Iyambo twisted facts, charges NSHR

A CLAIM by a senior Cabinet Minister that a recent mass grave discovery in north-central Namibia was sold to the public as a “new discovery” of a human rights organisation and that its executive director was allegedly a “mercenary using human rights a springboard for financial reward and international exposure” came under fire yesterday.

“Safety and Security Minister Nickey Iyambo is twisting the facts and was clearly imbued by the fear of his political masters,” a defiant Phil ya Nangoloh, Executive Director of the National Society for Human Rights, charged. Minister Iyambo attacked Ya Nangoloh in Parliament this week, when delivering a ministerial statement on the issue, claiming there was nothing new about the grave discoveries and Government, as well as the Police, had known about it all along.The grave close to the Angolan border contains the bodies of four men shot by South African Police in January 1972 at Epinga.After making its findings public last month, the NSHR undertook a joint trip with Police officers to the grave of 1972 at the request of Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga.”If the Government knew all along about this particular grave and other sites in the north, which we made public last month, why did they not inform the public long ago?” Ya Nangoloh told The Namibian yesterday.”We are calling upon the Minister to go further and disclose all and any other information in his possession on the now-confirmed mass grave sites and on the whereabouts of the people who had disappeared during former President Sam Nujoma’s illegal armed conflict along the northern and northeastern borders of Namibia [in the 1990s],” Ya Nangoloh challenged.”These people can hardly just disappear without a trace or as if they had never existed.The disappeared people include Namibian Defence Force (NDF) Corporal Musenge Shipoya, the 18 San men who disappeared in Western Caprivi and the 81 ‘suspected Unita bandits’ who were paraded at the Rundu Military Base in January 2000 as well as the hundreds of others who were ‘cleared’ from their residences in the border areas,” the NSHR said in a statement released yesterday.”Dr Iyambo deliberately evaded to address the issue of such enforced disappearances and the likes of him must not wait until the human rights organisation discovers any further grave sites for them (Government) to claim that they were after all aware about them all along.”The NSHR urged the Minister of Safety and Security to also reveal the full identities and all other particulars relating to the numbers and nationalities of the persons apparently executed and buried near Oshikome village in western Kavango.”He must not wait until NSHR leads him there in order for him to claim that he was already aware about only ‘waited to respond at an appropriate time’ as he claimed in Parliament.”Iyambo’s ministerial statement appears to serve two interrelated objectives – one, to please his political masters and to assure them that he is still loyal to them and thereby hide his alleged Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) sympathies, or to intimidate me and even cow me into silence and to discredit human rights organisations,” according to Ya Nangoloh.In his statement in Parliament, Minister Iyambo attacked the NSHR boss by claiming “that those governments, international organisations and perhaps Namibians who believe or probably believe Ya Nangoloh as a serious human rights representative, they must know they are dealing with a mercenary who is using human rights as a springboard to get recognition or financial reward, alternatively, he wants to tarnish the names of gallant Namibian leaders and her people.”Minister Iyambo attacked Ya Nangoloh in Parliament this week, when delivering a ministerial statement on the issue, claiming there was nothing new about the grave discoveries and Government, as well as the Police, had known about it all along.The grave close to the Angolan border contains the bodies of four men shot by South African Police in January 1972 at Epinga.After making its findings public last month, the NSHR undertook a joint trip with Police officers to the grave of 1972 at the request of Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga.”If the Government knew all along about this particular grave and other sites in the north, which we made public last month, why did they not inform the public long ago?” Ya Nangoloh told The Namibian yesterday.”We are calling upon the Minister to go further and disclose all and any other information in his possession on the now-confirmed mass grave sites and on the whereabouts of the people who had disappeared during former President Sam Nujoma’s illegal armed conflict along the northern and northeastern borders of Namibia [in the 1990s],” Ya Nangoloh challenged.”These people can hardly just disappear without a trace or as if they had never existed.The disappeared people include Namibian Defence Force (NDF) Corporal Musenge Shipoya, the 18 San men who disappeared in Western Caprivi and the 81 ‘suspected Unita bandits’ who were paraded at the Rundu Military Base in January 2000 as well as the hundreds of others who were ‘cleared’ from their residences in the border areas,” the NSHR said in a statement released yesterday.”Dr Iyambo deliberately evaded to address the issue of such enforced disappearances and the likes of him must not wait until the human rights organisation discovers any further grave sites for them (Government) to claim that they were after all aware about them all along.”The NSHR urged the Minister of Safety and Security to also reveal the full identities and all other particulars relating to the numbers and nationalities of the persons apparently executed and buried near Oshikome village in western Kavango.”He must not wait until NSHR leads him there in order for him to claim that he was already aware about only ‘waited to respond at an appropriate time’ as he claimed in Parliament.”Iyambo’s ministerial statement appears to serve two interrelated objectives – one, to please his political masters and to assure them that he is still loyal to them and thereby hide his alleged Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) sympathies, or to intimidate me and even cow me into silence and to discredit human rights organisations,” according to Ya Nangoloh.In his statement in Parliament, Minister Iyambo attacked the NSHR boss by claiming “that those governments, international organisations and perhaps Namibians who believe or probably believe Ya Nangoloh as a serious human rights representative, they must know they are dealing with a mercenary who is using human rights as a springboard to get recognition or financial reward, alternatively, he wants to tarnish the names of gallant Namibian leaders and her people.”