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Cassinga: We shall never forget

2019-05-03  Staff Report 2

Cassinga: We shall never forget

Tomorrow marks 41 years since the barbaric killing of women, men and children, including babies, by troops of apartheid South Africa and their cohorts. Unprovoked, the killers descended on the refugee camp like eagles on a hare – killing indiscriminately everyone that crossed their sight.

Pleas for mercy by pregnant mothers, infants and the maimed fell on deaf ears. The killers had an insatiable thirst for blood and they rejoiced in their butchering of the innocent. Namibians in Cassinga had escaped their motherland
to seek refuge in neighbouring Angola – and the enemy followed them there with machine guns, bazookas and
artilleries to ensure they were wiped off the earth’s face. The massacre of defenceless civilians, in an exercise
dubbed by the killers as a “jewel of military craftmanship”, remains one of the darkest episodes in Namibia’s recent
history, which led to international condemnation. The United Nations invited Swapo leader Sam Nujoma to
address it before issuing United Nations Security Council Resolution 428 on 6 May, condemning South Africa for
«the armed invasion of Angola carried out on 4 May 1978». The Council condemned apartheid and the continued
occupation of Namibia, and commended Angola for its support of the Namibian people.

The Cassinga massacre of refugees is one of countless tales of terror by apartheid South Africa and her Namibian
henchmen who are now demanding to be officially recognised as Namibian war veterans – enjoying benefits
that government extended to the true liberators of the republic. These daydreaming renegades, without an iota of
shame or sensitivity, continue to stage demonstrations to demand that they be rewarded for killing pregnant civilians,
children, including babies, in Cassinga and elsewhere. What a bunch of agent provocateurs! 

We therefore derive gratification from government’s stance that no war veteran benefits are to be extended to this
group of killers. Reconciliation, which Nujoma extended to the enemy at independence, cannot be deliberately
misconstrued for ill and parochial gains. Koevoet, SWATF and the likes have caused untold suffering to this land. The Namibian traitors who joined and assisted these evil forces to kill and maim our people must know that, while Namibians may have forgiven them for their devilish deeds, they certainly would never forget.

Namibians had to let blood in order to achieve democracy. It is through democracy that the renegades got freedom of speech, which they now abuse by making insensitive demands of reparations. What an absurd insult to the Namibian populace and mothers whose children went to fight for their motherland and never came back! We wish, in fact, that government stops granting these charlatans an audience to make a mockery of our patience as a people.

During their rule before independence, those who expressed themselves in the manner that these conspirators
are doing would be shot in the head. But those days are behind us now. The independence that they fiercely fought against is now here and they jumped onto it like bees on honey. We must continue to disregard their silly efforts of
demanding to be paid for killing their compatriots – their kith and kin. May the blood of those who paid the ultimate price for
defending this country and its self-determination continue to water the freedom we enjoy today.


2019-05-03  Staff Report 2

Tags: Khomas
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