User:Kelvin Mubiana Katukula/sandbox/History of Caprivi/Zambezi

History of Caprivi/Zambezi Region, Namibia

History of Caprivi/Zambezi

The Zambezi Region has changed hands many times starting from the Luyana Kingdom up to the time of independence. Around the year 1740 Ngombala, the tenth Luyana King attacked the inhabitants and then incorporated the region into the Luyana Kingdom. Then came the Sothos from South Africa who ruled the Luyana Kingdom from 1830 to 1864, the region included. Sebitwane their king went an extra mile by shifting the Luyana capital from Namuso to Linyanti (Sangwali today).

At the Berlin Conference of 1885, commonly known as the Scramble for Africa, the region resorted under the Luyana Kingdom (Barotseland). It was only five years later when the Anglo-Germany Treaty commonly known as Heligoland-Zanzibar Agreement was signed on 1 July 1890 and hatched Caprivi Zipfel. In creating the sphere of influence in the Caprivi Strip, the German Chancellor outraged geography and all common sense by carving out a territory in an arbitrary fashion in order to give his nation access to the Zambezi and a route half across Africa. This was done without the knowledge and permission of the inhabitants.

For nineteen years, the Germans would not send a representative to the region until 1909. The treaty could not hold long as the British soldiers took over the German garrison stationed at Schuckmansburg (now Luhonono) in September 1914 immediately after the outbreak of the First World War. In fact, the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty became null and void and the British took back the region to herself. The British seemed not to know what to do with the region because instead of giving it back to its owners, they started tossing it around firstly by administering it through Bechuanaland Protectorate, then through Windhoek and finally Pretoria. During the period of administration by the Bechuanaland Protectorate with laws of that territory applying, there was a certain slight merging of the region with the Bechuanaland Protectorate with concessions made to the people of Barotseland. Efforts to hand it back to the Luyana Kingdom failed despite recommendations by Venning, Assistant Magistrate of Sesheke, Zambia.

Zambezi Region was the most isolated of all the regions in the country. The colonialists equally failed to integrate the region into the mainland as their policies and acts were applied discriminatorily. In terms of proclamation 1939 (No. 147 of 1939), Caprivi Strip was administered separately (i.e. no longer as part of the Mandated Territory of South West Africa) by Union of South Africa’s minister of Native Affairs as an integral part of Union of South Africa and subsequently as an integral part of the Republic of South Africa. This had been the case effectively up until after Namibian independence on 21 March 1990. The following Act was passed by the Parliament and signed by the President in terms of the Namibian Constitution, Article 56 of that Constitution, No. 10 of 1999: Application of Laws to the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel Act, 1999. Act No. 10, 1999 Government Gazette 12 July 1999 No. 2139. Meaning it took nine years after independence for all Namibian laws to be applied to the region.


 * Prof. Makala Lilemba, University of Barotseland, Mongu, Zambia