Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
Windhoek – Contrary to the perception it is cold outside Swapo, by many who had fallen out with the ruling party, former Swapo parliamentarian Bernadus Swartbooi says it is actually warm.
Swartbooi, who is now the leader of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), says it might have been cold outside Swapo when Ben Ulenga and others left the party, “which is why Ulenga went back to Swapo, but for him it is not the case.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like Ben, Ben is my good friend and I think he’s a gifted man,” he said during a press conference in the capital yesterday.
“It is actually warm outside Swapo, very warm, you don’t need to be ashamed of theft and corruption, you don’t need to feel ashamed of poor service delivery because you are not part of it,” he said.
Swartbooi also shot down the perception apparently by some analysts that Swartbooi starting a new political party would not be a wise decision.
“Some of these analysts say LPM will only get two seats and only 20,000 Namas will vote for Swartbooi if he starts a political party – no, they are wrong,” he said. “When we travel across the country, we go and set committees, we go and engage people one on one, we are not playing, we want a new Namibia not this type of new Namibia of Ben Ulenga.”
Swartbooi asked the Namibian nation to be patient and wait until February next year for an important announcement to be made by the organisation.
Furthermore, Swartbooi said there was a growing trend, which concerns the LPM, that Namibia’s global policy (diplomacy) and international solidarity are misplaced and still anchored on the principles obtained by Swapo during the Cold War.
“As of late Namibia votes against, or abstains, on critical human rights issues of the oppressed and subjugated. At the Rohingya vote, Namibia abstained. So did South Africa.”
He said for these two countries, which suffered apartheid colonialism, to have abstained from such a critical vote calling for humanitarian intervention in Myanmar, portrays a vision of a country suppressing the rights of the oppressed in international politics.
“We are of the view that LPM shall stand in defence of all the oppressed and downtrodden peoples of the world,” said the outspoken Swartbooi.
He said LPM will do that in the same way they believe in the establishment of a sovereign and independent State of Palestine premised on the June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital – “so shall all peasants and those seen as weak in the society remain our highest national priority.”
“We shall be in solidarity with the Rohingya people,” he emphasised.