HIDIPO Hamutenya (HH) was born in Odibo in the Ohangwena Region on 17 June 1939. He is a veteran Namibian politician who served as Swapo secretary for education in the 1970s.
Currently the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) president, Hamutenya was a longtime leading member of the South West Africa People’s Organization (Swapo) as well as a cabinet member from independence in 1990 to 2004.
During the struggle Hamutenya served as Swapo’s representative in America from 1965 to 1972, and he also served as the Swapo secretary for education from 1974 to 1976.
He was elected to the Swapo Politburo in August 1976, and at the same time was a founding member of the United Nations Institute for Namibia (UNIN) in Lusaka, Zambia. At UNIN, Hamutenya was the deputy director and head of the history and political science department from 1976 to 1981.
From 1978 to 1989, he was part of Swapo’s negotiating team for the UN Plan for Namibia’s independence. He also served as Swapo’s secretary for information and publicity for ten years from 1981 to 1991.
His biography from parliament’s archives says in his early years Hamutenya attended primary school at Engela before attending Augustineum College in Okahandja from 1959 to 1961 – and it was then when Hidipo felt the need to go into exile. The idea was however stirred by the Windhoek uprising in December 1959, after which student unrest erupted at Augustineum.
Hamutenya took part in the uprising after which he couldn’t stay in the country and as a result he had to flee and went to Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania to join other exiles.
During the liberation struggle Hamutenya was very fortunate to further his studies in the field of journalism at the Sofia University in Bulgaria and he later obtained a BA in political science and history from Lincoln University in the United States, and in 1973 he graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with a MA.
Hamutenya also played a very important role in the liberation of Namibia.
Immediately prior to independence, he was a Swapo member of the Constituent Assembly, which was in place from November 1989 to March 1990, and when Namibia gained its independence in 1990, he became a member of the National Assembly and the minister of information and broadcasting.
He served as minister of information and broadcasting until April 15, 1993, when he was instead appointed as the minister of trade and industry, trading posts with Ben Amathila.
He remained in the latter position for nine years, until he became the minister of foreign affairs on 27 August 2002 in a cabinet reshuffle.
In November 2007 he resigned from Swapo and from his seat in the National Assembly.
In the same month he launched a new party, the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP).
Hamutenya was one of three Swapo candidates nominated for the presidency in 2004 to succeed Dr Sam Nujoma.
Hamutenya currently serves as RDP president.
By Mwaka Liswaniso