Before the Peace Project was implemented, the ex-combatants did not only stage mass demonstrations but also constantly visited the offices of local Swapo representatives and local councillors, even governors, reminding them of the promises made in exile about better living standards (e.g. houses and cars), education and jobs after independence and demanding that the party finally deliver on those promises; instead, they were (as it was repeatedly phrased) ‘always told to wait’.132 This placed the officials in a difficult position and it appears that they pleaded with the central government to act and sometimes supported the demonstrating ex-combatants by providing transport, food or money. At the time of my fieldwork, those ex-combatants who were still unemployed continued to come to these offices.
The Peace Project, the registrations and official ex-combatant policy in general provided a way to refer these needy former comrades to a formal, less personal framework of assistance, although, in practice, one strongly influenced by the particular history of connections between former exiles and the current government, relations reflected in the implementation of reintegration. Here the frontline functionaries or street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky 2010) of the state and the ruling party, such as members of the Technical Committee, governors and councillors, and Swapo party representatives played an important role. They encountered the demands of the ex-combatants on the ground and carried out the measures aimed at their reintegration. In this way, they gave a face to an abstract state but also made the people visible to the state through their activities and reporting. To varying degrees, they occupy positions that place them among the people, embedded in local conditions and social relations, at the same time as they are seemingly above them, inserted in broader networks of government. Hence, the ostensibly bureaucratic practices of reintegration often became highly personalized.
132
Swapo ex-combatants and former exiles did not encounter neutral and faceless bureaucratic machinery but people they knew as comrades and former commanders. The party was ‘calling’ them and finally taking care of them again. Furthermore, registrations and SIPE activities often took place in Swapo offices.133 Obviously, for former SWATF and Koevoet fighters, these registration arrangements and other encounters with the implementers of reintegration did not appear friendly or promising.134
In the case of Swapo ex-combatants, the registrations reinforced the history and imagery of liberation struggle. In the absence of extensive records and identity documents, it drew heavily on personal memory through interviews where the details of the interviewee’s life history were carefully charted. This process was conducive to intermingling personal identity with an official, technical one and the label of ex-combatant. It encouraged the ex-combatants to see participation in the liberation struggle as the major phase in their lives that still determined their futures. Thus, in addition to the registers of ex-combatants as victims, as heroes and as a social problem, there is a fourth view that sees them as ‘our brothers, sisters, and children’, laying stress on shared history and fulfilment of promises made in exile in return for continuing loyalty and order.
This expectation of a continuing relationship of mutual closeness and support is widely shared by the former exiles. Even when the ex-combatants have become restless, demonstrated, complained and put forward demands over the years, they have still emphasized their loyalty to the ruling party, especially the President, in the idiom of familihood that developed in exile. For example, in 1995, ‘five people who spoke on behalf of the group [of demonstrating ex-combatants] told President Nujoma they had been forced by hunger and poverty to speak to him as their leader, whom they regarded as father and mother, to see whether he could help them’.135
133 For example, in 1995 ex-combatants were called to register at Swapo headquarters. In Oshakati I
noticed that the regional representative of SIPE was placed at the Swapo regional office. SIPE was also telling orphans to verify their status at Swapo offices; in only three out of 13 regions the verifying office was not the Swapo office. See ‘President pledges action on jobs for fighters’, The
Namibian, 18 May 1995; announcement on ‘verification of war orphans registry’ by the SIPE
Company in The Namibian, 28 November 1997.
134
Former Swapo combatants also put pressure on the authorities not to accept their former enemies as reintegration beneficiaries. For example, in 1997, demonstrating ex-combatants rejected the government’s master list of ex-combatants on the grounds that it also contained ex-SWATF and Koevoet; ‘Ex-guerrilla protest keeps growing’, The Namibian 7 July 1997.
135
The Technical Committee on Ex-combatants recognized these expectations, portraying the ex-combatants from a paternalist administrative perspective:
Some of the freedom fighters left the country at a tender age and do not know any other life except the one provided under the care of SWAPO…The returning Namibian exiles were ill prepared psychologically to start a new independence [sic] life. They expected to be taken care of like in exile…Some still felt bound by the military rules of PLAN waiting to be ‘commanded’. This in part explains the widely held view among the former fighters that ‘SWAPO shall come one day’.136
From this perspective, the ex-combatant demonstrations, far from questioning the authority of the Swapo government, in fact strengthened it, portraying it as the sole agency that could solve the problem. Through characterising the issue as a national security problem as well as a question of assisting the most helpless and needy, the government could attract public support for maintaining the loyalty of its strategically positioned core supporters, Swapo’s former combatants. In an exceptionally straightforward admission of the political benefits of the proposed programme to Swapo, thereby mixing considerations of public welfare with those of the ruling party, the first report of the Technical Committee on Ex-Combatants notes that
because of correct political understanding, most of the genuine ex PLAN combatants did not participate in any demonstration. They continued to hope that one day, SWAPO shall remember them … The arrival of the Committee had a pacifying effect on the former combatants and will pay divide[n]d during the forthcoming regional elections. (Republic of Namibia 1998: 13.)
This passage reveals the close connections between the government and Swapo in the perceptions of ex-combatants and Committee members alike. According to its wording, the ex-combatants were waiting for Swapo to assist them and when the Committee arrived, it was seen as representing the ruling party. However, the Committee also warned that the legitimacy of the Swapo government would be in danger unless the ex-combatants were urgently taken care of:
The Committee believes that the above proposals if considered and worked out could go a long way in finding a lasting solution to the plight of the former freedom fighters and if possible they should be considered within the short period of time. It should be emphasised that the current exercise has invoked new hope and expectations and might be the last opportunity to retain confidence in the government. (Republic of Namibia 1998: 16.)
136