold here. But people don't want to
talk - they are very afraid.
NEB/DAR/GE
20-Dec-1999 09:57 AM EDT (20-Dec-1999 1457 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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