History

KATIMA MULILO RESOLUTION
KATIMA MULILO RESOLUTION

Unanimously adopted at the Third National Convention of the
UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE CAPRIVI STRIP
held at KAT1MA MULILO
10-04-1997

Political Resolution Unanimously Adopted at the 3rd National Convention of the United Democratic Party of the Caprivi Strip Held at Katima Mulilo on April 10,1997.
Whereas throughout the centuries from the dawn of history the Namibian and Caprivian nations have divided between them the possession of South West Africa, the Namibians inhabiting the interior of the country in its Southern and Western parts and the Caprivians possessing the North-Eastern parts;
And whereas the Caprivi Strip was colonised by the British in 1884 and from them by the Germans in 1890 and the South Africans in turn independent of the Namibian people;
And whereas the South African Colonists who ruled the territories of the Namibian and Caprivian Nations separately joined under compulsion the territories of South West Africa for purposes of administrative convenience in 1981;
And whereas the Caprivian Leaders were in the forefront of the Freedom movement to rid South West Africa of colonial bondage which ultimately led to the grant of independence to Namibia in 1990;
And whereas the foregoing facts of history were completely overlooked and power was transferred to the Namibian nation over the entire country on the basis of a numerical majority thereby reducing the Caprivi nation to the position of subject people;
And whereas the Namibian government since independence has always encouraged and fostered the aggressive nationalism of the Owambo people and has used its political power to the detriment of the Caprivians by -

(a) Depriving one half of the Caprivian people of their citizenship and franchise rights thereby reducing Caprivi representation in Parliament,
(b) Making serious inroads into the territories of the Caprivi Nation by a system of planned and state-aided Namibian colonisation and large-scale regulation of recently encouraged Namibian encroachments calculated to -make the Caprivians a minority in their own homeland,
(c) Making Owambo the only official language throughout Namibia thereby placing the stamp of inferiority on the Caprivians and the Caprivian Languages,
(d) Giving lie foremost place to Owaniboism under the Republican constitution thereby reducing the Caprivians to second-class status in this Country,
(e) Denying to the Caprivians equality of opportunity in the spheres of employment, education, land alienation and economic life in general and starving the Caprivi Strip of large scale industrial and development schemes thereby seriously endangering their very existence in Namibia,
(f) Systematically cutting them off from the mainstream of Caprivi cultures in Botswana and West-Zambia while denying them opportunities of developing their languages and culture in Namibia thereby working inexorably towards the cultural genocide of the Caprivians,
(g) Permitting and unleashing communal violence and intimidation
against the Caprivian people calculated to instill terror in the minds of the people thereby breaking their spirit and the will to resist injustices heaped on them,
(h) Terrorising, torturing, and imprisoning Caprivian people without trial for long periods on the flimsiest grounds,
(i) Capping it all by imposing on the Caprivi Nation a constitution created through un-proportional representation and under unequal and unfair conditions without opportunities for free discussion by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of the Namibian nation distorted by Citizenship laws resulting in weightage in representation to the Namibian [Owanibo] majority thereby depriving the Caprivians of - even the remnants of safeguards they had under the Colonists,
And whereas all attempts by the various Caprivian political parties to win their rights by co-operating with the Namibian government, by parliamentary and extra-parliamentary agitations, by entering into pacts and understandings with the Namibian President in order to achieve the bare minimum of political rights consistent with the self-respect of the Caprivian people have proved futile;
And whereas the proposals submitted to the ruling SWAPO party and its Government in Namibia by the United Democratic Party of the Caprivi Strip for maintaining the unity of the country while preserving the integrity of the Caprivian people by the establishment of an autonomous Caprivi State within the framework of a Federal Republic of Namibia were summarily and totally rejected without even the courtesy of a consideration of its merits;
And whereas me United Democratic Party of the Caprivi Strip, after rejecting the Republican Constitution officially adopted on the 21st of March, 1990 presented a six point demand to the Namibian President and the Government on 10l April, 1990 and gave three months time within which the Government was called upon to make meaningful steps to amend the Constitution so as to meet the aspirations of the Caprivi Nation on the basis of the six points and informed the Government that if it failed to do so the United Democratic Party would launch a non-violent direct action against the Government in order to win the freedom and the rights of the Caprivi Nation on the basis of the right of self-determination;
And whereas this last attempt by the United Democratic Party of the Caprivi Strip to win Constitutional recognition of the rights of the Caprivi Nation without jeopardizing the unity of the country was callously ignored by the Namibian President and the Government;
The third National Convention of the United Democratic Party of the Caprivi Strip meeting at Katima Mulilo on the 10th day of April, 1997 hereby declares that the Caprivian people by virtue of their great languages, their religions, their separate culture and heritage, their history of independent existence as a separate state over a distinct territory for several centuries till they were conquered by the armed might of the European invaders and above all by their will to exist as a separate entity ruling themselves in their own territory, are a nation distinct and apart from Namibians and this Convention announces to the world that the Republican Constitution of 1990 has made the Caprivians a slave nation ruled by the new colonial masters the Namibians [Owambo] who are using the power they have wrongly usurped to deprive the Caprivi Nation of its territory, language, citizenship, economic life, opportunities of employment and education thereby destroying all the attributes of nationhood of the Caprivian people.

And therefore, this convention resolves that restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular Democratic State of CAPRIVI based on the right of self-determination inherent to every nation has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of the Caprivi Nation in this Country.

This Convention further declares -

(a) that the State of CAPRIVI shall consist of the people of the Eastern Caprivi and Western Caprivi provinces and shall also ensure full and equal rights of citizenship of the State of CAPRIVI to all Caprivian people living in any part of Namibia and to Caprivians of CAPRIVI origin living in any part of the world who may opt for citizenship of CAPRIVI.
(b) that the constitution of CAPRIVI shall be based on the principle of democratic decentralization so as to ensure the non-domination of any cultural or territorial community of CAPRTVT by any other sector.

This Convention directs the Action Committee of the UNITED DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE CAPRTVI STRIP to formulate a plan of action and launch without delay the struggle for winning the sovereignty and freedom of the Caprivi Nation;
And this Convention calls upon the Caprivi Nation in general and the Caprivian youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign State of CAPRIVI is reached.



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