Celebrated each year on August 26, Heroes Day collectively reminds us of the fact that tens of thousands of Namibian heroes and heroines paid the ultimate price for the freedom that we treasure.
The narrative to our independence comprises of many distinguished sons and daughters of the soil whose exceptional courage, nobility and strength surpass that of others who are equally heroes in their own right. But the leading lights of this multi-stepped protracted struggle for independence are without an iota of doubt the Founding Father of the Namibian Nation, Dr Sam Nujoma, former President Hifikepunye Pohamba, the incumbent President Dr Hage Geingob and the late Peter Nanyemba.
Others before Nujoma and his courageous generation are Chief Kahimemua Nguvauva, Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi, Chief Nehale Mpingana, Chief Samuel Maharero, Chief Ipumbu ya Shilongo, Chief Hosea Kutako, Kaptein Jakob Marenga and countless others whose dream was to kick out the oppressors.
Our road to freedom is pockmarked with pools of blood, which these gallant sons and daughters of the soil selflessly sacrificed to free their motherland from the yoke of minority rule.
Apartheid was the bedrock of this minority rule and it is painful to us as Namibians to reminisce about this devious social policy of racial segregation involving political, economic and legal segregation that targetted non-whites from any meaningful political, social, legal and economic participation.
The apartheid machinery was well oiled and had a substantial war chest that was also funded by external forces hell bent on destabilising and causing untold terror among the civilian populace particularly in the northern part of Namibia, where apartheid enforcers, henchmen and hitmen operated with impunity, unleashing a reign of terror on a scale rarely witnessed on the African territory.
Within the blink of an eye bloodthirsty apartheid forces murdered, maimed, tortured and hounded those who did not go into exile with the sole aim to totally contain and control the restive population.
This reign of terror and mass killings of the local population, more so those seen as Swapo collaborators, extended into the southern parts of Angola and the western part of Zambia where Swapo as a liberation movement had its bases from where it sprung military operations against occupational forces.
The apartheid regime actually met its Waterloo at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, where after it incurred massive losses inflicted by Swapo and other internalist forces led by all-weather-ally Cuba, the apartheid generals reluctantly told their political bosses in Pretoria that the tide had turned against them.
After this humiliating defeat the South Africans who thought they would prevail over Swapo militarily had second thoughts and they were forced to the negotiating table that resulted in our independence.
The peace and prosperity that we enjoy today did not come on a silver platter but it was as a result of the sacrifices that the Nujomas, the Witboois, the Marengas and the Kutakos had to make to free their motherland from the yoke of hundreds of years of colonialism and economic and political inequality.