World Notes NAMIBIA

He ended 30 years of exile by kissing the ground and proclaiming a "spirit of peace, love and national reconciliation." But the homecoming of Sam Nujoma, leader of the South West Africa People's Organization, was overshadowed last week by old hatreds and death. Two days before Nujoma's arrival, Anton Lubowski, a Namibian-born lawyer and a prominent white SWAPO activist, was gunned down outside his home in Windhoek. Within 36 hours police announced that they were holding a white man in connection with the killing.

Nujoma, who has waged a protracted armed struggle against South African rule, returned to Namibia in time to register as a voter in the November elections for a constituent assembly, which will prepare the territory for final independence next year. But SWAPO's election director, Hage Geingob, is among those who fear that Namibia's history of political bloodshed may not yet be over. If any harm came to Nujoma, he said, "the consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate."