WINDHOEK – President of the Republican Party Henk Mudge has vowed to continue fighting for the recognition of former Koevoet members and the South West African Territorial Force (SWATF) war veterans.
Mudge said many of these officers who served in those units were suffering today.
“All I want to say is that these people have been suffering for more than 10 years and out of desperation tried to make agreements with a number of opposition parties to fight their case in parliament,” he noted.
Unfortunately, Mudge said, all of them failed and that is why they approached the RP with a request to join them and for the party to take this matter up with the government.
He maintained that the RP funded them to form an organisation called Namvet almost seven years ago.
“At the time I told them that I have a lot of sympathy with them and will help them financially, but that I am not doing it to buy their votes. They were free to vote for the party of their choice,” Mudge said.
According to him, the RP never made and will never make any promises to the electorate that they know the party cannot honour.
He said he was convinced that the Swapo government has acted in bad faith and in contradiction of the constitution.
He is confident that a court of law will force them to acknowledge the former SWATF and Koevoet soldiers as war veterans.
He also touched on the issue of opposition parties in Namibia, saying he tried since March 2016 to convince them to unify.
However, he said it became obvious that opposition leaders have become massively egoistic and over-ambitious and are more worried about their own positions rather than to act in the best interest of the nation.
He stated the opposition blame Swapo but also make promises they know they cannot deliver upon.
He specifically pointed out the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) on the land issue.
“They must explain to their supporters how are they going to achieve that if they are not in government, which they will obviously not be as long as we are not working together. When are the people going to realise that these are empty promises just to attract votes from people who are desperate,” he said.