Sam Njoma: The revolutionary leader who liberated Namibia

The giants that shaped Namibian national identity leave a void where few people want to fill.

Formerly known as Southwest Africa, Namibia suffered decades of looting and colonial violence at the hands of Europeans around the turn of the 20th century.

Since 1904, German colonists have killed tens of thousands of Namibians in what was called the world. “Forgotten Genocide”. German officers used black Africans as guinea pigs for horrifying crimes later repeated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Namibia was under German occupation from 1884 to 1915, and Germany lost its colony in World War I.

Namibia then fell into white South African rules, which expanded racist laws into the country, denying political rights to black Namibians and limiting social and economic freedoms.

The introduction of drastic apartheid laws led to the 1966 war of guerrilla independence.

By this stage, Nujoma had already been involved in the fight against the White Minority Rules.

The “oldest son of a peasant family” confessed to in the northern village of Etonda was nothing more than an elementary school education and had a modest start in life.

He has four children, married Kobambo Theopoldin Katozimne, who worked on the railway, and has a deep passion for politics and is eager to see his people from the injustice and insults of colonialism. I was doing it.

Inspiration came to the tales of early Namibian resistance leaders, including Hendrik Witbuy, who fought the Germans in the 1880s.

By 1959, Nujoma had become the head of the Owamboland Peoples Organization, the independence movement, which was a pioneer of Swapo.

A year later, 30-year-old Nujoma was forced to escape. Without a passport, he used unning to employ various personas and took trains and planes, External – Ends in Zambia and Tanzania before heading to West Africa.

With the help of Liberian authorities, who were early supporters of the promotion of black Namibian independence, Njoma flew to New York and petitioned the United Nations to help Namibia grant independence, but South Africa refused. did.

Nujoma was branded as a “Marxist terrorist” by white South African leaders due to the major forces fought alongside the anti-apartheid movement, bringing a formidable challenge to oppressive regimes in several South African countries. Ta.

With the support of Cuban forces fighting in nearby Angola, the Swapo guerrillas were able to attack a base in South Africa in Namibia.

Returning from asylum, Njoma was quickly re-registered by South African authorities and deported to Zambia six years later.

“We knew that only military force and massive political mobilization supported by people’s support would drive South Africa out of Namibia,” Nujoma said in a 2001 shaking autobiography of others. He spoke.

He led the Swapo troops from exile before returning to the country in 1989, a year after South Africa agreed to Namibia’s independence.

South Africa was more isolated internationally, with the cost of military intervention increasing. Namibia finally gained independence in 1990 after almost 25 years of war.