By Catherine Sasman
WINDHOEK
President of the Republican Party, Henk Mudge, on Friday implored SWAPO Party to “stop threatening people” and to reconcile.
“SWAPO Party should name the people they want to threaten, and if they want to reconcile, they must reconcile practically,” he said, adding, “Namibian people are peaceful; we do not want war. Namibia is at peace not because of SWAPO, but despite SWAPO.”
Mudge said this in reaction to a statement made by SWAPO Party and its youth league, as well as trade unions, on the submission by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) to the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing SWAPO President Sam Nujoma and three other members of having violated the human rights of Namibians during the struggle for liberation.
“When is Mr Nujoma going to speak for himself?” asked Mudge.
“Even before independence and since then, a number of organisations and individuals have been trying continuously to get information from SWAPO regarding the circumstances under which their family members went missing in exile.”
He said the only reason why people were “crying and begging” was to find out what happened to their relatives and to get “closure and stop mourning” so that they can get on with their lives.
He said the SWAPO Party statements on the ICC challenge were irresponsible, provocative, precarious and in violation of national reconciliation, as SWAPO claimed the ICC challenge is.
“If SWAPO decides to revoke their so-called policy of national reconciliation what do they plan to do and if they intend to make war, against whom do they want to do it? If they want to imprison so-called collaborators, who are these collaborators and what did they do to deserve imprisonment?” he questioned.
He continued: “It is not for SWAPO to tell us when we will have peace and stability and when we will be allowed to reconcile and when not.”
Instead, said Mudge, SWAPO Party should instead spend its time and energy on creating employment by starting sustainable projects across the country.
Mudge said the Republican Party was not coming “to the rescue” of NSHR Executive Director Phil ya Nangoloh, but Ya Nangoloh should be afforded his democratic right to have an opinion and take whatever action he deems appropriate.
He also said that Jan de Wet, former president of the Namibian Agricultural Union (NAU) who bemoaned the ICC challenge, was not representative of the previously advantaged people, and that his [De Wet’s] sentiments were shared by a “very, very small minority”.
“[Mr De Wet] should have asked his friend, Mr Sam Nujoma, why nothing happened to the two gentlemen who publicly declared that all whites must be killed.”
Ya Nangoloh, who has come under attack for the ICC challenge, has also issued a slew of reactions to the heated debates around the submission his organisation made to the international court.
He hit out at De Wet’s sentiment that the NSHR’s petition could have a destabilizing effect, saying that De Wet should “unambiguously” apologise “for the formulation, elaboration and implementation of the crime of apartheid in Namibia prior to independence, and also to reveal the identities of hundreds of Namibian prisoners of war who went missing at the hands of the apartheid regime’s security apparatus between 1964 and 1978”.
In another press release Ya Nangoloh also lashed out Metcalfe Legal Practitioners’ reaction to the ICC challenge as “a self-centered marketing tool and as hostile political propaganda that is devoid of any legal prudence”.
Metcalfe Legal Practitioners issued a statement in which it expressed its intention to start a trust fund to fight the ICC challenge on behalf of Nujoma and three others.
It also charged that the ICC challenge aims to undermine the policy of national reconciliation.
“[Metcalfe & Co] has no prior known track record of having been involved in any way whatsoever in the struggle for Namibia’s independence, or in defence of freedom fighters against the brutalities of the apartheid regime.
Nor does Metcalfe & Co have any known track record of representing poor people on a free-of-charge basis. Hence, the rationale behind the Metcalfe press release smacks of a self-serving compunction couched in ‘patriotic’ rhetoric,” snapped the NSHR.