With tearful eyes and a voice quivering with emotion, 70-year-old Emanuel Muatara talks of his political struggles inside the country during the liberation struggle and why he feels his efforts deserve special recognition.
Currently the secretary of the Swapo Party’s Elders Council in the Khomas Region and a registered veteran who enjoys war veteran benefits, Muatara says he feels he deserves “a hero’s status” because of his personal political contribution towards Namibia’s struggle for liberation, a sacrifice that he feels people have forgotten.
“I still feel like a forgotten hero. I was supposed to be given at least a medal, since I was doing a dangerous job of policing Swapo inside the country,” he says.
Muatara went on to establish a political rallying radio programme disguised as a story telling programme and to form a covert policing network in the country. “It was risky to be a member of Swapo police. I protected Swapo. I want to be honoured, even as a police commander. I want to be given my title of policing, like others were honoured.
I started the Namibian police, an emotive Muatara says of the covert police network he established in 1972, called the Namibian Police with members receiving membership cards.
“Whenever I think about my political journey I get so emotional, because the boers tricked me into applying for a job at the radio station,” Muatara narrated to New Era while fighting hard to hold back the tears.
His journey into politics began in December 1969 when he was working as a clerk at Oshakati Hospital. It was here that a certain Mr Stein approached him to work for the Oshiwambo service of the then South West Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SWABC) radio, with a promise of a good salary, said Muatara, who is also proficient in Afrikaans.
“Most of us, including Tate Shiimi Ya Shiimi, applied and were successful. We were the first black people to join the station. Among us was a certain presenter, named Ono Angula. We were all trained and started working well. We didn’t know the job was so bad, that it was a propaganda station. If I knew in the beginning I would have never left the north for that job,” he narrated.
The Oshiwambo radio service was considered a propaganda instrument of the colonial regime. Yet it is something Muatara did not think about at the time, until a fellow Swapo comrade, Benjamin Namalambo, approached him about the job he was doing. Namalambo paid Muatara a visit at his house in Donkerhoek, Katutura, and asked him: ‘Comrade Muatara, why did you join the propaganda machinery of the boers?’
“He opened up my mind and I decided to quit and go back to Ovamboland. Since it was risky to just quit work unexpectedly, I lied to the boers that I am sick. So I packed my things and Namalambo took me to his house for two days,” Muatara explained.
While in hiding at Namalambo’s house, the Swapo leadership held a meeting where it was decided that he would not be sent back to the north, as he could assist the party with secret information from the enemy, by being the “eyes and ears” for Swapo at the station.
Namalambo later crossed into exile where he died.
“I watched everything that happened at the station. I kept on working, and whatever the boers were talking, I brought it to Swapo. Angula realised that I used to hang around with Swapo people and he reported me at work. The boers decided to make me a presenter to promote their ill-fated agenda. So I refused and told them I am Kwambi-speaking and I cannot write Oshindonga, nor Oshikwanyama, which were recognised languages. So they asked what I can do, and I said I can tell stories – that’s how I started the programme,” he said.
And with that he started the Oshiwambo programme, called ‘Evening tales around the fire’ (Oshungi Kolupale Potshoto tsho musamane Muatara).
He used the programme to rally people to fight for Independence through story telling and the programme gained momentum, especially at the Old Compound of Katutura, where contract labourers lived. Little did he know that one of his bosses apparently understood Oshiwambo.
He was later dismissed and sent to Katutura police station after stealing a printer from the radio station. The printer contained crucial information he needed to pass on to the liberation fighters.
He was later charged under the Terrorism Act in the High Court, but won the case with the late Judge Bryan O’Linn presiding. The Catholic Church paid his legal fees. Between 1973 and 1975, he was in and out of prison for his political activities. He also recalls the time he was one of the people accused of assassinating the late Herero chief, Clemence Kapuuo, a claim he rubbished.
From 1977 to 1982 Muatara was among 68 other Namibians imprisoned in Gobabis under the AG26 law.
“In 1982, we were released and put under house arrest until elections in 1989.
We were not allowed to be visited by more than five people. We were tortured and assaulted, so I tried to escape three times to follow my six children into exile to Botswana, but I was caught. While under house arrest, the Catholic Church asked the then government for me to be moved to Gunichas Catholic missionary station, also in Gobabis. They agreed to watch me over there,” Muatara recalled.
While at the missionary station, he became a teacher, which encouraged him to pursue his studies at the Academy in 1989, up until 1993. He then became a qualified history and Afrikaans teacher and taught at Immanuel Shifidi Secondary School in Katutura until his retirement in 2005.
– First published in New Era, 2009