By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – Minister of Environment and Tourism, Uahekua Herunga, has given the weekly Confidente newspaper seven days to apologise for a story in which the minister is said to have raped a 51-year-old woman.
In a letter to the Confidente editor-in-chief, Max Hamata, Tjitemisa & Associates – a law firm, instructed the newspaper to retract and to unconditionally apologise to Herunga for the front page article ran last week Thursday.
The law firm instructed the weekly to issue a press release to all media houses; to publish two consecutive articles in Confidente and two consecutive articles in New Era, The Namibian and Republikein newspapers during the course of this week.
The letter stated that the article, titled “Minister Herunga accused of raping 51-year-old woman”, has caused irreparable damages to the political career of their client and his person as a public figure and a husband and father.
Before the article appeared, Herunga’s fate as minister was already sealed as he was among six Cabinet ministers who did not make it to parliament following last year’s general elections.
“Our client is a public figure and a politician at his prime with an unquestionable reputation and character whose good name and character has been subjected to defamation by the content of the mentioned article,” read the statement.
The statement further charged that the publication intentionally, recklessly and negligently omitted to do proper investigation, verification of facts and background check on the “mysterious faceless 51-yea-rold Pioneers Park woman” before it haphazardly and hastily allowed itself to be a conduit pipe for defamatory, baseless and malicious allegations, which appear to be a narration of a part in a script of a Hollywood movie based on fiction.
The statement demanded Confidente to pay their client’s legal cost incurred as a result of the article as well as revealing the name of the alleged victim.
Journalistic ethics and indeed the law of the country prevent the media from revealing the identities of rape victims and those who claim to be such type of victims.
“Our client reserves his rights to take legal actions against the Confidente Editor-in Chief Max Hamata and the two reporters Mariane Nghidengwa and Patience Nyangove,” further reads the statement.
Hamata yesterday ruled out any chance of retracting the story, let alone apologising for it.
He said: “The demand to reveal the identity of an alleged rape victim is a non-starter. The law emphatically says you cannot do that and lawyers ought to know that.
“This is a matter reported to the police and, as such we can report on anything that has officially been lodged with the police. The minister is not special. If anything, he is a public figure. The minister must deal with the allegations instead of shooting the messenger. We gave him a chance to respond and he failed to use that opportunity.”
Meanwhile, the school principal of Uahekua Herunga Junior Primary School, the school for which the minister is a patron, Daniel Michael, said he is aware of the rape allegation against the minister.
The school was renamed after the minister nearly two years ago. The allegations brought to the fore the debate, especially on social networks, of whether institutions or streets must be renamed after living persons when such people can still damage their own reputations.
“I don’t see it [the rape claim] having a negative impact on the image of the school,” Michael said.