Kongola

Kongola is a roadside village beside the only bridge over the Kwando River for hundreds of kilometres, in the Caprivi Strip, now the Zambezi Region. The ground around it has been Khwe San land, part of the Lozi kingdom, a German colonial corridor that never worked as planned, a South African military zone through the liberation war and, since independence, a place where communal conservancies and national parks share the river.

1. Before 1890

   Until the end of the 1800s the land between the Kwando and the Zambezi was known as Itenge and came under the Lozi kings. Late in the century Britain administered it as part of the Bechuanaland protectorate (now Botswana). source

2. 1890

   Germany acquired the strip for German South West Africa in an 1890 exchange with Britain and named it after Chancellor Leo von Caprivi. The idea was a river route along the Zambezi to German East Africa, which the Victoria Falls and further falls downstream made impossible. source

3. 1914 to 1980s

   During the First World War the strip went back under British rule as part of Bechuanaland. It was largely ignored and got a name as a lawless frontier. In the 1980s it mattered again, as a base and supply line for South Africa's backing of the UNITA rebels in Angola. source

4. 1966 to 1989

   The land west of the Kwando was proclaimed the Caprivi Game Reserve in 1966 and the Caprivi Game Park in 1968, but it never functioned as a park. Through the liberation war against South African rule it was a closed security area, held by the South African Police and then the South African Defence Force until UN Resolution 435 came into force in April 1989. Many Khwe San who lived there were drafted into the army and housed on bases such as Omega. source

5. 1990

   After independence in 1990 a survey of the old game park looked at what the military occupation had left and found about 5,000 people living inside it. That survey shaped the zoning still used today, with a core conservation area along the Kwando. source

6. 1999 to early 2000s

   A conflict in the Caprivi in 1999 lasted only a few days. In the early 2000s fighting in southern Angola spilled over the border, and for a time the B8 between Bagani and Kongola could only be driven in a military convoy. source

7. 2004

   The Kongola bridge opened in 2004, carrying the B8 over the Kwando. It is part of the long trade road now called the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Road. source

8. 2007

   Bwabwata National Park was gazetted in 2007, joining the old Caprivi Game Park with the Mahango Game Reserve. Its eastern core conservation area runs along the Kwando, across the river from Kongola. source

Languages

In the 2023 census just over half of people in Kongola Constituency households spoke Sifwe at home (51.4%), followed by Thimbukushu (19.9%), the Khwe language (11.6%) and Silozi (8.0%). source

Communities

The constituency is mainly home to the Mafwe and the Mashi, each with its own traditional authority. In the western part, inside Bwabwata, live about 1,900 Khwe San. source

Basketry

Women in the surrounding conservancies weave palm-leaf baskets: square baskets from the western Caprivi, once used to carry fruit from the fields, and open baskets from the east used for the sorghum harvest. A 2008/9 report found necklaces of mbono seeds and crocheted bags of field fibre sold alongside them at Mashi Crafts. source

Conservancies

The parks around Kongola border communal land run as conservancies, and two camps inside Bwabwata on the Kwando are conservancy businesses: Nambwa belongs to the Mayuni Conservancy and Susuwe to the Kwando Conservancy. source