Caprivi and Kavango Regions - Namibia

The Caprivi Strip stretches from north-eastern Namibia like an elongated finger between Angola to the north and Botswana to the south. The Strip is 500 kilometres long and only 50 kilometres wide on the western side, widening to 64 kilometres wide at the eastern end. This is the only place in the world where the borders of four countries can be crossed within a few hours, as Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet here. This apparently anomalous piece of land was demarcated in the final decade of the 19th century in Berlin when the European powers were dividing up Africa. Germany, hoping to link up with its territory in East Africa, advanced its claim to an eastward-penetrating bridgehead from what was then German South West Africa. In the event, although Germany got its bridgehead, its territorial ambitions were trumped by the British push northwards into the countries that are now called Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Caprivi Strip was named after General Count Georg Leo von Carivi di Caprara di Montecuccoli, who was the German Chancellor in l890.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the Caprivi fell into British hands - the first of the German territories to be captured. The story, which is probably true, is that the German district governor was taking tea with a senior British official from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when the latter was handed a note to say that war had been declared. The British officer then placed the German under arrest and annexed the Strip. At the end of the war, it was incorporated into Bechuanaland (now Botswana) but was later incorporated into what was called South West Africa when it was under South African control. However, unresolved issues on the complicated southern boundary of the Strip came to a head in the 1990s in a dispute between Botswana and Namibia over an island named Kasikili. Despite some sabre-rattling that was typical of most border disputes, the two countries sensibly agreed to submit the issue to the World Court, which found in favour of Botswana.

During the late 1990s, there was a secessionist movement that aimed to break the region away from Namibia to form a separate state in the Caprivi. An armed assault on official installations in Katima Mulilo was put down with heavy-handed brutality and hundreds of people were arrested and charged with treason. The trial dragged on for years without resolution. In fact, the whole incident reflected poorly on the Namibian government’s commitment to effective justice and the rule of law

Not surprisingly, given the geographical configurations, the two main tribes of the Caprivi, the Subiya and Mafwe, share many similarities with the Kavango people. Also as can be expected, the people of eastern Caprivi are closely linked with the neighbouring communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Botswana, having many of the same customs and traditions, and even speaking the same common language.

The economy of the Caprivians centres on hunting, fishing, herding cattle, and cultivating crops such as cassava, maize, and cereals. The seasonal flooding of the Zambezi River deposits rich loamy earth on the marshlands, which, while displacing villages, leads to fertile farm lands. Because this strip of land is very flat, with no mountains or high plateaus, floodplains and perennial wetlands cover most of the Caprivi, making the area generally green and fertile, in sharp contrast to the rest of Namibia.

The heaviest populated area of the Caprivi is the eastern part near the Zambezi, where approximately 40,000 people live. The capital of the area is Katima Mulilo and most of the people live in or around it in small villages of mud and thatched huts. The markets sell fish, fresh food, brightly-coloured clothes, and crafted soapstone and wood carvings. Another tourist attraction is the Zambezi Queen, which is the only holiday cruiser on Southern Africa’s inland waters. After the rains, when the river is at a good height, the Queen makes trips of four to eight days, sailing as far as the Victoria Falls.

The fertile floodplain which is the Caprivi Game Park is in the ‘neck’ of the Caprivi Strip between Angola and Botswana. Here, and in the two smaller reserves, one finds a great number of animals such as roan antelope, kudu, blue wildebeest, giraffe, hippo, Burchell’s zebra, and elephant. Most of these animals are found on the Kwando River, which flows into the Okavango Delta and is the western boundary of the park. The Mudumu and Mamili National Parks, also on the Kwando River, have wetlands and woodlands. Eastern Caprivi, with the highest rainfall of the country, is bordered and crossed by a number of large rivers, such as the Zambezi and Chobe.

To the west of Caprivi is the territory known as ‘Kavango’. Its main feature is the Okavango River, which flows eastwards and then south-eastwards towards the inland delta of the Okavango Swamp in Botswana. The staple diet of the Kavango people who live along the bank of the Okavango River is fish. The women do the fishing, using conical wicker traps, while the men use harpoons to fish from their dugout canoes.

The capital of this area is Rundu, which is located on the floodplains on the southern bank of the river. South of Rundu is the Kaudom Game Reserve, Namibia’s remotest wildlife sanctuary. In this area of semi-desert plains, wild dog, tsessebe, kudu, wildebeest, elephant and the endangered roan antelope can be seen in the dry river beds. Because there are no fences in the Kaudom Reserve, the animals are free to move at will to find food and water.

The Popa Falls on the Okavango River are about 45 kilometres from the Caprivi Strip where the river has turned southwards. Here the rapids fall in a series of rocky steps for 20 metres. South of the falls is Mahango Game Reserve, with a tributary of the Mahango River as its northern boundary and Botswana on the southern boundary. In this park there are more than 300 species of bird such as the rare western-banded snake eagle, Pel’s fishing owl, the white-rumped babbler, and many more. Also found in the park are elephant which migrate along the Caprivi Strip into Angola, Botswana and Zambia in the dry season. Also found here are hippo, crocodile, blue wildebeest, Cape buffalo, tsessebe, red lechwe, and sitatunga. The park also has a fair number of warthogs, baboons, ostriches, vervet monkeys, lions, and leopards.

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