BRIEFING PAPER: ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION IN NAMIBIA No. 12 of 2012. In his motivation speech to the National Assembly the then Minister of Safety and Security, Nangolo Mbumba, acknowledged that the lack of an antiterrorism law rendered Namibia susceptible to terrorist activities and becoming a possible conduit for financing terrorism. In his speech introducing the Bill on November 20 2012, Minister Mbumba noted that globally terrorist activities had become “more amorphous, less predictable with fewer constraints on the terrorist operations and targets”. ‘ ... the overriding factor influencing the urgency and timing of the antiterrorism bill was the need to comply with international requirements. ’ To some extent the introduction of an anti-terrorism bill was a delayed reaction to violent attacks by separatists in the Caprivi region (since renamed Zambezi) in 1999. However, in the following decade the government showed little sense of urgency in drawing up anti-terrorism legislation. When he introduced the draft law in late 2012, Minister Mbumba conceded that the development of a bill had “slipped through the cracks” following the creation of the Ministry of Safety and Security in 2005, and work on its drafting only recommenced in 2010. Mbumba said the finalisation of an anti-terrorism law had now become urgent because an incident at the Hosea Kutako International Airport in late 2010, when a dummy bomb was discovered,4 had highlighted the absence of a legal instrument to deal with potential terrorist activity. However, the overriding factor influencing the urgency and timing of the antiterrorism bill was the need to comply with international requirements. During 2005 Namibia had undergone evaluation by the East and Southern African AntiMoney Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) on whether its domestic measures to tackle money laundering and the financing of terrorism matched the required international standards and best practices. Namibia came up short. A further report in 2010 found that Namibia had not made sufficient progress in addressing the 2005 recommendations. Consequently, in May 2011 the government came up with an action plan which included the ratification of the United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ratified on April 26 2012) and the enactment of legislation to criminalise terrorism financing and ensure compliance with international standards by November 2012. In particular, Namibia was in danger of falling foul of the stipulations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental organisation seeking to develop policies to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. The government was told by the FATF in 2011 to tighten its laws with regards to financing of terrorist activities and money laundering. Namibia was also put on the spot for having a law that lacked mechanism for freezing and confiscating terrorist assets, which resulted in Namibia being rated as non-compliant with international rules. As a result of FATF recommendations, the Financial Intelligence Act (Act 3 of 2007) was repealed and replaced with a new Act with the same name just a few weeks before the Anti-Terrorism Bill appeared in Parliament towards the end of 2012. Facing international pressure to have anti-terrorism legislation in place, Parliament rushed through the Prevention and Combating of Terrorist Activities Bill. On top of the undue haste with which Parliament approached the draft legislation, no 4 For further details see ‘Airport bomb scare ‘a hoax’’, Namibian Sun, November 22 2010. PAGE 2