Namibia's Strange Border Region

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

The products of European imperialism, the boundaries of most African countries make little ethnic or geographic sense. And one of the strangest is a border region in Namibia that separates Angola and Zambia from Botswana. 

And though the Caprivi Strip doesn’t border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates the two countries.

The panhandle is about 32 kilometres wide and protrudes eastward for about 450 kilometres from the north-eastern corner of the country. 

With the exception of its northern border with Angola, it is bounded by rivers: the Zambezi River on the northern border with Zambia, the Chobe and Linyanti rivers on the southern border with Botswana, and the Kwando River on the western border. 

The population is approximately 90,000 people, and the region comprises 19,531 square kilometers. 

It was named after Leo von Caprivi, the German Chancellor who negotiated for the land, then part of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), with the United Kingdom in an 1890 exchange for Zanzibar. 

Count von Caprivi annexed it to German South-West Africa in order to allow Germany access to the Zambezi River, which flows east into the Indian Ocean and to Germany’s East African territories -- modern-day Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi.

It would have given Germany an Atlantic to Indian Ocean southern African empire. But this never came to pass.

After the First World War, German South-West Africa was ruled by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate. Pretoria refused to leave the territory after the Second World War and retained control until Namibia became an independent state in 1990.

Botswana and Namibia had a longstanding dispute over the strip's southern boundary at the International Court of Justice. The centre of the territorial dispute pertained as to which irrigation channel of the Chobe River was the thalweg, or main channel, and so the bona fide boundary.

This was important, as, depending on the decision, a large island, known as Kasikili by Namibia and Seddudu by Botswana, would fall into one or the other’s national territory.

The Botswana government considered it part of the Chobe National Park, whereas the Namibian government, and other inhabitants of the Caprivi Strip, claimed that the island in question was a part of the 1890 British-German agreement.  

In December 1999, the Court declared that the thalweg, and therefore the international boundary, was to the north of the island, making the island part of Botswana.

The Caprivi Strip, apart from being remote from the rest of Namibia, is mainly inhabited by the Lozi people, who share a common language and history, and often feel more connected with, Lozi in neighbouring countries -- Zambia, Angola, Botswana, and South Africa.

Namibia’s main ethnic group, the Ovambo, comprise half the country’s population and dominate the state; other important groups are the Herero, Kavango, and Damara.

This has led to separatism in the Caprivi Strip. The Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA) was established in 1994. In August 1999 it launched attacks on police stations and military posts in the eastern part of the panhandle.

The Namibian Government imposed a state of emergency and the separatists were defeated. Although they declared an independent nation in 2002, the CLA has apparently vanished as a fighting force.