Walking the Berkshires

Sir Robert No More

Sir Robert Mugabe, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath since 1994, is to be stripped of that honor by Great Britain.  Not that this will matter to him in the least, but it has certainly taken far too long for Britain to get around to disassociating Zimbabwe's brutal dictator from this title.  UMass barely beat the Brits to the punch in revoking Mugabe's honorary degree on June 12th, which he had held since 1986.  The Edinburgh University yanked his 1984 honorary doctorate still earlier on July 17th, 2007.  A belated groundswell?

Not really, as  Michigan State University still refuses to revoke Mugabe's honorary degree. 

Also today, the massive mining concern Anglo American announced it is investing in a Zimbabwe platinum mine to the tune of US$400 million, which is mighty white of them.   Divestment be damned in the global marketplace.  And what's good for Barclays is good for Zimbabwe, right?  But at least they don't have to call him Sir or Dr., anymore.  That's gotta hurt.

"We Apologize Because This Is Not Who We Are"; What Southern Africa Really Owes Zimbabwe

The African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, has issued a strongly worded statement condemning repression of democratic rights in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.  Meanwhile, the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeke, who lost control of his own party last December, has remained silent.  In neighboring Namibia, the Prime Minister Nahas Angula voiced concern last week about the upcoming runoff elections in Zimbabwe and called for increasing the number of observers. 

Since then, of course, the opposition leader has pulled out of the elections and fled to the Embassy of the Netherlands in the wake of surging violence and police action against members of his party.  Namibia has not condemned Mugabe's regime either, and its Defense Force Chief has just returned from a 4 day trip to Zimbabwe where he assured the Zimbabwean media:

"The relationship between Namibia and Zimbabwe is growing from strength to strength. We share so many things. We have so many things in common. We would want to build on that relationship,"

What southern Africa nations share with Zimbabwe, in addition to a common history of liberation struggle and instability during the Cold War / Apartheid years, are complex economic dependencies, most significantly with regard to access to electrical power.  This month Namibia doubled its power imports from Zimbabwe. 

"[In March],Nampower advanced US$40 million to Zimbabwe to assist with the refurbishment of four electricity generating units at its coal-fired Hwange Power Station in return for a guaranteed supply of 150 megawatts for the next five years.

NamPower's managing director Paulinus Shilamba said the rehabilitation of the first unit has been completed, allowing for the increased power production.

Shilamba said the utility was not concerned that the deteriorating situation would affect Zimbabwe's ability to honor the agreement despite the power station being plagued with breakdowns and a shortage of parts in the country.

"They (Zimbabwe) have been very good in fulfilling their commitment and we have a lot of confidence in these guys," Shilamba said."

Even as many world powers call for the isolation of Zimbabwe, including a unanimous vote of the UN Security Council which said that "a free and fair election was impossible if violence and intimidation continued",  Russia, China and South Africa blocked stronger language in the UN measure that would have recognized opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as "the legitimate president, until another fair election can be held."  China and South Africa are Zimbabwe's biggest trading partners, and both are heavily invested in the regional economy. 

There is also a strong sensitivity in southern Africa to interference in the affairs of sovereign nations.  Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe overcame these qualms as participants in the The Second Congo War, which was as much a scramble for resources as an expression of solidarity and regional alliances.  Some of this reticence is cultural; with the exception of leaders like Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere, there is not a strong tradition of former African leaders making a successful transition to senior statesmen.  Some of it comes from looking over their shoulders.  And some of it is ideological - resistance movements that become ruling parties after achieving Independence are used to identifying external threats and avoiding turning the lens on internal shortcomings.

Alan Little of the BBC cautions his readers today; "Do not underestimate the psychology of Africa's liberation tradition." This tradition is also what makes this e-mail letter from a South African to Zimbabwean refugees who have suffered a murderous backlash in his own country so telling:

"...I have been pondering whether to write this email or not, but mainly because I was ashamed of what this beautiful countries (sic) of ours has become.

In your country:  My democracy was conceived when the MK soldiers fought alongside the ZIPRA forces in what was known as the Wankie Campaign in 1967.  My brothers and sisters were looked after in Lusaka and they were given shelter.  The blood of my brothers and sisters were spilled in Maputo in what was known as Matola raid on January 31, 1981 and your government gave them a state burial.  The blood of my people was spilled in Maseru in what was known as the Maseru Massacre and your government gave them a state burial.  The foundation of my democracy was laid in Mongoro Tanzania in 1969 in what was known as the Morogoro resolution.  Your country gave my people land for them to be educated at Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) in Mazimbu Tanzania.  My soldiers were trained in Uganda, Lusaka, Angola, Mozambique, Algeria, Libya, Cuba, Russia.  They fought in Cuinto Canhavallo alongside their Angolan, Namibian as well as the Cuban comrades in Angola.  My democracy was delivered in Harare when the Harare Declaration was signed with the support of the Frontline States.  my Movement's Congress was held in your country in 1985 in Kitwe, Zambia.

Your people protected, clothed and loved my movement.  My people's struggle became your own struggle.  Not once did you call them with derogatory names.  Not once did you burn my brothers and sisters and not once did you say they are taking your jobs and women.

But most importnatly, I have a home in Harare at pastor Murefu's house, Zimbabwe.  I have a home in Lilongwe at Cyprian's house, Malawi.  I have a home in Kenya at Levi Nyambati's house.  I have a home in Lusaka, Chipata, Mapanza as well as Livingstone with the BBalo and the Mutare family respectively, Zambia.  My brother is lying in Mapanza, Zambia.  I have a home in Mozambique at Pastor Nhantumbo's family (May his soul rest in peace).  I have a home in Ivory Coast as well as DRC Kinshasa with Vincent Tohbi.  I am married to the grand daughter of the Sena people in Malawi, Mozambique as well as Zimbabwe.  My wife's maternal grandparents are in Swaziland.

My brothers, I apologize to you, your friends and your families for the barbaric action that you see in our country.  I apologize to Kenyatta, Nkrumah, Machel, Tongoara, Mwalimu Nyerere, Aostinho Nehto, Mondlane, etc.  I apologize on behalf of my leaders as well as my people that this is not who we are and this is not what makes us.  I apologize and I would like to tell you that this is not the view of my country, but the thuggery elements in our society who will use and drag our name in mud to achieve their evil deeds.  I would also like to assure you that our government as well as the members of our society at large, are working hard to root out these elements in our society.

We apologize because this is not who we are.

I hope you will find it in your hearts to open your doors and not to let these barbaric actions come between our friendship and all the wonderful things we have shared.  My home is your home and I trust and believe that your home will remain my home.  This I write from my heavy heart and i truly apologize on behalf of my firends, my family as well as all South Africans.

Freddy Tshikala, South African"

The return to the bad old days of regional instability and the specter of burning necklace victims once more in the townships have shaken people like Mr. Tshikala and those like him who were raised in a culture of pan-African resistance where "an injury to one is an injury to all."  They grieve for what Zimbabwe has become under Mugabe, their former comrade and supporter.  But they also grieve for what they have become, as nations and people who by their actions and inactions are now complicit in the repression of those who stood by them when the oppressor was always external and not one of their own.  Finding their courage and helping their leaders find theirs is the best hope for Democracy in the region. 

May it come in time for Zimbabwe.

Nothing Beside Remains

Nothing like a ghost town in the desert to get me thinking on Ozymandias:

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

This place was called Kolmanskop and it lies in the restricted diamond area or Sperrgebiet about 10 kilometers inland from Namibia's sand swept port Luderitz.  In the early 1900s it was a German mining town, complete with wooden skittle alley, and now the dunes rise to the rafters.

A good place to explore if you are in the neighborhood.  There is precious little else you can do on the road from Aus to Luderitz except look for wild desert horses and drive around the sand that drifts across the tar road.  There is, or used to be, an L-shaped pool table in a German bar back up the road in Keetmanshoop that I have fond memories of playing.

Cassinga

Thirty years ago today, the South African Defense Force conducted a major air and ground assault in Angola on a base of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) at a place called Cassinga.  In Namibia, Cassinga Day is a holiday of national remembrance that commemorates the deaths of more than 600 Namibian refugees at the base (nearly 300 of them children), and on May 6th, 1978 UN Resolution 428 condemned the attack.  The SADF maintained into the 1990s that Cassinga was a legitimate military target, and the Wikipedia entry for Cassinga was written with that bias.  The bush war on the Angola / Namibia border was a vicious, dirty business, funded as a proxy conflict by the cold war superpowers, and there are many unanswered questions about what took place during Namibia's 23 year armed liberation struggle. 

The political consequences of Cassinga were of great significance.  1978 was a watershed year for Namibian independence.  Before the attack, discussions were underway with South Africa through the so-called Western Contact Group to reach a settlement on Namibia, while simultaneously the apartheid regime moved to consolidate its grip on the country and extend its reach militarily.  Cassinga set back those discussions.  In August, 1978, the UN Passed Resolution 435 to ensure the early independence of Namibia.  It took more than a decade, and a massive land battle at Cuito Cuanavale in the twilight of the Cold War, to lead to its implementation.

[I have a strange and not at all bellicose connection to all this, as I met my wife on Cassinga Day, 1991, when all the stores in Namibia were closed and she and her two Peace Corps site mates came in from Bushmanland for their monthly resupply run in Grootfontein.  I happened to be at the post office, and saw three obvious Americans in a place where these were quite rare.  The pale, blond one caught my eye, and I had worked out who they were before I said "Hi."  I was wearing my black Akuba cowboy hat, which proved to be significant because the next time she saw me, walking past the Meteor Hotel bar, she remembered the hat and called out the window.  We've been together ever since.]

In 1992 I lived in the far north of Namibia, a place that had been a war zone just a couple of years before.   When the US offered to send Peace Corps Volunteers to Namibia in 1990, the new SWAPO government - perhaps unclear on the concept - asked if they could assist in de-mining operations, and indeed there were places in the region where I lived and taught where the mines had yet to be cleared.  Land mines were a major factor in that war, and the SADF used vehicles called Casspirs with V shaped undersides to deflect the blasts, a design that the US has only recently developed for use in Iraq.  Casspirs were most notoriously used by South Africa's counter-insurgency police unit Koevoet, whose commander Eugene de Kock aka "Prime Evil" was later convicted of crimes against humanity, and along with other ex Koevoet members testified before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Cassinga was not Koevoet's work.  It was the first of many preemptive strikes launched by the SADF on SWAPO bases in Angola, and its first major air assault of the conflict. In testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, ex-SADF Special Forces Officer Lieutenant Johan Friedrich Verster stated:

"I was then in the military, you know in the paratroopers and the Special Forces, and I was decorated for a couple of operations in South West Africa. I don't know if I must apply for amnesty for Cassinga. It was probably the most bloody exercise that we ever launched ... we were parachuted into that target ... It was a terrible thing. I saw many things that happened there but I don't want to talk about it now because I always start crying about it. It's damaged my life." 

 

Ask For Diamonds, Settle for Treasure

Not everybody can say that lightning struck them twice.  But while sucking alluvial diamonds off the  seabed in Namibia, a mining company found sunken treasure:

"The country's diamond company, Namdeb, says it found the wreck during operations on the seabed.

The find includes three bronze cannons, thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, and several tonnes of elephant tusks.

There were also human remains and navigational instruments. Excavations in the area were halted immediately.

Archaeological experts have identified the cannons as coming from early 16th-Century Spain.

It is thought to be the oldest shipwreck ever discovered in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Namdeb said it came across the wreck on April 1 during operations in the Atlantic after finding some copper ingots and the cannons.

The company is speculating that the ship may be linked to Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, who went missing in 1500 after becoming the first European seafarer to round the Cape of Good Hope."

Bartholomeu Dias was the Magellan of the East, rounding the Cape of Storms (now the Cape of Good Hope) in 1488.  He drowned on a subsequent voyage (after discovering Brazil) when his ship and three others were lost, supposedly near the Cape, in May of 1500.  However, there is speculation that this Namibian shipwreck, off Namibia's southwest coast, could be associated with Dias.  First reports say the cannons and some of the coins are supposedly early 16th century, near contemporaneous but still after his death, but there is much more to learn about this remarkable find.

Hat Tip: Jungle Trader

A Granddaughter Remembers Rubert Fothergill

Last year I wrote about Rupert Fothergill, the Rhodesian Game Ranger who spearheaded a 5 year rescue mission to safe thousands of wild animals from the rising waters of Lake Kariba.  Now his granddaughter Kirsten Drysdale has embarked on a labor of love with her new blog Operation Noah, sharing Fothergill's story and a trove of family memories and memorabilia.  Her most remarkable undertaking is to digitize the 16mm films he made of the rescue effort.  Her own effort is in its early days, but will clearly be one to watch.  In the meantime, Kirsten has also posted this, made by the Rhodesian government with Fothergill's footage:

Elephants Like White Hills

Here is a breeding herd of desert-adapted elephants trying not to be seen.  (Click to enlarge).

I once walked within 30 feet of an adult male elephant without either of us noticing the other.  It was lying asleep under a tree.  Fortunately for both of us, it responded to my foolish inquiry "Are you okay?" by rising up with what seemed like lightning speed and disappearing in the other direction.  I was later told that an elephant only lies down to sleep when it feels very very secure.  I doubt that one ever did again.

Owambos Adorned

I learned a good many things about photography while living in Africa.  I found it is particularly challenging to photograph dark skinned people in harsh desert light.  A fair number of my slides of indigenous people from this period came out too dark and I set them aside, but now that I am scanning my old slides and have access to editing software there are hidden treasures to reveal.

These two women were off to the left of a wide crowd shot I took on an extraordinary day in late August, 1992 in northern Namibia.  It was August 26th, Ongulumbashe Day in Namibia, the day now called Heroes Day that coincides with the opening engagement of the armed liberation struggle in 1966 against apartheid South Africa.  I was living and teaching at that time about 30 kilometers from Ongulumbashe, but the road to that remote cattle post had not been fully de-mined and it would be another 5 years before I would actually visit the site. 

On this day, though, it seemed as if all of Ovamboland were convening in one central place for a great rally, and modernity gave way to tradition.  Old women who normally dressed in modest print dresses pulled down their cow tail switches and pelts from the rafters of their huts, donned their shell beads and adornments, walked barebreasted out into the sunlight and so rolled back the decades by at least 50 years.  I saw Kwanyama men wearing skirts and what looked like old German Schutztruppe hats with ostrich plumes carried their massive drums, 2 meters long and carved from the trunks of trees.  Young men performed great leaping feats, vaulting over each other in the warrior's ompembe dance. 

The two women above are wearing the traditional headdress of the Ngandjera, one of seven sub-groups within   the Oshiwambo-speaking people of Namibia.  The rally was at their principal settlement Ongandjera, the home of Sam Nujoma, the founding president of Namibia.  It was the only time I ever saw so many Ovambo people wearing their traditional garb.  The distinguishing feature of the Ngandjera headdress are the three, crescent shaped appendages that hang on either side of the head and down the  back.  In 1982, the colonial government of what was then known as Southwest Africa released a series of stamps depicting traditional headdresses from various tribal groups, including the Ngandjera and Kwanyama types, both of which I saw at the rally that day.

The Ovambo outnumber all the other ethnic groups in Namibia and dominate Namibia's ruling SWAPO party.  For that reason, and particularly in those first years of independence, SWAPO promotes a national rather than a tribal identity.  One nation, one Namibia was the path forward for this nation rent by war and the divisions of apartheid that set group against group.  On this day, in the President's hometown, I saw the Ovambo celebrate their tribal identifies, and I heard Sam Nujoma speak not in the labored, thickly accented English of his office but the soaring, animated language of his birth. 

My friend Michael and I were the only two Americans there, and aside from a reporter or two we were the only whites celebrating Ongulumbashe Day with these tens of thousands of Owambos.   This was a day for Namibians, but it was even more a day for the people of the north, and they showed that while they could set aside their tribal identities for the sake of national unity, they still had rich and vibrant traditions of their own, and among their own they would celebrate them. 

A Long Drive off a Short Pier

This is one of my favorite road signs of all time, photographed in Luderitz, Namibia.  One imagines that there was once some ghastly incident involving a myopic motorist and an unexpected plunge into the harbor that prompted South African officialdom to create an official roadsign for this situation. It certainly gives new meaning to the term "offroading."

Although maybe it should be interpreted; "This way for the carwash!"

Solitude

I got a snappy new slide scanner for my birthday, which means I am now immersed in the years I spent as a young man in Africa, nearly half a lifetime ago.  These were formative years, and much the same as when I look at the glaciers of my mountaineering youth, I wonder; "Am I that young man who explored those strange places, who saw such marvels and lived so deeply?"

So much of those experiences abides with me, as vivid in my mind's eye as the ocher dunes of Sossusvlei, the red sand streaming from their bleeding edges.  I had a strong taste for the extremes of nature then, for icy summits and pounding surf and the vastness of deserts.  These places make some people feel their insignificance and isolation more acutely.  For me they gave a center, sharpened my senses, offered humility and confidence in equal measure. 

Such grreat open spaces are far from empty, and even more than the spectacular scenery and unusual wildlife, relationships with people had the greatest impact.  I cannot look at the Twyfelfontein valley with its eroded stone and thousands of ancient petroglyphs without thinking of Elias Xoagub and his family and the times we shared together.  The 5th grade students I taught when I was 23 are now in their late 20s themselves.  I like to think that 10-year-old Theofelus Indongo and Cornelius Tsauseb went on to lead happy, productive lives, though the odds are far greater that they struggled.  I like to think that the baby baboon we had to turn loose on her own at the foot of Van Bach Dam was taken in by the nearby troop and not killed by them.   

We have the moments we have.  Then we have memories that we carry forward.  It matters how one informs the other - the meaning we give to memory and the choices that memory prescribes for the future - but the moment matters more because in the moment lies possibility, and sometimes inspiration.