The Causes of The ‘Struggle Kids’
By: Tsudao Gurirab
LAST week, our country witnessed a type of scene alien to this republic.
And here we refer to the pitched battles on the streets of our capital between the police and the ‘struggle kids’. Clearly, no Namibian can draw comfort from the pictures from these scenes published in our newspapers with bloodied police and the ‘kids’ armed with all manner of projectiles to assert their right to march the streets of Windhoek, in the process disrupting the normal flow of the city’s life, to present a petition of grievances at the Office of the Prime Minister.
It was an extraordinary scene but then the ‘struggle kids’ have now for some time become a travelling caravan with their interlocutors at sea as to what the suitable way is to deal with them. But again this is not the first time that, mainly, groups of returnees have taken to the streets to make demands of employment and other forms of entitlement from the government. The march of last week, however, has upped the ante in that this group is prepared to physically battle the police for the freedom of the streets of Windhoek to march and settle where it pleases them.
To be sure, the authorities – i.e. the government, local authorities and Swapo – are all to blame for creating this hostage to fortune. For example, it is perfectly hunky-dory for these ‘kids’ and their children to camp out in front of a government ministry, municipal plot, at the entrance of the Swapo office in Outapi or Windhoek and suddenly the full wrath of the law rains down on these pilgrims to vacate the premises, with or without their N$10 000 demand.
OK, but what is the case of the ‘struggle kids’ or rather do they have any claim to government largesse? In part answer to this question we wish to take one step back in the not too distant past. In 1996, the first group of forgotten ex-PLAN combatants were baying at the gates of State House demanding jobs and a hearing with the president. Government hurriedly recruited 2000 of my comrades into the army in an exercise dubbed “the peace process”. This half measure did not include all and, rightly, the excluded combatants continued to march until the government saw the folly of their ways and broadened the policy to include all able-bodied former combatants.
So how do all these of aid the cause of the ‘struggle kids’? Well, despite the efforts of late 1990s to include groups of ex-combatants an even more deserving segment of veterans were excluded. And it came to pass that former liberation struggle combatants Ruusa Malulu and Alex Kamwi organised this group in the face of government antagonism, which process eventually led to the establishment of the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs. Since we are not in a situation of tabula rasa and, therefore, no longer groping in the dark the demands of the ‘struggle kids’ have to be addressed in terms of the existing legislation. This is now discounting the competing interests of different factions, fractions and tribal cabals in Swapo who seek to exploit the ‘struggle kids’ as pawns in their battle for the soul of Swapo.
So despite government’s ad hoc, rash and injudicious decisions such as preserving a certain categories of jobs for ‘struggle kids’ existing government legislation is more than adequate to deal with the problems of livelihood raised by the ‘struggle kids’. The ‘struggle kids’ can only fall in one of the following categories or a combination of them, namely, they are either children younger than 18 years; or they are themselves veterans; or dependants of veterans. And it is crucial here to emphasise that dependants of veterans who died prior to the enactment of the Veterans Act of 2008 ( and their dependents) enjoy the same rights and benefits.
We stress the last category because some have emphasised the point of their orphanhood. Of course, all orphans qualify for the existing government grants and should apply for the same whilst every effort must be made to fast track the applications of all eligible ‘struggle kids’ under the Veterans Act as they are all clients of the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs.
In addressing the needs of dependants, it will be important to separate the wheat from the chaff. For this purpose, the first course of action would be to register all claimants and determine from then onwards who qualifies and who does not. It cannot be rocket science. And whilst we are on rights, one of the strengths of our country is the premium we put on the rule of law. And for this reason those who indulge in lawless actions, whatever their cause, must bear the full brunt of the law.