WINDHOEK– “I am the new Chief – Kapuuo.” “No he is not – Karuaera,” – I still vividly remember that screaming headline in a local English daily, the Windhoek Advertiser, after the death of the late Paramount Chief of the Ovaherero in 1970. The latter headline was uttered by the late Reverend Bartholomew Karuaera, who passed away early yesterday morning [September 22] at the age of 93. At that time in 1970, Karuaera was a political activist within the Ovaherero community, disputing the claim to the Ovaherero traditional community leadership by Clemens Kapuuo. Kapuuo was at the time also an activist within this community, as well as in the general political affairs of Namibia, especially as it related to the quest for independence from apartheid South Africa. But that was the first time that I started to hear of Reverend Karuaera. By then he had already left deep tracks within the Namibian political and community landscape, as well as the ecumenical landscape.
In those days the liberation struggle landscape was very much intertwined with the ecumenical landscape as far as those clamouring for liberation was concerned by mostly Africans, including Rev Karuaera. In fact due to the expediency of the political struggle the churches served as a convenient cover for the politically minded like Rev Karaerua and others. But among other things Rev Karerua shall be remembered mostly for his involvement in the early stages of the anti-colonial struggle, especially for his role in the intermittent drafting of petitions, first to the League of Nations, and subsequently to the United Nations Organisation for the then apartheid South African regime to relinquish the authority it claimed over Namibia, then South West Africa. Among many positions during this epoch of the colonial resistance, Rev Karuaera served as Secretary to erstwhile Ovaherero Paramount Chief, Hosea Kutako, who together with other prominent leaders such as Captain Hendrik Wibooi and Reverend Theofilus Hamutumbangela spearhead this petitioning campaign.
Also in the early years of the struggle for independence, Rev. Karuaera is credited with spearheading the African Improvement Society in 1940, which consisted mainly of teachers and former learners of the St Barnabas School in Windhoek. Others who co-founded this society which was influenced by Marcus Garvey’s Negro Improvement Association of America (NIAA), were Berthold Himumuine, a teacher, Clemens Kapuuo also a teacher, Erwin Tjirimuje, as well as David Meroro who was a businesman. Rev. Karuaera was also instrumental in the formation and launch of one of the early political parties in Namibia, the South West Africa National Union (Swanu), which was launched on September 27, 1959 after months of preparatory work by a special constitutional committee that was set up by members of Hosea Kutako’s Chief’s Council and the Ozohoze group, a think tank of Ovaherero-Ovambanderu activists. It first consisted of five people, namely Rev. Karuaera, Clemens Kapuuo, John Garvey Muundjua, Erwin Tjirimuje and Zedekia Ngavirue. Rev Karuaera is also historically associated with the tendency towards the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E), which began in the early 1950s with leading people such as Festus Kandjou. This eventually led to the establishment of the Unity Protestant Church, or better known today as the Oruuano Church, with Reverend Reinhard Ruzo as its first head. This church broke away from the Rhenish Mission Church (R.M.C) to do away with the influence of the European churches. Rev. Karuaera also went on to spearhead with others the establishment of the Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Namibia of which he had been a prominent member and under whose auspices a crèche was established which is running up to this day.
A prominent member of Swapo until the time of his passing way early Sunday morning, he participated in the liberation struggle constantly earning the awe, harassment and intimidation,as well as arrest and detention by the apartheid South African regime. Once such arrest was in 1979 when he was held under the notorious AG 10 of 1978, one of the proclamations by which the South African Administrator General, Marthinus Steyn, then ruled Namibia. About 70 people were held incommunicado under this proclamation. Among his latest public engagements in July this year was when he officiated at the 43rd commemoration of the death of Chief Hosea Kutako in Windhoek as the keynote speaker. His funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
By Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro