Namibia cops hassle SA pilots

Twenty South Africans who flew to Namibia on "a goodwill mission" to raise money for cancer charity Cansa said they will sue the Namibian government for police abuse.

The 12-plane fleet flew back to Eastern Cape after a six-day stand-off involving the international relations departments of the two countries.

A spokesman for the aggrieved group, Ron Weissenberg, said they might also report the Namibian government to the UN for breaking international aviation treaties.

Weissenberg said the pilots were unlawfully detained in the northern Namibian border town of Ondangwa by police who ignored the South Africans' documented proof that they had obtained overflight and landing permits from the Namibian Directorate of Civil Aviation. He claimed that, when the police in Ondangwa realised that they did not have a reasonable case against the group, they intensified their "malicious behaviour".

An issue that could have been resolved in an hour was dragged out for days, he said.

Grahamstown pilot Sharon McGillewie said a "rent-a-crowd" of youths at Ondangwa airstrip shouted : "We are going to show you boertjies " at the group.

Weissenberg said every pilot had to pay admission-of-guilt fine of R400 to end the impasse before being "expelled from Namibia" after being classified as a "risk to national security".

McGillewie said the incident felt like "a set-up" because the Namibian state media seemed determined "to make us look and feel like criminals".

She said the group was threatened with trumped-up charges relating to income tax, which had " nothing to do with aviation" .

She said Hanno Snyman, of the Namibian Microlight Association, had gone to the Directorate of Civil Aviation in Windhoek on three occasions to make sure the proper overflight documents had been issued.

McGillewie said that most of the Namibian citizens they encountered had been friendly and apologetic about the treatment meted out to the tourists.

"People in the street were very friendly towards us."