Hate-placard suspect says he’ll refuse to stand trial

HATE-SPEECH suspect Malcolm X Matundu, who is accused of being responsible for the parading of a placard with the words ‘Kill all whites’ along Windhoek’s main street last year, is threatening that he will refuse to stand trial under what he says are “white occupiers’ laws”.

Matundu, also known as Methuzal Matundu, and a co-accused, Gerson Ndjavera, made their third appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday. They are charged with contravening the Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act.Yesterday, Magistrate Claudia Claasen postponed their case to August 29 for further investigation.Ndjavera and Matundu remain free on bail of N$500 each – granted at their first court appearance following their arrests in late September and early October last year respectively.They were arrested in connection with a public demonstration, accompanied by a procession down the capital’s Independence Avenue on August 24 last year.One of the people who took part was photographed carrying a placard with the words ‘Kill all whites’ on it.This person, it is alleged, was Ndjavera.After his first appearance in court, Matundu told The Namibian that he had actually been the proud and “authentic author” of that placard.He has in the meantime also delivered a hand-written, three-page statement to the offices of The Namibian.He said yesterday that he still stood by what he had stated in that document.In it, Matundu states that he will refuse to stand trial on the charge that he faces.The Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act, under which he has been charged, is based on the Constitution’s Article 23 (which deals with apartheid and affirmative action), he states.The Constitution itself is in turn “an embryo of the 1982 constitutional principles for an independent Namibia”, which themselves were “written by five white supremacist imperialist powers, i.e.America, Britain, Canada, France and Germany”, Matundu argues.The constitutional principles, he claims, were intended “as an antidote” against a potential “black repossessive social revolution against whites in an independent Namibia”.”The idea behind the 1982 constitutional principles was to make sure that in an independent Namibia, the bulk of economic power would remain in the hands of the local white minority and their absentee kith and kin owners of multinational companies as scattered in South Africa and white supremacist Europe and America,” he argues in the statement.”To sustain such a neo-colonial arrangement the Swapo self-enriching elite has been welcomed on the gravy train and is today dining and wining with local whites and big cheeses of international finance capital.”The 1982 constitutional principles were written by white people, at a time when Namibia was under occupation by white people, and the Constitution that flowed from this, was also drafted by white legal experts from South Africa, he claims.Says Matundu: “So it is only a stupid and mad person, who, after being accused of having said all whites must be killed, will allow to be charged under his white occupiers’ laws.”They are charged with contravening the Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act.Yesterday, Magistrate Claudia Claasen postponed their case to August 29 for further investigation.Ndjavera and Matundu remain free on bail of N$500 each – granted at their first court appearance following their arrests in late September and early October last year respectively.They were arrested in connection with a public demonstration, accompanied by a procession down the capital’s Independence Avenue on August 24 last year.One of the people who took part was photographed carrying a placard with the words ‘Kill all whites’ on it.This person, it is alleged, was Ndjavera.After his first appearance in court, Matundu told The Namibian that he had actually been the proud and “authentic author” of that placard.He has in the meantime also delivered a hand-written, three-page statement to the offices of The Namibian.He said yesterday that he still stood by what he had stated in that document.In it, Matundu states that he will refuse to stand trial on the charge that he faces.The Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act, under which he has been charged, is based on the Constitution’s Article 23 (which deals with apartheid and affirmative action), he states.The Constitution itself is in turn “an embryo of the 1982 constitutional principles for an independent Namibia”, which themselves were “written by five white supremacist imperialist powers, i.e.America, Britain, Canada, France and Germany”, Matundu argues.The constitutional principles, he claims, were intended “as an antidote” against a potential “black repossessive social revolution against whites in an independent Namibia”.”The idea behind the 1982 constitutional principles was to make sure that in an independent Namibia, the bulk of economic power would remain in the hands of the local white minority and their absentee kith and kin owners of multinational companies as scattered in South Africa and white supremacist Europe and America,” he argues in the statement.”To sustain such a neo-colonial arrangement the Swapo self-enriching elite has been welcomed on the gravy train and is today dining and wining with local whites and big cheeses of international finance capital.”The 1982 constitutional principles were written by white people, at a time when Namibia was under occupation by white people, and the Constitution that flowed from this, was also drafted by white legal experts from South Africa, he claims.Says Matundu: “So it is only a stupid and mad person, who, after being accused of having said all whites must be killed, will allow to be charged under his white occupiers’ laws.”