By Maxton Shitilifa
MY name is Maxton, I was born in 1972 in Senenga, Zambia, born to a Zambian mother and my father was one of the PLAN legendary commanders, Titus Mwailepeni.
I left my mother when I was six years old to live with my father at Freedom House, which was a base of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) soldiers who were operating between the fronts and the Swapo office in Lusaka. I hardly saw my father.
It was a terrible experience for me to leave my mother and sister. Living among only soldiers I never even believed that Titus Mwailepeni was my father because he would come into the base and just address the combatants and leave for the front without seeing me. Sometimes I saw soldiers crying but I never understood why. Sometimes I tried to ask, but you were told there is no problem. Only later I realised that these people were mourning their dead comrades who died in battle. My life also changed, with me living like a soldier although I was a minor.
One day I was woken up around three in the morning. When I came out of the room I was surprised to see a lot of soldiers out this time of the morning. What is the problem I asked myself. Just a few minutes later they started loading things in trucks and four trucks full of soldiers and materials drove in the direction of Mongu. I could see that something was wrong.
Then I was told by one soldier who took me by foot to Wayama river that they had information that Senenga would be attacked that day. A few hours later around 05.00 we heard the sound of planes and a few minutes later we heard very big-bang noises followed by smoke from the direction of our base. The soldier then told me: ‘You see, if we were there we could have died today.’ I was terrified.
There was panic among the villagers surrounding the PLAN base of Onayaya, which was bombed by the South African jets. After two days I was taken to another base, which was between Senenga and Mongu, where I stayed until 1983 when commissar Ndemuiimba took me to a Swapo refugee camp called Nyango. I only stayed for a few months in Nyango when one day we were called to a parade and informed by the camp commander that they had information that the Boers wanted to attack the camp so we had to leave the camp and go on what was called ‘Oready’, which simply meant to be ready.
We went out of the camp and stayed in the bush for six months and the worst thing is that it was the rainy season; imagine the rainy season in Zambia. Luckily the situation normalised without any Boers coming to attack the camp but I was very afraid because I could imagine those planes coming with so many children present. After returning to the camp we started with our schooling again.
In 1985 we formed a Swapo pioneers music band called Spark headed by comrade John Hakaye. We started to campaign for Swapo travelling from Nyango to different countries performing and we were always invited to President Kaunda’s birthday celebration at State House in Lusaka.
In 1987, I left Nyango for Nigeria to do my secondary schooling. It was very difficult for me to adapt to that life because I was born and grew up in Swapo camps, but now I found myself in King’s College, the best school in Nigeria where people spoke English like their own mother tongue and I only spoke Oshiwambo but thank heavens after a few years I managed to cope. I stayed in Nigeria until 1992, then came to Namibia. For the first time I was happy.