Tangeni Amupadhi Namibia’s Minister of Home Affairs, Jerry Ekandjo, has perfected the art of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Having barely recovered from a humiliating forced apology, he has now courted fresh controversy with statements that dwarf Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s gay-bashing. Ekandjo, who is in charge of the police, caused a stir this week when he commandeered 700 newly recruited police officers to ”eliminate” gay men and lesbians ”from the face of Namibia”. Speaking at a passing-out parade at Ondangwa in northern Namibia, Ekandjo told the officers that a ”new crime is on the increase”. He said the crime was that of people who practise homosexuality. ”We must make sure that we eliminate them [homosexuals] from the face of Namibia,” he said, equating gay men and lesbians to ”unnatural acts, including murder”. He claimed that if gay men and lesbians had ”a homo- sexual dog, they would kill it” – an apparent reference to the suggestion that even homosexuals believe their sexuality is unnatural.
Ekandjo also claimed in an interview with the BBC that there were no more than 10 homosexuals in Windhoek and that all were of ”European origin”. The minister is no stranger to controversy. Until last month he was entangled in a dispute with the country’s judiciary after he attacked non-Namibian judges for being ”reactionaries” because they made judgements that apparently hampered him from doing what the executive felt was ”good for its people”. This was after a court granted a music group of refugees an interim order not to be deported or to be removed and confined to a refugee camp. The government wanted to punish the group for performing at a rally of an opposition party. Ekandjo threatened to kick judges out of Namibia by withdrawing their work permits, although it later turned out the judges don’t need permits as they are appointed by the state president. The courts accused him of being in contempt. President Sam Nujoma forced Ekandjo to apologise, which he did in a private meeting with the judges. The government publicly distanced itself from his attack on the judiciary and reaffirmed its commitment to the independence of the judiciary. Ekandjo has refused to answer questions posed by opposition parties in Parliament, claiming he was ”not accountable to them”. Elizabeth Khaxas, a black gay woman and a member of the Rainbow Project, which promotes gay and lesbian rights in Namibia, called on the government to denounce Ekandjo’s call for the ”elimination of gays”. Other human rights groups and political parties have also come out strongly against him. Last year Ekandjo accused his one-time comrade in arms, Ben Ulenga, of being a traitor from Koevoet, the notorious apartheid security unit, after Ulenga left Swapo in disagreement with the party’s decision to change the Constitution so that Nujoma can rule longer than prescribed. Ulenga also protested against the government’s decision to send troops to prop up Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ekandjo has made statements that virtually tell people to take the law into their own hands in order to fight crime. His critics say his attacks are a cover for his failure to combat spiralling crime in the country. Ekandjo spent nine years on Robben Island and was detained without trial at many of the apartheid era’s notorious detention centres. Now he presides over a police force that tortures suspects at will. Opposition parties are asking Nujoma to remove Ekandjo from the government, but this is unlikely to happen.