MAPUTA – Swapo secretary general Sophia Shaningwa has appealed to President Nangolo Mbumba and home affairs minister Albert Kawana to attend to the stateless Maputa villagers living in Bwabwata National Park in the Mukwe constituency of the Kavango East region.
Hundreds of them are without national documents. “No drought relief, no grants, Harambee nothing; they won’t be able to vote. I wanted to know when the national documents are coming here. We want the SG to say something about that. These are Namibians. Their elders were born here but were chased out by the war. After the war, they came back to settle on their land, and they are being called names like foreigners. They are not foreigners,” said Kristian Kalyangu Muriki, Mukwe Swapo district coordinator, during a mini rally at the village on Saturday.
Maputa villagers are labelled foreigners.
“We should never be doubted, and we cannot be taken as foreigners or people of no value. We are even being prevented from making use of income generating activities like selling firewood or cutting poles to sell. But environment officials do not allow us; we have seen it being done in other areas, but we are restricted,’’ said the village headman, Mbambo Marando.
“We want to be taken seriously. We also fought for this country’s independence, and Namibia got full independence. We want you to take this message,” he told Shaningwa.
“Comrade Nangolo Mbumba, President of the Republic of Namibia, comrade Albert Kawana, minister of home affairs and immigration, today I am visiting a village called Maputa at Omega Number 1,” said the Swapo secretary general.
Shaningwa said historically, these people were taken out by South African law because the area was declared a war zone, and therefore they were forcefully taken to areas close to the borders of Angola, Zambia and Botswana. But after independence, they decided to come back, and they are being treated as foreigners.
“Comrade President, I am simply demonstrating that I am on the ground, and I have specifically chosen not to come and report by word of mouth but to have an indication with the people standing behind me that all of them do not have birth certificates, nor do they have identification cards,” she said.
“We are the government of Namibia; we made sure that water through boreholes, schools, clinics, and a police station have been provided to them; contrary, we cannot give them national documents. It’s like a contradiction, Comrade President, and therefore there is a need for Cde Kawana to send his officials to establish an office under these trees to take care of our people because they do not have any other country; they belong to Namibia,” Shaningwa said.