A row over Namibia’s reconciliation process has led to calls for a South African-style truth commission, reports Denford Magora
THE reconciliation process in Namibia — carefully nurtured by President Sam Nujoma since independence — is teetering after a row over Swapo’s treatment of detainees during the liberation struggle and allegations of crimes committed by policemen in defence of apartheid.
The row has led to calls for a South African- style truth commission, but also to unprecedented threats of “civil war” from the secretary general of Swapo, Namibia’s ruling party.
A warrant officer in the Namibian police force, Linus Leumbo, sparked off the row by writing to the local press pointing fingers at serving and retired policemen. He alleges that, among other things, these men, whom he named, knew exactly who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Swapo activist Anton Lubowski.
Matters took a surprising turn two weeks ago with the publication of The Wall of Silence, a book written by Pastor Siegfried Groth, a German clergyman. The book details torture and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment that Swapo meted out at its camps to perceived renegade members of its guerrilla army. At a church convention last week, clergymen asked that a truth commission be set up urgently to probe the accusations.
To Nujoma, that was the last straw. Last week, he went on Namibian television and, for about half an hour, conducted a personal diatribe against Groth and Christo Lombard, one of the pastor’s helpers, whom he referred to as “an apostle of apartheid”.
The president said Groth was “never a friend of Swapo” and, therefore, not a champion of the liberation cause. Nujoma charged the book was a one-sided story loaded with “lies” and said that since the pastor was not ashamed of writing these “untruths”, he was stepping in to set the record straight in order to maintain “social order”.
Nujoma’s address added fuel to the fire, and some accused him of abusing his access to state television to promote Swapo’s cause.
This week, in one of the most venomous post- independence speeches from Swapo yet, party secretary-general Moses Garoseb said Swapo had opted for reconciliation but Groth and others were opening old wounds. “So, let us open them and see how it hurts.”
Saying Nujoma had been insulted, he declared: “I will not reconcile myself, I am on a war path. Maybe what we need in this country now is civil war.”
He said the party would not apologise to Swapo fighters who were tortured. “Apologise for what? For defeating the Boers? That is an insult to us black people.”
Disturbingly, Garoseb called on Swapo supporters to prepare for war, warning of “bloodshed in this country”.
Meanwhile, Leumbo says he is determined to bring those he fingered to book. He has written to the prosecutor general asking for heads to roll.
The prosecutor general responded by saying the name supplied to him by Leumbo as the person who pulled the trigger on Lubowski came from a statement that was taken some years ago. The witness, for some reason, was considered unreliable. So the matter was not pursued and the alleged killer was not interviewed.
But Leumbo says he smells a rat and alleges that this is all part of a cover-up involving the highest levels of the police force.
His mission is by no means restricted to the Lubowski case. He also wants the head of the deputy chief of police and has detailed the man’s alleged iniquities at length. The deputy chief professes ignorance and has refused to get into a “mud-slinging match” with the warrant officer.
l The Namibian this week reported that the Council of Churches in Namibia has said remarks made by Nujoma on NBC-TV last week subtly attempted to “suppress a constitutionally guaranteed right of freedom of speech” and contained accusations that whipped up fear and uncertainty among sections of Namibian society.
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