At the international stage, the Southern African country of Namibia is known as the rare success story of the UN. Lost in this UN Namibian success narrative is the story of people detained by the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), the current ruling party and one-time national liberation movement in Namibia, during the war of independence for being suspected spies.
The detainee issue, one of the thorniest issues in Namibian politics, presents a moral dilemma for those of us who supported and believed in the just cause of the Namibian national liberation struggle. A moral dilemma because the decision by SWAPO to protect the national struggle and ward off infiltration by agents of the apartheid South African regime resulted in the arrest, torture, and killing of many innocent Namibians. Was the movement to detain, torture, and kill a choice for the lesser of two evils? In the wake of this reality, how can Namibia find the right balance to reconcile the competing demands of different stakeholders between justice and reconciliation, or between retribution and forgiveness? It is indeed an extremely delicate process and this is all the more so in cases of Namibia’s protracted pre-independence conflict.
Peter Mietzner, the veteran Namibian journalist, treats this tension between the needs of victims of past abuses and the country’s contemporary political reality in his review (New Era, November 25, 2010) of the unpublished autobiography of Samson Tobias Ndeikwila. (Read the review below.) In My Vision, Agony and Hope, Samson Tobias Ndeikwila tells the story of arrest and captivity by the movement, and shares “his personal experience before, during and after his journey into exile in November 1965.”
The story of Ndeikwela brings out that familiar path for many of Namibia’s pre-independence generation: From the village, to the Mission, to the school, to the political arena. This account speaks to me at many levels. Like Ndeikwela, I remember crossing the border of Namibia with nothing but spirit, hope, and the determination that Namibia would one day be free. But the story of those detained by the very Movement for liberation, democracy, solidarity and justice in which I had invested so much of my faith and optimism, also crushed me.
As Mietzner cautions, this story of Ndeikwela has to be read in the context of other national struggle stories. Let’s face it, both colonial Germany and South Africa also committed untold account of human rights violations against Namibians. But it is also within this context that, no matter how unwanted, Ndeikwila’s story should not be dismissed and denied to be heard. History itself should not be a competition, but it should be about balance and honesty in telling the stories of resistance and persecution, no matter who the fighters and perpetrators. I so hope that Samson Tobias Ndeikwila’s unpublished autobiography will one day see its way to publication.
A review – My Vision, Agony and Hope – by Peter Mietzner
Autobiography of Samson Tobias Ndeikwila (Unpublished)
TO say that I looked forward to review this book is probably the understatement of the year. So much negative publicity had preceded both the man and his work I did not know what to expect.
Samson Ndeikwila was so gracious as to forward an electronic copy of the manuscript to me and that gave me renewed confidence to tackle the issue and try and give an accurate summary of what the manuscript contains.
What many fellow Namibians may not realise is the fact that we, who remained in Namibia during the years of colonialism and were neither active in Swapo nor vocal about what was happening outside and inside our country, have very little idea of the actual circumstances of Namibian exiles.
One can get a glimpse from the ‘Where Others Wavered’ by our former president, Dr Sam Nujoma, and the recently published autobiography, ‘Exile Child’ by Rachel Valentina Nghiwete, or even ‘Child No. 95’ by Lucia Engombe, but by and large we were treated like mushrooms by the then administration: kept in the dark and fed horse manure. Books on Swapo that were readily available overseas, such as ‘A history of Resistance in Namibia’ by Dr Peter Katjavivi, were banned in Namibia before independence.
For us, any book about those terrible years is thus always a welcome addition to that puzzle called Namibia. Every tale is another piece of the mosaic that makes up our history.
The book itself:
Ndeikwila describes in great detail (in fact, he paints a picture) how he and several others decided they had had enough of the sub-human treatment by the South African authorities and how he and his school friends and other members of his peer group decided to go into exile and join the fight against oppression. Historically, it is accurate and full of details others may have left out, such as the names of the people they encountered; the people they asked for advice and the people they met on the journey that ended for the time being in Kongwa, Tanzania.
He is equally detailed about events that occurred during these years. The “Caprivian’ Revolt”, Jakob Kuhangua’s Visit to Kongwa, Imprisonment of the “Group of Eight”, and the “Castro Case” all tell of the oft harrowing circumstances faced by our people. His months of detention and the banishment to Ndbaro, from whence he fled to Nairobi all receive due attention.
The arrest and imprisonment in both Zambia and Tanzania are the highlights of his experiences. Many of the events and the circumstances have been corroborated by other detainees. I know Martin von Lüttichau personally and he has, under the right circumstances, spoken of many incidents. One such was the delight in finding mice, which could provide them with some protein during incarceration.
There is no argument that the experiences of those who were incarcerated were in conditions unbecoming that of prisoners and can’t really be excused.
The period immediately after independence is also covered from an angle that may not be familiar to many Namibians.
The memoirs – and there is nothing else one can call the document – reflects another side of the struggle that was waged against the South African oppressors of our country and is, like all personal memoirs, a very subjective view of events that occurred and were experienced personally and intimately by people involved in the struggle. It may not form a whole, but imparts to the reader a glimpse of but another part of the mosaic that forms Namibia and its history.
To those who want to know all sides of a long struggle against oppression, apartheid and the horror of war it is a valuable addition to their libraries. It should, however, never been read out of context. Other books related to the period should also be read in order to complete the picture.
The book is well worth a read and, if fully fleshed out to a complete memoir, should be part and parcel of a library of Namibian experiences during the period of the late 1950s to modern-day Namibia.
The author – early years
Ndeikwila was born and raised at Okapanda area of the traditional district of Ombalantu, in the heart of the Omusati Region. He attended lower primary school at Nakayale Lutheran Mission during the time of Tatekulu Paulus Dumeni as principal.
Corporal punishment was being used readily to ensure that there was no misbehaviour among the school children. The teachers included Josephine Shililifa, Pauline (Iihuhua) Shaningwa, Reinhold Shituku and Andreas Haimbili.
After completing a three-year schooling at Nakayale, his parents sent him to Ongwediva Boys’ Secondary School which doubled as a teachers’ training college for men. It was also a church boarding school.
They went to seek guidance and advice from Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, who was at that time Swapo regional secretary general in former Ovamboland. He was the focal person assisting and directing people leaving the country into exile. In his shop at Ondjondjo/Oluno, Ya Toivo warned the boys to never carry any pieces of paper on them, but rather store all information in their memories.
In the manuscript entitled ‘My Vision, Agony and Hope’, Samson Tobias Ndeikwila, a veteran of the liberation struggle, narrates, inter alia, his personal experience before, during and after his journey into exile in November 1965. The manuscript covers such topics as the ‘Kongwa Crises (consisting of inter alia the ‘Caprivian Revolt’ of 1965, ‘Nujoma’s Return of 1966’ as well as the ‘Castro Case’ and the ‘Seven Comrades Cases of 1968’) of the 1960s, the ‘Shipanga Rebellion’ of the 1970s and the ‘Spy-Drama’ of the 1980s. Samson also explains, inter alia, why the late Herero Paramount Chief Clemence Kapuuo is a national hero and many more related issues.
The author in exile
Samson Tobias Ndeikwila was part of a group of six boys, who left Ongwediva Boys Secondary School in the mid-1960s into exile. In Tanzania he was part of a group of seven PLAN cadres who challenged the Swapo leadership, calling for a party congress for Namibians in exile.
His 15 months detention in Tanzania had opened his eyes to the real issues facing post-colonial Africa. It was in his prison cell he took a decision to study theology and vowed to work for social justice for the rest of his life. Ndeikwila did his theological training in Kenya during turbulent times in Central, East and the Horn of Africa. He studied with students from a wide range of church denominations in several countries in that part of Africa. Thus he had been engaged in student discussions groping for answers to the problems in several countries in that part of Africa.
As secretary for the Namibian Welfare Association in Kenya, he played a central role in drafting the famous appeal for the release of over 1 000 Namibians in detention in Zambia, which had contributed to the immediate release of these Namibians.
Ndeikwila was instrumental in the founding of the Namibia National Students Organisation (Nanso) as well as the Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS) movement. As director of the Forum for the Future, Ndeikwila greatly helped with its transformation into a strong civil society organisation in Namibia.
Ndeikwila believes that a nation’s history must be recorded as accurately and truthfully as humanly possible, because a people ignorant of its own true history cannot build a coherent society.
