An avid reader and astute intellectual, Moses //Garoëb left an indelible print on the history of the liberation struggle as a contributor to UN resolutions that led to Resolution 435 and ultimately to Namibia’s independence.
//Garoëb died on the evening of September 19, 1997, at the age of 55, leaving many of his friends and political associates with a feeling that Namibia had lost one of its outstanding liberation heroes.
//Garoëb was born at !Arixas near Mariental on April 14, 1942, to Samuel Geingob and Rebecca Geingos.
Information about his early years and school days is sketchy at best, but he attended the Augustineum Training College in Windhoek.
It was in Windhoek that the 17-year-old //Garoëb first emerged as becoming aware – and involved in – political activism, when he witnessed the forced removal of the people of the Old Location in 1959.
The young //Garoëb took part in a demonstration to stop the forced removals, and witnessed the massacre that took place on December 12, 1959, in which 12 people were killed and 50 injured by the South African apartheid administration.
That year, //Garoëb joined Swanu, and in 1961, he went into exile and first found himself in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. There he met the likes of Moses Katjiuongua, who became his friend for 36 years. Katjiuongua recalled in an orbituary he wrote of his long-time friend that //Garoëb “was a strong Swanu man – perhaps a fanatical supporter – and an admirer of Uatja Willy Kaukuetu, the first Swanu president who led the 1959 resistance against the forced removals of blacks from the Old Location to Katutura”.
Early that year Swapo president Sam Nujoma visited the South West African refugees in Dar es Salaam. That was when the “Swanu man,” decided to join Swapo.
Later that year, //Garoëb went to the United States where he studied for a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at the University of Rochester in New York. While busy with his studies he also became a petitioner at the United Nations (UN) also on behalf of the Damara Executive Council (DEC). The DEC was a political party formed in Fransfontein in 1958 by the late paramount chief of the Damara, Dawid Goreseb. After the DEC was founded it went into dormancy but was revived around the time of the Old Location shootings. The party also opposed South Africa’s attempt to create a Damara homeland and a South African-sponsored Damara Council in line with the Odendaal Plan.
//Garoëb returned to Dar es Salaam in 1966, where he became a broadcaster with ‘The Namibian Hour’ that was beamed into Namibia through the external service radio of Tanzania. He later became the editor of the Swapo newsletter, ‘Namibia Today.’ Swapo’s media was considered to play a vital role in galvanising support inside Namibia to strengthen the numbers of a movement that was to enter into a military battle with South African forces.
In 1970 at Swapo’s first consultative congress in Tanga, Tanzania, //Garoëb was appointed as a member of the Swapo Central Committee, an organ that was later renamed the Politburo.
He also served as Swapo’s Administrative Secretary since 1969 until an undisclosed date. The Tanga congress made a decision to move Swapo’s headquarters to Lusaka, Zambia, and as the party’s administrative secretary //Garoëb was put in charge of the movement. The headquarters were later moved to Luanda, Angola, a process //Garoëb would also oversee.
Due to his position in Swapo, //Garoëb became involved in decisions about the purchase of weaponry and other war material. Procuring tonnages of war material through other people’s countries was always a tricky matter, involving a measure of finesse, a task in which //Garoëb was never found wanting.
//Garoëb was re-elected as a member of the Swapo Central Committee and Politburo as well as administration secretary at the enlarged meeting in Lubango, Angola, 1976, remaining at the centre of Swapo policy formulation and implementation. In 1976, //Garoëb represented Namibia at the UN Security Council that adopted Resolution 385, that led to the adoption of Security Council Resolution 435 of 1978, which was the UN’s plan for a negotiated settlement that paved the way for Namibia’s independence. At independence //Garoëb was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1989/1990 and continued as a member of the National Assembly, to which he was re-elected in 1994. //Garoëb was the Minister of Labour and Human Resources at the time of his death, when he succumbed to a long battle with high blood pressure and diabetes. – First published in New Era, 2009