By Kuvee Kangueehi Windhoek Members of the Swapo Party in the National Assembly voted against a motion by Congress of Democrats (CoD) President Ben Ulenga to debate the recent beating and torture of opposition leaders in Zimbabwe. Despite a plea from the Speaker of the National Assembly, Theo-Ben Guirirab, to allow Ulenga to motivate his motion, the Swapo parliamentarians insisted that the decision should go down to voting, and a total of 31 Swapo MPs voted against, while only nine voted for the motion. Nobody abstained, although some senior leaders tried to lobby their fellow parliamentarians to abstain just before the voting started. At a joint press conference arranged during the parliament tea break by all opposition parties, except the Republican Party, Ulenga said he has no problem with the Swapo Party opposing the motion but said he is concerned about the state of denial in the Namibian Parliament. Noting that he wanted to condemn the torture and maltreatment of opposition leaders and members in Zimbabwe, Ulenga said he also wanted to call on the Namibian Government to use its diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe to persuade the Zimbabwe government to desist from further trampling on the human rights of its citizens. Ulenga expressed his dismay and said the CoD National Chairman, Tsudao Gurirab, was currently in Zimbabwe with other duties but was expected to contact MDC members to express their solidarity. McHenry Venaani of the DTA, on behalf of his party, said Zimbabwe should learn that human rights was a universal issue and not a privilege. He noted that it was embarrassing for the Namibian parliament to throw out the motion without listening to the motivation. He also took a swipe at the Minister of Labour and Social Services, Alpheus !Naruseb, who remarked that they were also arrested by the South African regime. “For !Naruseb to justify what is happening in Zimbabwe to what the South African regime did to Namibians before independence, is totally unacceptable.” He charged that SADC has failed with its quiet diplomacy to address problems in Zimbabwe, adding that the issue in Zimbabwe is no longer a land issue but a regime that has run the economy down. Arnold Tjihuiko, on behalf of Nudo, warned that Namibia is heading the same way and in 10 years the country could face the same problems as Zimbabwe. He added that in 1980 the inflation in Zimbabwe was just above 6 percent, but today it is over 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000 percent. Tjihuiko also noted that Swapo threw out the motion on the Lubango dungeons because they feared being exposed, but failed to understand what they are hiding in this motion. “The Swapo Party has shown its true colours, and now we know what happened during exile.” However, the Zimbabwe issue is expected to feature again today in Parliament as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marco Hausiku, is expected to answer questions regarding the situation in the country.