Hendrik Witbooi: a tribute

The following article on the life of the late Reverend Hendrik Witbooi was adapted from a tribute done by Reverend Willem Simon Hanse and first published by The Namibian in August.

REVEREND Hendrik Witbooi, Namibia’s first Deputy Prime Minister, was Pastor and Presiding Elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as well as Captain of the /Khowese people.Witbooi, also known as //Kawamuma/onob, was born on January 3 1934 at Gibeon and raised in the pastoral family of Pastor Markus Witbooi and Mother Hatais Witbooi.In the words of Reverend Willem Simon Hanse, the late Witbooi lived ‘a sensational childhood and an equally sensational adulthood – never boring to say the least’.’Together with father Markus and his elder brother Willem Moses, they were a source of joy not only to their family, but to the trumpeters and other musicians of their time,’ Hanse wrote when Witbooi retired from pastoral activities on September 5.EARLY YEARSWitbooi was educated at Rhenish Missionary and Wesleyan Methodist Schools in Namibia as well as at the Wilberforce Institute in Evaton, South Africa.First he took up employment as teacher in 1956 at Keetmanshoop, transferred in 1959 to Maltahöhe, and returned in 1965 to Gibeon at the request of the community and the Church to build on the foundations laid by his aging father.He oversaw, in 1967, the amalgamation of the early AME Private School with the new state school, but resigned from state school in 1976.While teaching was his primary role, the traditional and church leaders increasingly relied on him in many ways. He served as secretary and chief political advisor to his predecessor, the late Kaptein Hendrik Samuel Witbooi, and was mainly responsible for the church’s archives. He also served the St Mark’s AME Church in various capacities, from Sunday school teacher to church choir director.After serving the /Khowese Traditional Authority as secretary since 1973, he was elected as Kaptein while he was a political prisoner in solitary confinement in 1977 following the teachers’ strike of 1976-7, which resulted from his refusal to accept a teaching transfer to Maltahöhe.The objective of this transfer was to exile him out from Gibeon, thereby removing his influence in a community that had reawakened to renewed calls for freedom and the liberation of the motherland.’As a young and energetic visionary he had not only shaped both the church and clan’s destiny, but has again reunited faith and politics in one office,’ Hanse wrote.RECONCILERHe said Witbooi came on to the pastoral scene as ‘one single most influential human being’ who always tried to reconcile opposing views and put collective interest and unity of the AME Church above everything else.’Having studied music home (father was an established musician) and away (i.e. Wilberforce Institute), he combined his poetic and oratory skills with his prophetic voice to instil a renewed sense of self-actualisation with his people,’ Hanse wrote.He said Witbooi’s life was a drama which he himself drafted, directed and choreographed different scenes of service to humanity and the liberation struggle.Since the early days of his secular leadership Witbooi was very cautious to make sure that he closely walked in the footsteps of auta !Nânseb, one of the most powerful African leaders at the time when Germany began to colonise Namibia.’To this date, we are proud to say, without fear or favour, that Pastor Hendrik Witbooi was a steadfast leader, firm in his principle stand against injustices of any kind, anywhere,’ Hanse wrote.SWAPOWitbooi joined Swapo in 1976 after he realised that freedom, justice and individuals and communities in solo act would not achieve independence, but that people must join hands across the artificial divides of race, colour or creed to emancipate the country.At that stage he was a young dynamic preacher-leader, who went to the far North at Oluno and elsewhere during the heat of apartheid and shouted at the top of his voice that freedom and justice will roll down like water.In March 1979, with the generous support of people who followed him faithfully, he established the AME Community Private School.The school was established to provide alternative education to the children of Namibia in church buildings and under the trees. One of his teachers was current Minister of Local Government Jerry Ekandjo.In January 1981 he was part of the Swapo delegation, led by Sam Nujoma, which took part in a conference on the pre-implementation of the UN Resolution conference in Geneva, Switzerland.Two years later he was elected, in absentia, as the acting vice president of Swapo.In 1984 he led a delegation of Swapo internal leaders and the party’s allies to the historic Lusaka Summit, which turned out a futile exercise due to a lack of political will on the part of South Africa.At this meeting, some white Namibians met with the exiled leadership of Swapo and new bridges of solidarity were built.COMMUNITYAND HISTORYIn 1985 Witbooi undertook a trip to Germany and came back to introduce the rural community health mobile clinic and the AME Community Private Schools with the assistance of Medico International in Frankfurt and EZE in Bonn respectively. In the same year, he was also invited by the foreign office of the Federal Republic of Germany for extensive discussions on the question of Namibia.The German government sought the views of the /Khowese people in recognition of Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi who waged the resistance wars against colonial Germany.Witbooi’s international networking in especially Germany resulted in the realisation and acquisition of the rural health mobile clinic with a fully equipped ambulance and personnel donated by the Medico International in Frankfurt to the St Mark’s AME Church in Gibeon to serve the entire community irrespective of denominational and party-political affiliations.The year 1986 saw the completion of the construction and inauguration of the Halley’s community kindergarten.The year 1987 started on a wrong foot when Witbooi’s passport expired in February and his application for renewal was turned down without any reason.FIRST DEPUTYPRIME MINISTERThe same year he was arrested and taken, via Mariental and Windhoek, to the Osire detention camp and detained there for 24 days without trial in solitary confinement. ‘For the first two days, he was detained wearing only his underwear and it was in this horrible condition that his soul was stripped naked and laid barren before his Creator. But he kept on in faith and in the afternoon of the 24th day in prison, the favourable court ruling on the application of his wife and relatives was adhered to and he was released from prison,’ Hanse wrote.As Vice President of Swapo, Witbooi welcomed the party’s advance team under the leadership of Hage Geingob in 1989 and when Nujoma returned after an absence of 29 years from Namibia, they shared the platform at his first public rally on September 24 1989.In 1989, the late Witbooi became a member of the Constituent Assembly which drafted the country’s Constitution and was appointed and sworn in as Namibia’s first Minister of Labour on March 21 1990. On March 21 1995 he was appointed and sworn in as Namibia’s first Deputy Prime Minister and held onto this position for a full decade until his retirement from active politics in 2005.When ill health took its toll the African Methodist Episcopal Church granted him the status of supernumerary pastor (active without pastoral appointment).During his time of active politics the /Khowese people gave him a sabbatical from the chieftaincy, which was in the hands of acting Kaptein Christian Rooi.

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