THE South West Africa National Union (SWANU) wishes to send messages of solidarity to the collective leaderships of both your institutions through you and to pay tribute to our cordial, longstanding, sound and constructive relationships that existed between us, during the period of the struggle for national independence and freedom. Though ideologically and politically we remained (and continue to remain) SWANU and you remained different, it was our sincere and honest opinion that our positive commonalities outweighed our differences. This is precisely the reason why we instead adopted a principled decision to collaborate and cooperate with you to hasten the process of Namibian decolonisation as opposed to the non-collaborationist stance we took against the racist South African regime and her surrogates in Namibia. As SWANU graduates, recognising and accepting the theory of dialectical materialism, a theory postulating that the world is a unity of two opposites (for instance ups and downs, negative and positive, oppression and resistance, fusion and splits) we therefore in that spirit accept that everything has its beginning and its end – so is also our longstanding and sound relationship that existed before independence. The subject of this open letter to both of you is to express our strong dismay and disappointment regarding six people by the name of Ueripura Hange, Undjeekuje Katjiteo, Uasengua Kahuure, Ejeomuini Nguvauva, Petrus Hambira and Gabriel Uanivi (Windhoek Observer, 10th December 2005), alleged to be your members who are using or rather misusing your institutions’ membership to implicate SWANU in their attack against Senior Chief Erastus Kahuure of the Mbanderu Traditional Authority. On closer scrutiny, search and examination, evidence does indicate that these are fake names or non-existent people. SWANU is highly suspicious of these authors and doubt whether they do exist, and our own conclusion is that the real authors of this letter are three disgruntled and politically defeated residents in Omaheke region who do not have a support base within their own structures and who are now looking for scapegoats to conceal their own political and traditional demise. These include people who ran away from the struggle in Southern Africa to Europe – a struggle characterised by an armed struggle and only came back after independence and are now boasting that they struggled under the SWAPO banner. SWAPO had an armed struggle and the theatre of military operation was in Angola. Naturally one would expect a committed cadre to come back to the battlefield and wage an armed struggle and to practise that liberation struggle on the African continent. We suspect that we will be told that they were engaged in the diplomatic offensive. However, the question is being posed in relation to numbers of Namibians who were supposed to engage the numerical superiority of the racist regime. These are the people who sometimes say other parties did not struggle because they did not take up an armed struggle, but they themselves belonging to a party with an armed wing were not involved. The real authors also include people whom are known to have served in the Koevoet/SWATF as cannon fodder in defence of the white settler regime in Namibia. One of them was personally responsible for beating up the late Tjombumbi Mbuende, a NANSO activist from Martin Luther High School in the early 1980’s when he was trying to set up a NANSO Branch in the Otjombinde area. These are the people who wined and dined with the racist white settler regime and joined recently the bandwagon for selfish petty personal considerations and loyalties to their bank accounts. According to them, by virtue of your institutions’ membership they think they have acquired enough impeccable credentials to attack one of the then caravans of the African militancy, transmission belt, the then repository of the exploited and oppressed people of Namibia, a party by the name of SWANU. The purpose of this open letter is primarily to ask your respective offices to call your members to order. Secondly, it is also to ask your membership, through you, to refrain from implicating SWANU in their internal dynamics and to stop making baseless, malicious and unfounded statements that cannot be substantiated. It is also our understanding that reckless and careless public pronouncements on issues that are supposed to be internal party/institutional matters do not only tarnish the integrity and reputation of fellow members, but such behaviours are unacceptable and not consistent with institutional discipline. It is our plea that when a section of the Ovambanderu people are fighting Senior Chief Erastus Kahuure within the framework and context of Mbanderu issues they should leave SWANU out of their business and similarly SWAPO members who are fighting him on SWAPO related matters must leave us out. The content and substance of that letter do not deserve our response because authors are lacking rudimentary and elementary Namibian politics as it transpired during the liberation struggle and more especially inside occupied Namibia. The real authors would not know this because they were more aligned to the colonial power and the other one was more allergic, resistant and virulent to information that demonstrates the existence of plurality and diversity of political opinions represented in Namibia. This is a person who has been outside Namibia and who is lacking this part of Namibian liberation history and who would definitely not agree that he/she doesn’t know that history. There is no iota of truth in all statements made by the authors and we will not waste time to respond to a single one. It must however be underlined that at no stage did Senior Chief Erastus Kahuure support SWANU directly or indirectly during our election campaigns, be it in 1992, 1998 or 2004. The history of SWANU speaks volumes, we are self-reliant and we cannot be bought with petrol vehicles, kudu and oryx. It must also be underlined that the authors are a bit confused since they are not focused on their attack. Firstly, they are revealing political identities of the participants in proceedings that are purely of Mbanderu nature by stating that there were 80 active SWANU members including the President and Secretary General at the Ovambanderu constitutional meeting held at Epukiro Post 3 during 1st to 2nd October 2005. It must be clearly understood that Mbanderu membership is open to all Mbanderus irrespective of their political denominations. Secondly, Mbanderus’ affairs are not for consumption of the public including SWAPO as a political party, and there was no need for these authors to stoop so low and mix Mbanderu affairs with SWAPO affairs. The real authors must be reminded that SWANU worked 24 hours around the clock with the Mbanderu community during the pre-independence period. The Mbanderus’ rejection of the Odendaal plan recommended by the Odendaal Commission of Inquiry during their presentation to the South African parliament in January 1964 and shelved for four years because of proceedings pending at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and implemented only in 1968 by the racist regime was triggered by SWANU. The same applies to the State Council in 1983 when the Mbanderus were on the point of entry. The Mbanderu Council in the decades of the 1970’s and 1980’s were influenced by SWANU to reject all rule by proxies South Africa was introducing in Namibia. These include illegitimate and unrepresentative constitutional structures that were introduced in defiance of principles of decolonisation as developed by the UN such as Development of Self-Government for Native Nations in South West Africa Act (1968); Turnhalle Constitutional Conference (1975); National Assembly (1979); Council of Ministers (1980); The Second-Tier Authorities; State Council (1983); Transitional Government of National Unity (1985). The Mbanderu community must give credit to SWANU for having influenced them to take politically correct decisions during that trying period. The Mbanderu community took a decision to sever ties with SWANU on the eve of Resolution 435’s implementation in October 1988, more especially when the intransigent racist regime of South Africa decided to leave Namibia. As a matter of fact most of them if not all worked relentlessly under the banner of SWANU to frustrate and emasculate the regime of South Africa to a point of fatigue. It must be on record that we will continue to support and extend helping hands to all Namibian traditional communities including the Mbanderu community on the basis of the Namibian Constitution as well as the statutory law especially Act 25 of 2000 that regulates traditional authorities in Namibia. We are therefore appealing for protection while we are striving for One Namibia, One Nation and hoping that it will be a duty of every patriotic and conscious Namibian who is conversant with the anti-colonial liberation struggle to defend us and not to connive with these forces of reaction that are trying to erase SWANU’s progressive tradition from the annals of history by the stroke of a pen. For us in SWANU, we will continue to defend without fear or favour anti-colonial heroes and heroines no matter what political affiliations they represented and currently represent. Finally, it should be our collective responsibility to remind our cadres that multi-party democracy, diversity and plurality of political opinions are constitutionally guaranteed rights. Therefore institution members do not have license to issue legitimacy of other institutions’ existence. Dr Rihupisa Kandando Political Bureau of SWANU Central Committee