Solomon ‘Jesus’ Hawala died aged 89.
He had retired in 2006 after a long career in the military, both before and after independence.
Known as the ‘Butcher of Lubango’, he personified the darkest chapter in the struggle history of Swapo.
His death is a reminder that this struggle history is far from being a heroic narrative.
FATAL OBSESSION
Most of those at the receiving end of Hawala’s role as the leading securocrat were – in contrast to him – denied a long life.
They died at a young age, while never found guilty of anything they were accused of.
Hawala oversaw a witch-hunt in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s in exile.
The crimes he and others committed have been euphemistically called the spy drama.
This is a misleading term, since the thousands tortured for confessions and forced to implicate others, were never proven to be guilty.
They were arrested, tortured, raped, executed, simply disappeared or died in the Lubango dungeons by neglect.
They were sacrificed to the obsession of compensating for the human losses inflicted by the brutal military attacks of the apartheid regime in the border war, culminating in the Cassinga massacre.
Thanks to the transitional year under the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (Untag), in mid-1989 a few hundred survivors were able to return home.
They remained stigmatised as so-called ex-detainees and were never rehabilitated. In contrast, those who tortured them made careers in the new Namibian state.
There were never any signs of wrong-doing or remorse.
Hawala is the most prominent example. Former president Sam Nujoma awarded him in 2004 one of the highest orders for his service.
May his soul rest in peace.
RESPONSIBLE MOURNING
The atrocities committed under the supervision of Hawala are not going away by his death.
They remain a festering wound.
Denialism and amnesia are no medication.
They do not heal injuries by trying to cover them.
Hawala’s death serves as a painful reminder that the slogan of solidarity, freedom, justice, has been betrayed by the treatment of the ex-detainees.
It would be a humble but adequate gesture not to honour Hawala with a state funeral or any other official mourning.
It would add insult to injury to give him credit for his career.
Responsible mourning should rather rehabilitate those who were his victims and other securocrats’.
The few who survived the ordeal and are still alive remain stigmatised and traumatised.
The trauma will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
But the stigma can be corrected.
It would be a long overdue and necessary consequence in admission of guilt.
It would be a late symbolic effort not to forget but to remember the crimes committed.
It would lay to rest as much as possible the injustices committed.
It would be a long overdue act of respect, putting to rest a dark chapter as much as possible, together with the body of Jesus Hawala.
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