Police’s Protest Ban Designed To Stifle Rights

MY sincere apologies to the oppressed people of Swaziland and thousands of others from countries such as Zimbabwe who came to Namibia with the hope of getting their voices heard through a peaceful demonstration.

I am embarrassed, but at the same time also saddened, by the decision taken by our Police to ban demonstrations where you had planned to air your legitimate concerns about human rights violations by mainly securocrats back home.
I know that SADC meetings are not just about human rights issues in Zimbabwe and Swaziland. Our leaders spent hours discussing pertinent concerns such as electricity for the region, food security, regional integration, job creation and a new customs union. Some other issues were on the table.
While I appreciate the discussions as well as the time spent on preparing the summit, I was very depressed by the extent to which our Police went to silence the voice of the masses.
The Minister of Safety knows, as do the rest of the Cabinet and top Police officers, that the ban on demonstrations announced very late last week was a calculated move aimed at stifling the voices of the masses and had almost zilch to do with the availability of the officers to ensure the safety of the demonstrators.
I use the term ‘calculated’ because the ban was issued very late on Thursday and hardly gave any challenger time to approach the courts before this week.
Secondly, the Police knew very well that they had no powers to ban a demonstration for the reasons they gave.
In fact, in 1997, following several anti-Government demonstrations, former President Sam Nujoma announced a ban on all demonstrations not authorised by the Police but there was a legal challenge which nullified the decision. One of them was against a planned demonstration by the Himba people who were opposing the construction of the Epupa dam.
The Namibian Police probably took a leaf out of the books of their counterparts in South Africa last year when the Tshwane Metro police refused to give Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change a go-ahead to stage a demonstration on the sidelines of the SADC emergency summit on Zimbabwe in Pretoria.
There were reports that the Namibian ban was mainly instigated by the fact that the demonstrations were initiated by the opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress who wanted to apparently embarrass the Government.
Whether the demonstration was instigated by RDP, MDC, any other political party, or was just a move by furious masses yearning for change, is not the issue for me.
What the Police did was to disrespect the same laws they are trying to enforce on people!
They knew very well from previous experience that the courts would declare their action invalid but they went ahead to declare a ban on demonstrations. They knew that, if anybody wanted to challenge their decision, they would have to approach the courts and that there was a likelihood that such a hearing would only take place a day or two after the summit.
While many would probably find the Police action clever in this respect, it brought to the fore a vexatious disrespect for the laws by people who are entrusted to enforce them.
Police chief General Sebastian Ndeitunga argued, through his lawyer Gerson Hinda, that the move was just a “limitation” and not a ban.
For me the approach was as an ostrich-head-in-the-sand one which, in similar instances over the years, gave more power to thuggish rulers to continue oppressing people.
For instance, someone who rules Africa’s last absolute monarchy as his own personal fiefdom got protection and was thus left with an arrogant impression that the rest of SADC agrees with the spate of human rights abuses occurring in Swaziland.
These are the same people who are dragging the reputation and image of SADC down.
SADC Inc.’s success depends on tackling, among others, human rights issues, instead of unholy alliances with one another, and the actions of our Police did not help much in this regard.