Harare, (New Ziana) – President Emmerson Mnangagwa has mourned Namibian founding leader Dr Sam Nujoma, who died on Saturday.
The fiery white-bearded freedom fighter led Namibia to independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 and served as its first President.
Former President Nujoma had been hospitalised over the past three weeks, battling an illness from which he failed to recover.
In a condolence message, President Mnangagwa said Dr Nujoma’s death, marks the demise of the last in an iconic generation of leaders of the Southern African liberation movements.
“We hurt and grieve deeply at the passing on of this gallant freedom fighter and visionary icon who led and delivered Independence and Nationhood to the Namibian people, and who proceeded to work tirelessly for the broader unity and integration of our SADC Region which he had co-founded well before his country’s Independence,” he said.
“Zimbabwe will always remember and cherish Dr Nujoma’s principled and unconditional support as our nation faced concerted onslaught by vindictive countries of the West following our Land Reform Program. “He took our Struggle to fulfil the goals of the Liberation Struggle as his own, always standing by us regardless of the ever-mounting odds. He thus bequeaths to our Region, our African Continent, and to its peoples, values of Pan Africanism and the spirit of total Independence, both of which we need especially now as our Continent faces new challenges of resource-induced encroachments.” He said for his sake and in his honor, the continent must remain steadfast in its Pan African unity and unshakeable in the defence of African interests, collective peace and sovereignty.
President Mnangagwa, who is the current chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said the Namibian people must be consoled by the fact that Dr Nujoma remains the father, hero and leader of Africa, adding that Zimbabwe stands in solidarity with the South Western African nation as it goes through the motions of deep grief and great loss.
Coming as it does soon after that of former President Dr Hage Geingob, President Mangagwa said Dr Nujoma’s death adds another layer to Namibia’s barely healed wounds and adds to its grief.
“I have no doubt that these repeated tragic losses do not just test your Nation; rather, they spur all Namibians on, as they rally together in even greater and stronger unity to move your Nation forward. This is the only way to honour Dr Nujoma,” he said.
Dr Nujoma was born to poor farmers from the Ovambo tribe being the eldest of 10 children.
He took a job as a railway sweeper near Windhoek in 1949 while attending night classes.
There, he met Herero tribal chief Hosea Kutako who was lobbying to end apartheid rule in Namibia, then known as South West Africa.
Kutako became his mentor, shepherding him as he became politically active among black workers resisting a government order to move to a new township in the late 1950s.
At Kutako’s request, Nujoma began life in exile in 1960, leaving his wife and four children behind.
That same year, he was elected president of the South West African Peoples’ Organisation (SWAPO) and went around world capitals seeking support for the Namibian independence cause.
SWAPO launched an armed struggle in 1966 after neighbouring South Africa refused a United Nations order to give up its mandate over the former German colony, arguing that it was a buffer against the advance of communism in Africa.
New Ziana
