State security blamed for theft

State security blamed for theft Questions surround the disappearance of crucial notes belonging to land activists contracted by the Namibia Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (Nangof) last week.

The notes disappeared after unknown people broke into the car of social scientist Sima Luipert while parked in front of the Office of the Prime Minister.

At the time, Luipert and her colleagues were having a meeting with Swapo chief whip Evelyn Nawases-Taeyele with regards to land reform and resettlement in Namibia.

The vehicle’s licence disc was also removed in the process. Luipert has been travelling the country and has been consulting with stakeholders with regards to land reform as well as the draft land bill that was withdrawn in the National Assembly recently. Her colleagues were pulled off the road near Gobabis when traffic officials found the car had no valid disc.

They were on their way to hold further consultative meetings with the residents of the Omaheke Region while she was attending the feedback on genocide talks in Windhoek.

“We had a meeting with the Swapo chief whip on Tuesday at around 13:00 and thereafter I went back to the office of the Namibia Development Trust (NDT) to write the media statement on the land bill,” she recalled.

She said at around 16:00 she went back to parliament and parked her vehicle in the open space in front of the prime minister’s office but struggled to close the car’s front window and consequently left it half open in the full view of the ministerial drivers.

“In my negligence I thought the car was in full view why would someone try to open it? I hid my laptop and went into the National Assembly to listen to the debate on the land bill,” she said.

She added that on Wednesday she realised the files containing some of the notes on the land consultative meetings in //Karas Region and the notes on their meeting with the Swapo chief whip were missing. That evening her colleagues called her informing her that the licence disc of the car was missing but she only connected the two incidents on Thursday.

“What do you do with notes and a licence disc? This is not an ordinary burglary where thieves lay their hands on something they can exchange for money. The theft of the notes is for information on what was discussed and the theft of the licence disc is to undermine our work,” Luipert argued.

She told Namibian Sun she suspects that security agents may be on their tail as they confronted them three weeks ago at the consultative meeting in Aroab and a man in plain clothes accused them of inciting people against the government. According to her the break-in into her car can only be the work of government security agents.

FRED GOEIEMAN