SWAPO, through its government, brought home the remains of what it thought were of its fallen heroes. They include Ndadi waNehepo and Peter Nanyemba.
Ndadi died with Penny Hashoongo and Nanyemba in a highly questionable car accident with Gaylord Kakafa Samuel but the remains of Penny and Gaylord were not brought home.
When will they be? In fact, there are several heroes and heroines whose remains are lying in the graves in Zambia and Angola.
They include those hundreds killed at Oshatotwa in 1976 in a South African raid believed to have been planned by the then Swapo president through his secretary of defence – both believed by many as then agents of the South African intelligence service.
Before the raid Nanyemba instructed the cadres not to move out of the camp, but his commanders slept out, and early in the morning South Africa attacked.
Hundreds died.
Relatives of the victims would be happy to receive the remains of theirloved ones in Namibia. (A month earlier Nanyemba had commanded the fighters in Kwando River to move from a main island onto a minor one. The fighters agreed, but did not move. That evening the minor island was under South African rocket attack. Nobody was injured.)
of the Zambian army on the orders of the Swapo president on 8 August 1976 in the Mboroma detention camp and those thousands killed on the orders of the same by Swapo’s killing operatives such as James Awala, Solomon Hawala, Neto Wapulile, a certain M Nekongo, and Peter Tsheehama Tjirumbu in Zambia and Angola.
Relatives would want their remains repatriated.
There is now enough evidence to suggest that the Swapo president had a hand in the attack on Ongulumbashe on 26 August 1966. Even Peter Katjavivi, in one of his publications, stated that Swapo planned this attack to coincide with Maharero Day, which is 26 August.
Two shots were fired by Swanepoel and killed two fighters who had tried to fire at a helicopter. We lost the battle, and Swapo president declared the raid as an attack on an enemy base and the two shots as the first against the enemy. Where are the remains of the two guerrillas? He, later, erected his own statue there to symbolise his victory over the enemy.
The survived guerrillas regrouped and made their first ever shot against South Africa at Oshikango the following month. They won the battle.
The president never celebrated this! When shall we?
One of the three Swapo top leaders who had brought the European photo shy;grapher believed to have supplied camp information to South Africa about Cassinga, Vietnam, and Moscow was Swapo president Sam Nujoma.
Many survivors of the attacks increasingly support the views of Willy Amutenya (New Era, 3 May 2007) and Hatuikulipi (both Vietnam survivors) that the leaders, through their photo shy;grapher, had a hand in the planning of the attacks on 4 April 1978.
The victims include fighters and the children from a Shipiki bus freshly abducted by Swapo into Cassinga.
Relatives would want their remains home. The Swapo president has trails of destruction of the Namibian people, even inside Namibia.
On Tuesday 1 January 1985, United Press International (UPI) reported that ‘[a] bomb wrecked a post office packed with pensioners in northern Namibia on Monday, killing five people and wounding 14 others hellip;’
Later Nujoma claimed responsibility, and was consequently condemned by many, including the Namibian print media sympathetic to him.
This led him to change tactics.
On 17 February 1988 another bomb planted by Leonard Sheehama apparently ordered by Nujoma wrecked a Barclays Bank at Oshakati, killing 27 and injuring 70. This time the president blamed South Africa for it, and even the victims and their relatives firmly believed him to this day.
In Swapo military operations, the president had a policy of ordering guerrillas to enter Namibia without food so that they would force civilians to cook for them, and put the villagers into danger.
If they deny guerrillas food, the guerrillas would kill them as enemy sympathisers.
If they give, South Africa would beat or kill them. The president knew this, and could only do it purposely! Such civilian victims need veteran status and deserve compensation for their participation in the struggle.
Namibia, and Swapo, must take stock of all the nasty events by the party during the liberation struggle while the president is still with us.
I, like many fellow ex Plan guerrillas, am ready to play my part and correct the nation’s history in the face of my ex commander in chief, and I challenge him to come forward and deny my and similar allegations by others.
