Government this week announced that it will donate N$11 million to each of the African countries battling the deadly Ebola virus, as well as the Palestinian people living in the Gaza Strip.
News of these donations smoked naysayers out of their comfort zones. The sceptics say government is giving away much needed resources to foreigners while our own country faces enormous problems of its own.
When the Ebola virus surfaced in West Africa, many countries, including – and shamefully so – some African countries, shut their doors to any travellers coming from countries where Ebola is wreaking havoc.
Some of these countries have not made an attempt to help in any way the people of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal when these countries need any form of assistance, no matter how small, to mitigate the effects of this deadly virus.
Instead, the world – with a few exceptions – has turned its back on those nations. Namibia, herself a product of international solidarity, was among a few countries that responded to the call of assisting these desperate people.
True, we are swamped by hordes of domestic problems, but when Cuba’s Fidel Castro decided to send troops to fight along Swapo in Angola, it was not because that island nation was without social challenges of its own.
Yet unlike many foreign institutions who come and loot African resources in broad daylight, the Cubans left the African soil with nothing but the bodies of their dead soldiers.
The Cubans’ battlefield prowess and negotiating skills were instrumental in forcing South Africa to accept Namibia’s independence. Their successful defence of Cuito Cuanavale was the prelude for a campaign that forced the SADF out of Angola, as once stated by American university professor Piero Gleijeses in one of his writings.
The victory against colonialism has reverberated beyond Namibia. Today our country has many newly found friends, including those who rallied behind the forces of oppression that left our people on the verge of virtual collapse. When did we forget this, or is this a case of selective amnesia?
Angola on the other hand allowed Namibians to use its territory in their fight against colonial South Africa’s troops who killed, maimed and oppressed our people without provocation.
Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Angola, Tanzania, Libya and scores of many other nations stood by our side, morally and materially, as we fought for our independence that we only gained 24 years ago.
But how can we be so forgetful? Blood has barely dried on the wounds inflicted upon this nation by foreign aggressors but some of our compatriots have already started throwing tantrums over our country’s help of those in need.
Children have paid a deadly price for the conflict in Israel and Gaza. More than 400 of them have been killed, many more have been injured. Hundreds of thousands have had to flee their homes.
Families in Gaza are in desperate need. Humanitarian needs are huge and growing every day. The US$1 million donation that Namibia gave may, in global terms, be considered a pittance but to a person in Gaza it’s a huge and timely intervention.
What Namibia needs to do is ensure that the donated money is accounted for and used purposefully as initially agreed between our government and the recipients.
Not long ago the Russians sent us a consignment of food to help arrest the emerging humanitarian crisis as Namibia battled heavy floods in the northern and eastern parts of our country. This did not mean that Moscow did not have problems of its own. It was a timely intervention of solidarity.