Some police officers visited the AR Movement offices in Windhoek to interview the members about what transpired on Monday when a Chinese company was stormed and the owner confronted over poor treatment of workers.
Members of the AR movement stormed the Jiahua Construction company in Windhoek after receiving complaints from the workers about ill-treatment and harassment.
The company owner, Zhou Jiahua, has since admitted that there was some ill-treatment but said he was going to improve the working conditions.
The AR movement spokesperson, Simon Amunime confirmed, the visit by some two police inspectors on Wednesday.
He also said that some officials from the Chinese Embassy in Namibia also called the AR office about the Monday incident.
Amunime claimed that the Chinese officials who called them made some threats with unspecified action.
He further accused some police officers of giving the Chinese embassy officials the AR members’ numbers.
According to Amunime the call by the Chinese Embassy officials came after the businessman Zhou Jiahua had been summoned to explain what had happened.
Zhou, Amunime said, was ordered to shut down the shop for two days.
THE POLICE VISIT
Amunime said two inspectors who visited the AR offices wanted to know who had told those who stormed the Chinese company about the ill-treatment of workers.
The AR spokesperson said the action by the police of giving numbers to the Chinese embassy officials and the visit to ask about Monday’s incident shows how the force is captured.
“We are taking this very seriously. Even our police are captured by the Chinese. I think the media is even aware of what happened when a directive was issued by the Inspector General. So, we are receiving threats from officials at the Chinese embassy,” he said.
But police Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga said he was not aware of the visit by some police officers.
Ndeitunga also said he was not aware of any case opened against the movement’s members.
“They might have gone there. I have no information. Some of those things are registered at the police stations,” Ndeitunga said.
The Inspector General said he can only believe that some of his officers gave the Chinese Embassy officials AR members’ numbers if there is proof.
He said the Chinese can get a number from anywhere.
“I am called by many people and I do not ask where they got my number,” he said.
On the police being captured, Ndeitunga said anyone can call the police for assistance.
“It does not matter who you are or where you are from. If you call the police, we will attend to you,” he said.
According to Ndeitunga, people with political agenda should not bring the police into their battle.
THE THREATS
Amunime said when the officials from the embassy called them, they said some people in China are not happy that the AR members pointed fingers at the businessman.
“If the embassy is going to bring the same arrogance by trying to decide to us what we must do in terms of confronting those injustices, they are taking it very wrongly.
“We don’t care who is working with them. We don’t care whether they are protected by the police chief or the President.
“Namibia is governed by the rule of law. We don’t take those people seriously. An embassy, an institution of the state calling you on your private personal phone to condemn you in terms of what they have seen! We don’t take instructions from the Chinese embassy!” he lashed out.
Zhou Jiahua, who spoke through an interpreter said. he was going to change the working conditions.
“We will ensure that an approach will be explored as we appreciate that all parties should be happy in this relationship of employer and employee
“The contracts will be finalised as soon as possible for both sides to move on,” he added.
Zhou further said that a performance structure would be implemented to reward the employees based on their output.
A Chinese official who gave his name as Yu yesterday said he had no idea of the incident.
