The head of the United Nations team that supervised Namibia's transition to independence in 1989 has denied any involvement in the mass graves recently found there, SABC radio news reported on Wednesday.
The broadcaster quoted Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari as saying: "I can't believe that those mass graves would have occurred while the UN was there."
Ahtisaari was head of the UN Transitional Assistance Group during Namibia's move to independence.
"I sincerely hope that this will be properly investigated and I think it's obvious that the best answers can and should be (had) from the South African military, who were in charge of the whole activity at the time," Ahtisaari told the SABC.
The SABC reported that former defence minister Magnus Malan suggested that the UN could shed light on the mass graves as it was in charge of the transition process.
Three mass graves have been found near the apartheid-era South African military base, Eenhana, about 850km north-east of Windhoek.
The bones are thought to be those of fighters from the South West African People's Organisation's military wing, Plan, who may have been killed in the so-called nine-day war in April 1989.
The base was home to the South African Army's 54 Battalion during the latter part of the 1966-1989 border war.
Construction workers discovered a first mass grave containing human bones and ammunition 400m from the base on Thursday.