Govt slammed for burying detainee motion

GOVERNMENT’S rejection of a motion which an opposition Member of Parliament wanted to introduce in the National Assembly on Wednesday was a “blow against democracy”, the leader of the official opposition says.

“The ruling Swapo Party fears the truth about the issue of detainees at Lubango (in southern Angola) and continues to prevent the Namibian public from hearing this truth,” Ben Ulenga, President of the Congress of Democrats (CoD), the largest opposition party in Parliament, said on Friday. The CoD motion was tabled by the party’s Secretary General Kala Gertze, himself detained for six years in the dungeons of Lubango.It was aimed at debating the crimes perpetrated against several thousand Namibians.The victims were accused by Swapo of allegedly spying for apartheid South Africa.Most of them were rounded up and held in underground prisons and, after having been subjected to torture, many disappeared and remain unaccounted for.Others were summarily executed.”By bringing this motion to the democratically elected National Assembly, the CoD was creating a fair chance for all elected leaders, including Swapo Members of Parliament, to state their side in a democratic way,” Ulenga said in a statement, noting that “the free expression of political views was guaranteed in the Constitution”.”If Swapo leaders believe they can continue to hide and bury the Lubango detainee issue fo ever, they are terribly mistaken.The stern finger of injustice shall not cease to point,” Ulenga said.Gertze’s motion was rejected before he could motivate it.He later issued the speech that he could not deliver in Parliament as a press statement.In that, Gertze emphasised that his motion was not about pointing fingers or finding individuals guilty.All he wanted was acknowledgement that the atrocities had happened and an apology to the victims and their families.The wives of disappeared Lubango detainees had huge problems, Gertze told reporters last week.”Banks do not give these spouses a bank loan because their husbands must co-sign the application forms, but the husbands have disappeared.They also cannot buy items on hire-purchase for the same reasons,” he added.”They can also not remarry because to file for divorce one has to prove desertion of the spouse.It is also difficult for these women, one of them happens to be my sister, to have their husbands declared dead,” Gertze said.It was out of respect for their disappeared husbands and the fathers of their children that the wives of Lubango victims found it psychologically difficult to have them declared dead, according to him.Rights activist Phil ya Nangoloh said there was ample evidence that war crimes occurred during Namibia’s liberation struggle.In the 1989 court case of the Parents’ Committee against Swapo President Sam Nujoma, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees Philemon Mbaeva, Gerson Ruhumba, Hitjevi Boas Herunga, Karel Booitjie Muukwa and Deon Herbert Boois were being unlawfully detained by Swapo in Angola at the time the matter was brought before court.The court then also heard that Herunga and Boois were among a group of 200 Swapo detainees who had been removed from a dungeon in southern Angola on March 13 1986.They were taken away in Swapo military trucks to unknown destinations and were never seen or heard of again.”The Supreme Court issued an order in 1989 on Swapo President Sam Nujoma and others to immediately release the five detainees,” Ya Nangoloh, who is the Executive Director of the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR), said yesterday “This court order has, however, been ignored,” he said in a statement.”The NSHR deplores the ongoing vehement and systematic opposition by the ruling Swapo Party to address the long-running issue of war crimes committed prior to Namibian Independence,” Ya Nangoloh said.”Since Swapo repeatedly rejected NSHR calls for the establishment of a Namibian truth and reconciliation commission to probe past human rights violations internally, the only alternative left for accountability to be established over war crimes is for the issue of international crimes to be handed over to the international community,” the statement said.”Since the Namibian Government is apparently either unwilling or unable to prosecute potential war criminals internally, the NSHR is tempted to propose that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) launch an investigation into Namibia’s war crimes allegations or that an ad hoc tribunal be set up for that purpose,” it added.Ya Nangoloh stressed that war atrocities on the part of Swapo and the South African security forces alike should be investigated.Last week, DTA Vice President Philemon Moongo asked the newly appointed Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, if he could confirm or deny the court proceedings of August 16 1988 at Ondangwa that followed the Oshakati bank bombing on February 19 1988.Twenty-eight people died in the attack, and over 50 were injured.Moongo asked Minister Tjiriange if he could deny or confirm that Leonard Sheehama admitted in court that he was responsible for the bomb blast and had been sent by his commander, Conya Balango of Swapo’s armed wing, the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (Plan), to plant the bomb.Moongo also asked Tjiriange if it was true, that Sheehama, who appealed successfully against his judgement in South Africa, was welcomed “like a hero” upon his return in 1991.The CoD motion was tabled by the party’s Secretary General Kala Gertze, himself detained for six years in the dungeons of Lubango.It was aimed at debating the crimes perpetrated against several thousand Namibians.The victims were accused by Swapo of allegedly spying for apartheid South Africa.Most of them were rounded up and held in underground prisons and, after having been subjected to torture, many disappeared and remain unaccounted for.Others were summarily executed.”By bringing this motion to the democratically elected National Assembly, the CoD was creating a fair chance for all elected leaders, including Swapo Members of Parliament, to state their side in a democratic way,” Ulenga said in a statement, noting that “the free expression of political views was guaranteed in the Constitution”.”If Swapo leaders believe they can continue to hide and bury the Lubango detainee issue fo ever, they are terribly mistaken.The stern finger of injustice shall not cease to point,” Ulenga said.Gertze’s motion was rejected before he could motivate it.He later issued the speech that he could not deliver in Parliament as a press statement.In that, Gertze emphasised that his motion was not about pointing fingers or finding individuals guilty.All he wanted was acknowledgement that the atrocities had happened and an apology to the victims and their families.The wives of disappeared Lubango detainees had huge problems, Gertze told reporters last week.”Banks do not give these spouses a bank loan because their husbands must co-sign the application forms, but the husbands have disappeared.They also cannot buy items on hire-purchase for the same reasons,” he added.”They can also not remarry because to file for divorce one has to prove desertion of the spouse.It is also difficult for these women, one of them happens to be my sister, to have their husbands declared dead,” Gertze said.It was out of respect for their disappeared husbands and the fathers of their children that the wives of Lubango victims found it psychologically difficult to have them declared dead, according to him.Rights activist Phil ya Nangoloh said there was ample evidence that war crimes occurred during Namibia’s liberation struggle.In the 1989 court case of the Parents’ Committee against Swapo President Sam Nujoma, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees Philemon Mbaeva, Gerson Ruhumba, Hitjevi Boas Herunga, Karel Booitjie Muukwa and Deon Herbert Boois were being unlawfully detained by Swapo in Angola at the time the matter was brought before court.The court then also heard that Herunga and Boois were among a group of 200 Swapo detainees who had been removed from a dungeon in southern Angola on March 13 1986.They were taken away in Swapo military trucks to unknown destinations and were never seen or heard of again.”The Supreme Court issued an order in 1989 on Swapo President Sam Nujoma and others to immediately release the five detainees,” Ya Nangoloh, who is the Executive Director of the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR), said yesterday “This court order has, however, been ignored,” he said in a statement.”The NSHR deplores the ongoing vehement and systematic opposition by the ruling Swapo Party to address the long-running issue of war crimes committed prior to Namibian Independence,” Ya Nangoloh said.”Since Swapo repeatedly rejected NSHR calls for the establishment of a Namibian truth and reconciliation commission to probe past human rights violations internally, the only alternative left for accountability to be established over war crimes is for the issue of international crimes to be handed over to the international community,” the statement said.”Since the Namibian Government is apparently either unwilling or unable to prosecute potential war criminals internally, the NSHR is tempted to propose that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) launch an investigation into Namibia’s war crimes allegations or that an ad hoc tribunal be set up for that purpose,” it added.Ya Nangoloh stressed that war atrocities on the part of Swapo and the South African security forces alike should be investigated.Last week, DTA Vice President Philemon Moongo asked the newly appointed Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, if he could confirm or deny the court proceedings of August 16 1988 at Ondangwa that followed the Oshakati bank bombing on February 19 1988.Twenty-eight people died in the attack, and over 50 were injured.Moongo asked Minister Tjiriange if he could deny or confirm that Leonard Sheehama admitted in court that he was responsible for the bomb blast and had been sent by his commander, Conya Balango of Swapo’s armed wing, the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (Plan), to plant the bomb.Moongo also asked Tjiriange if it was true, that Sheehama, who appealed successfully against his judgement in South Africa, was welcomed “like a hero” upon his return in 1991.