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Foreign agents target peoples’’ parties
The Herald, 31 January 2006
From Udo W. Froese in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa.
NAMIBIA’’S ruling party, Swapo, has experienced internal power struggles from the sixties.
It is quite common for popular African movements to be infiltrated by foreign agents, masquerading as popular, local patriots. South Africa’’s ruling tripartite ANC/Cosatu/SACP, Zimbabwe’’s Zanu-PF and Namibia’’s Swapo/NUNW all seem to endure similar struggles.
This is a direct result of the serious interests foreign powerful imperialist forces have in Africa.
Seasoned observers of African history have described that development as an "attempt by alien forces to create a balance of power within popular movements in order to divide and destroy", a case of "Africanist Revolutionaries versus international Western agitators and reactionaries, cunningly and covertly deployed."
Those seem always ably assisted by an established network.
Whenever someone with foreign, vested interests is exposed, a supportive, yet shallow media and its academic mercenaries, the NGO and Foreign Foundations industry, all part of that latest, modern tool, acclaimed as civil society, self-righteously scream "democracy (!)", as if they hold the monopoly.
Like a pack of dogs chasing a train in full steam, a media with its own agenda tries to sell its analysis of a "power struggle within leadership of the ruling party" as a "vendetta" to its uninformed market.
However, they conveniently and deliberately forget that like the ANC, like Zanu-PF, Swapo is a popular movement of the people, no matter the power struggles.
The people, who form the body of these movements, know who their real leaders are, no matter how the Press and its "civil society" interpret and propagate the situation for them.
But, do the people really matter in the ‘‘war-for-control’’ over Africa? Never in the history of Namibia and its powerful neighbour —— South Africa —— has the media "vendetta" been so vociferous and co-ordinated in its attempt to destroy the legacy of former president and Swapo chairman, Sam Nujoma.
Not only have the South African media and its regional colleagues demonised Zimbabwe’’s President Mugabe and the ever-popular Winnie Mandela.
That lobby now focuses its concerted and united efforts of misinformation and destruction on Namibia’’s Sam Nujoma.
The lobby has also been extended to Namibia’’s government broadcaster, the NBC and South Africa’’s public broadcaster, the SABC.
And, not surprisingly, it is the same old choir of academic mercenaries, singing for credibility and humming for money. One wonders why Namibia’’s president and Swapo vice-president, Hifikepunye Pohamba, is so obviously conspicuous in his silence in this case, when his structures expect him to publicly defend the president of Swapo, Sam Nujoma.
The ruling party as well as the umbrella body of the national trade union federation rallied to the defence of Nujoma, when those wanting him ousted from his current position as Swapo-president accused him of being responsible for the mass killings of Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) combatants. As the division between the factions grows, it becomes ever clearer that Namibia’’s media openly demonstrates its support for the fired former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hidipo Hamutenya.
It comes across as if the State media has joined the private media in its "vendetta" against former president Nujoma.
The media’’s concerted and co-ordinated "total onslaught" against Nujoma runs with headlines, "The vendetta continues", "Swapo’’s bitter struggle", describing the firing of former senior SWAPO party member and former minister Jesaya Nyamu from the ruling party as "the continuation of the old vendetta, SWAPO-leader Sam Nujoma wages against anyone who critically opposes his decisions and poses a threat to him". However, the media admitted in its defence of the fired former member and former minister, that Nyamu had nominated Hamutenya for the presidency.
So, whose interest is the media really defending? What was Nyamu’’s interest in nominating Hamutenya? Was Nyamu alone in planning the destruction of SWAPO? Whom was he fronting for? And, who are Nyamu’’s collaborators?
First, the attempt to draw former president Nujoma into a corruption scandal, claiming he has shares in the dubious Avid Investment Company, which had struck a N$30 million investment deal with Namibia’’s Social Security Commission (SSC) earlier in 2005, failed.
But, the onslaught on the legacy of Nujoma intensified as from October 2005, when mass graves of PLAN combatants were uncovered near construction sites in the north of Namibia. Again, SWAPO chairman Nujoma was blamed.
The media went to town. Academic mercenaries had a field day, claiming SWAPO would be torn into at least two factions.
At the same time, the media glorified Brigadier Hans Dreyer from the former occupier, South Africa’’s colonial-apartheid military forces. The media hailed the former South African military commander as a "complete fighter, who was in heart and soul a combat leader". Dreyer was directly responsible for mass-slaughtering many Namibians. The same media described PLAN combatants as "invaders" of their country.
A senior representative of the media in Windhoek admitted in an interview with the national broadcaster, NBC, that the media have their informers right inside SWAPO’’s Politburo. Will those highly and strategically deployed members be called to order and exposed, as were Andreas Shipanga, Mishake Muyongo, Abraham Ndumbu and Jesaya Nyamu?
Will their network be equally exposed and dealt with?
Is Namibia’’s National Intelligence informed, who are the moles in SWAPO’’s Politburo?
Does National Intelligence know their network too?
The ruling party felt its policy of "national reconciliation" pushed to the limits.
Describing it as "abuse and misuse of the freedom of the press, reaching intolerable and unacceptable levels", Swapo Youth League Secretary for Information, Elijah Ngurare, did not mince his words; "To praise Dreyer is to invite war!"
For some time, certain questions on everyone’’s minds are being asked: How far will it be allowed to go?
For how long still?
Who really is behind it all?
Yet, Namibia’’s ruling party seems as strong as ever. The people of Namibia, who have always formed the base of the movement, are united.
SWAPO still enjoys absolute majority support.
The mass graves could indeed open up a can of worms, as Cape Town based author and journalist, Terry Bell, observed.
Like most ruling party and government officials in Namibia, like governments and the diplomatic corps in Harare, Pretoria, Luanda, Dar-es-Salaam, Maputo, Moscow, Berlin and London, the AU in Addis Ababa and most editors and journalists throughout Africa and the Diaspora, so has this columnist also received e-mails from a certain Ananias Nghifitikeko. In fact, this columnist was even accused of being behind the e-mails of that writer.
However, when I tried to trace Ananias Nghifitikeko, it just seemed impossible.
The contents of those emails are interesting though Ananias Nghifitikeko actually directly accuses the fired former Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of Swapo’’s Politburo and the Central Committee and re-appointed Member of Parliament, Hidipo Hamutenya, of being behind the anti-Nujoma campaign.
Hamutenya is further accused of planning to destroy Swapo from within.
Ananias repeatedly claims to expose Hamutenya and his network in his emails, appealing to the ruling party and its support base to deal with it.
Ananias Nghifitikeko’’s allegations made in his email dated November 17 2005 are serious. Then he wrote: "However, with the discovery of mass graves here and in the north of our country (Namibia), the supporters of Hidipico (Hidipo Hamutenya) are on a war path trying to shift the blame from their presidential hopeful to Dr Sam Nujoma. Ananias, highly placed sources insist, is on record that on 1st April 1989, PLAN combatants crossed into Namibia on the orders of Nghidipo Hamutenya, at the same time through his channels, he tipped the occupational racist forces to massacre the defenceless PLAN combatants.
"The massacre of those defenceless freedom fighters was directly the inside job of Nghidipo Hamutenya, he would not even dare deny it if confronted because it is on record, and he knows it!"
In the Swapo party newspaper, Namibia Today, Kazenambo Kazenambo wrote on December 16 2005 about the massacre, "UN Police agents who had to supervise the (foreign-occupational) South African police in Namibia were not even present in the country (when the mass killings of PLAN fighters took place on 1 April 1989)."
Finally, could Hidipo Hamutenya and his network eventually expect the same fate as his former colleagues and good friends Nyamu, Ndumbu, Muyongo and Shipanga?
Taking the foregoing into consideration, there seems to be more at stake than the average person would ever be allowed to know.
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