Caprivi Region in north-eastern Namibia has a distinct character. It came into being as
a historical anomaly; a mistake in German colonial planning based on the belief that
this strip of land would connect the German colony of South West Africa with Germany’s
East African colony of Tanganyika via the Zambezi River – which is not navigable beyond
Victoria Falls located a few hundred kilometres to the east.Most of Namibia is a desert,
whereas Caprivi lies entirely in a tropical zone consisting of a well-watered and fertile mix
of rivers, swamps and forests. Caprivi’s peoples are descendants of Zambian kingdoms,
and their languages are unrelated to the other languages of Namibia. Being remote from
the rest of the country, Caprivi’s traditional social and political structures are stronger,
and loom larger in modern development and planning. By the same token, the Namibian
State and its institutions are weaker in Caprivi than in the rest of the country.