By Mashuna Timoteus
Despite not lived having long enough to enjoy the fruits of the liberation struggle, Jonas Nashivela is one of the early pioneers of the liberation struggle who played a reading role in the political mobilization of the Namibian people.
Suffice it to say that he is one of the people who provided assistance to Swapo’s first military commandos who were deployed in the country from Tanzania in 1965. Born in 1927 at Onakaolo village in the present day Ohangewena Region, Nashivela first worked under the colonial contract labour system at Omaruru before he moved to Tsumeb where he worked for the Tsumeb Corporation Limited (Ltd). Since most of the contract labour in the country became exposed to the political mobilization of the 1950s and 60s, Nashivela was also one of the contract workers who got politically enlightened during that era. It is perhaps within this context that his wife, Joolokeni Nashivela, argues that it was only upon his return from his contract work in Tsumeb that he begun to organize political meetings to mobilize the youth in his village. “When he returned from Tsumeb that is when he begun his political activities. He used the church youth meetings as a platform to mobilize many communities. At the end of the church youth meetings, he would continue with his political activities,” says Joolokeni Nashivela (widow) during an interview with this author. His political activities where not only confined to his home village, he linked up with some of the country’s earliest pioneers such Andimba Toivo ya Toivo and Kaxumba Kandola to intensify the political campaign against the colonial South African occupationist administration.
This made him one of the most formidable and trusted cadres of Swapo such that when Swapo deployed its first military commando also known as the G1 in 1965 he was among those invited by his comrades to provide assistance to the commandos. When the first group of soldier arrived from Tanganyika before they went to settle at Omugulugombashe, Kaxumba invited Nashivela to his house so that they could split the soldiers among themselves. “Some of the people who were also Swapo members refused and they did not want to keep the soldiers in their houses, but my husband [Nashivela] was not scared.”
He went to Kaxumba’s house and came back with Simeon Shixungileni (Kambo) and Nelson Kavela to our house. He kept them in our house for 12 months and I have been cooking for them,” recalls Joolokeni Nashivela. Following the Omugulugombashe attack on August 26, 1966 and the eventual crackdown on those suspected to have had links to the attack, Nashivela also became a target for the colonial authorities. He was arrested in 1966 for supporting terrorism. Whilst in detention, Nashivela was tortured and subjected to prolonged inhumane interrogation. “His legs were hung from the roof of the building with his head facing the floor and he was beaten repeatedly and severely while he was being interrogated. They were asking him where he got his Swapo ideas from and he told them that he did not learn about Swapo from anyone,” recalled Joolokeni Nashivela further. Found guilty on the charges, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison at the notorious Robben Island prison in South Africa. He was released in 1972 and came to his home village where he continued with his political activities. At the Engela church, he became known for the political speech he often delivered during church services. He died in 1991 after a car suspected to belong to agents of the South African apartheid administration bumped him.