SPYL guilty of slander

A SLANDEROUS public attack that Swapo Party Youth League executive member Veikko Nekundi launched against Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Veiccoh Nghiwete and other top Government officials a month and a half ago is set to hit Nekundi’s own wallet.

Nekundi, the SPYL’s secretary for economic affairs, can be held liable for comments that he made about Nghiwete at a press conference in Windhoek on March 26, Acting Judge John Manyarara ruled in the High Court on Friday. He made the ruling in a N$250 000 defamation claim that Nghiwete filed against Nekundi as a result of the remarks that he made to the media.Acting Judge Manyarara will at a later stage make a ruling on the amount of money that Nekundi will be ordered to pay Nghiwete as a result of the defamatory statement that he had made. Nghiwete is claiming N$250 000 from him.Nekundi did not defend the case.At the press conference he announced that the ruling party’s youth league was calling for an investigation of what he claimed had been a meeting between the German Ambassador to Namibia, the President of the Rally for Democracy and Progress, and ‘some senior officials in the Swapo Party Government’, including the Permanent Secretaries of the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs and the Director General of the National Planning Commission.Nekundi also charged – and this turned out to be the statement that prompted Nghiwete to sue him for defamation – that the youth league had been tipped off that the people that he mentioned were discussing ‘strategies to cause national destruction and confusion’.Nekundi added that the youth league had lost confidence in the officials mentioned.Twelve days after Nekundi had made those accusations, Nghiwete filed a defamation claim against him in the High Court.In his claim, Nghiwete stated that the remarks made by Nekundi were understood to mean that Nghiwete engaged in meetings that undermine the Government and the ruling party of Namibia, that he conspired with a representative of a foreign government to engage in treasonous activities against Namibia, that he was involved in high treason and sabotage against Namibia, and that he was not a fit and proper person to serve as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.In testimony given before Acting Judge Manyarara on Friday, Nghiwete said he was shocked and dismayed to hear about the statements made by Nekundi when a reporter of the Afrikaans newspaper Republikein phoned him for his comment on March 26.He said he had attended a dinner with the German Ambassador, the State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, who was visiting Namibia at the time, senior Government officials and other guests who were invited to the event by the German Ambassador. The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Calle Schlettwein, and the Director General of the National Planning Commission, Peter Katjavivi, and representatives of various political parties who had also been invited by the Ambassador were also at the dinner. He had no control over who the Ambassador put on his guest list, Nghiwete said.Discussions of ‘strategies to cause national destruction and confusion’ were most definitely not on the menu at the dinner, Nghiwete told the court.’I really felt hurt. I really felt this was malicious,’ he told the court when his counsel, Dave Smuts, asked him how he felt about the claims that Nekundi made about him. Nekundi had no basis to make such a statement, Nghiwete said.He told the court that after he instituted legal action against Nekundi, he has not been contacted by Nekundi and has still not received any apology from him either.Nghiwete further told the court that Nekundi’s accusations were also damaging to the relations between Namibia and Germany.Nghiwete testified that, except for his position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he is also the headman of a community in northern Namibia. After the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Nekundi’s statement at the press conference, he received many calls from members of his community who wanted to know what was going on, he said.Nghiwete told the court that he has been a member of Swapo for forty years. He was a member of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia from the 1970s, and rose through the ranks to become a Plan commander and political commissar in Swapo’s armed wing. After he was seriously injured in a landmine explosion in 1979, he went on to study in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and continued being active on the diplomatic front of Namibia’s liberation struggle, he said. He joined the Namibian diplomatic service after Independence in 1990, and was one of the country’s first Ambassadors to be appointed after Independence.It has been a great honour for him to be in his current position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to work for the people of Namibia, Nghiwete told the court.He was represented by senior counsel Smuts and Ramon Maasdorp, instructed by Hartmut Ruppel of LorentzAngula Inc.werner@namibian.com.na