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OCTOBER 2001 NAMIBIA COVER STORY |
Sam Nujoma speaks Part 1Where Others Wavered — the Autobiography of Sam Nujoma was published recently by Panaf Books, London. It covers the whole gamut of Namibian life — from the colonial brutalities under Germany, the struggle for independence under apartheid South Africa, the involvement of Cold War protagonists, the roles played by governments/individuals such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, David Owen and Henry Kissinger on the one hand, and Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson on the other hand.It also covers the immense contribution of Cuba to the liberation struggles in both Angola and Namibia, and the African revolution in general. In the following extract, President Nujoma, now 72, talks about his early life and the country’s colonial history, especially the slavery of his people by the Germans and South Africans disguised as ?contract labour? that so shocked him as a boy and which led him into politics. ?It was from seeing this happen that I learned — more than from anything else — that we had to do something in order to change the situation?, he writes. ??I am Sam Nujoma ja Nujoma, born on 12 May 1929, the first of my parents 11 children, in an area then known by the world as colonial South West Africa, now the independent Republic of Namibia. As a youth, I gained experience of the world through education, work and travel. Through those experiences, I learned that predation also existed in the racism, oppression and injustice of the colonial governments and the attendant structures of apartheid — that these unwanted, iniquitous regimes were predators, too, feeding cruelly on the lives of the African people and on the riches of their land. Now, in the year 2000, I pause not merely to reminisce over the first 70 years of my own life, but — more importantly — to recount how the path of my life has joined with others on the road to independence for Namibia. How that goal was accomplished is the real story of this book. Namibia’s history Before I begin to speak of my personal history, I must devote space to the story of the last several hundred years, when the ages-old history of the African people was so drastically diverted from its traditional path. In the late 1400s, even before the explorer Christopher Columbus set off in the direction of the ?new world’ of the Americas, exploration of the Namibian coast had begun by Portuguese, Dutch and English explorers who were, like Columbus, in search of sea routes to the Indies. Later, American and British whalers and sealers operated along the coast in the 1700s, but white settlements inland were first established by missionaries in the early and mid-1800s. Missionaries and traders would befriend the chiefs, offer them gifts and ask for land. Those given land to settle carried out surveillance and exploration, and sent back information to their countries of origin. In the wake of these foreign ?guests’, soon came a flood of military reinforcements, and whole territories which offered material or strategic value to the Europeans were claimed by them. In 1793, the Dutch claimed areas including the whaling port of Walvis Bay, which in 1795 came under the control of the British. Rich copper lodes were discovered in the 1800s, and in 1843 a small island near what is now called Luderitz Bay was found to be a source of valuable guano. The copper regions and Walvis Bay were formally annexed by Britain in 1867 and 1878 respectively. So the purpose of colonial conquest of the African continent by the Western imperial powers was to acquire wealth, and the way to acquire wealth was, of course, to acquire land. For the indigenous people of Namibia, as elsewhere on the continent, the result of what has been called the ?scramble for Africa’ by England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain was drastic and tragic. From the late 1800s to the time of the First World War, German traders in particular resorted to methods which varied from cunning ?trading’ deals to the unilateral imposition of boundary ?agreements’, as well as subjugation under force of arms. In 1833, coastal lands were acquired by the German merchant Adolf Luderitz, and soon after that vast inland areas of Gobabis, homelands of the Khaua Namas and eastern Hereros were lost to a German land settlement syndicate. This led to the tragic battle of Otjunde, and to the eventual obliteration of 80% of the Khaua population. When the Herero chiefs, Kahiememua Nguvauva and Nikodemus Kavikunua went to Okahandja to protest, they were arrested, court-martialled and shot as rebels. All this was in line with the avowed German intent and strategy that the indigenous populations should be simply wiped away in order to make room for the colonisers. After World War I, when ?South West Africa’ was subjected, under mandate, to the rule of South Africa, more and more valuable land passed into the hands of South African settlers. The local black populations were driven, sometimes literally, into ?native reserves’, where resources were scarce and subsistence was meagre. This intentional strategy of displacement of blacks from their traditional lands also served to create a supply of cheap labour for the whites, since natives would be forced off their farms to look for work in mines and on white-owned farms. After World War II, returning white soldiers were rewarded with yet more free land stretching along the coast of Luderitz to Walvis Bay. By the mid-1950s, all the usable farmland of Namibia was largely in the hands of white Afrikaners. Then, in the 1960s came the further intensification of apartheid as the official form and principle of the white South African regime, with its establishment of ?buffer zones’ between the established white areas. Resistance Of course, from the beginning of the various colonial occupations, the stories of resistance by the indigenous people are many. Troops armed with modern weapons would then fight and conquer, and declare the whole country a British or German colony. The people would then be told that they were now under the ?protection’ of British or German rule; that they were subjects of the British or German Crown, and would henceforward be expected to obey the laws of their ?protectors’. Thus over the years, the indigenous people lost not only their traditional homelands, but also control over the natural resources that occurred there. They were herded off their homelands and into ?native reserves’, which were the creation of the colonial administrators. In addition to their land, they were also robbed of their individual freedom, their self-determination and even their individual personal dignity, as they were turned into a captive workforce of labouring slaves. German colonial occupation of the Namibian lands began ?officially’ in 1884 as a prelude to the decisions of the infamous ?Berlin Conference’ (1884-1885), at which the imperial powers sought to prevent European war over the riches of Africa by dividing the lands officially amongst themselves. On 24 April 1884, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, declared the Namibian lands to be a German ?protectorate’. In the following years, Namibians suffered greatly under the brutal and destructive German colonial rule. That the people should resist the capture of their lands, the disruption of their traditional livelihoods and the loss of their ancient freedoms was inevitable. During the 1880s, the Nama people, under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi, launched a popular uprising against the German occupation. Witbooi was one of the first black men to actually engage in armed resistance against the occupiers. This early resistance was against relatively small German forces, and when Witbooi refused to sign a peace treaty, reinforcements were soon sent from Germany. He was finally killed in action at a place near Vaalgras on 29 October 1905. It would appear that the Nama people were subjugated by the German soldiers with the active participation of the British governor in the Cape Province. The Hereros The Germans went on further inland and encountered the Hereros who were found around Windhoek (known by the Hereros as ?Otjomuise’). Chief Samuel Maharero’s palace was suited at Okahandja. The Germans went there and asked Maharero to give them land. This was interpreted in Herero as ?ehi’, meaning ?sand’, so Maharero thought they were asking for sand, and told his people to give the Germans a bucket of sand. The Germans said ?No!, No! We want land to settle on’. But the somewhat comical confusion was explained, and Chief Maharero agreed to allow the Germans to settle — as he thought, temporarily — on a certain piece of Herero land. This was a genuine gesture of hospitality by Chief Maharero, meant to express respect for the strangers and to treat them as human beings. Also, it must be said that when one offers accommodation to a guest, it is not expected that the guest will occupy the whole house, and then remain there permanently! It became clear that the Germans did not intend themselves as guests, but rather that their settlement was to be permanent, and that they considered themselves to be the owners of the Herero land. This became a cause of war between the Hereros and the Germans. Of course, Chief Maharero would at first have had no understanding that the Germans were desperate for land, and would be willing to cheat, rob and kill Hereros in order to get it. German missionaries and merchant-traders who were already in the country reported to their government that the central region was well suited to European-style agriculture and cattle farming. Then more German troops and colonial settlers were sent from Germany. They forced the Hereros from their land and confiscated their livestock. Chief Maharero was left with no alternative but to wage a popular war against the German colonial occupiers. As the struggle continued, more and more German troops arrived, this time through the port of Swakopmund where the Germans had already settled. The war intensified from both sides, and the Hereros were suppressed with superior German weapons. Some Hereros went into exile in the then British Bechuanaland [now Botswana], through the Omaheke region where the German governor, Von Trotha, issued an extermination order that ?every Herero man, woman and child must be killed’. At the battle of Ohamakari, when the Hereros retreated towards Omaheke and then crossed into Bechuanaland, German troops threw poison into water-wells knowing precisely that the Hereros would drink from them, resulting in a mass murder of the Hereros. Some of the Hereros retreated north to Ovamboland and requested assistance from their Ovambo cousins. Chief Nehale Ija Mpingana of Ondonga sent reinforcements to the central region, and battles took place, particularly in the districts of Outjo and Amutuni (currently known as Onamutoni) where many German troops were killed by Ondonga warriors. To the present day, a monument can be seen there, where names are inscribed of German soldiers who died at the Onamutoni battle. The names of the dead Ondonga warriors remain unrecorded. South Africa and the mandate During World War I, Germany’s Namibian holdings were lost to South Africa, and in 1920 the League of Nations granted South Africa mandatory powers, ostensibly to ?administer’ our country and ?prepare us towards self determination’. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations did not allocate the former German colonies to the mandatory powers. This was done by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, to which Germany handed over its colonies under the Versailles Treaty (1919). Although the Allies decided who would receive which mandates, no mandate was assigned to any ostensibly qualified ?outsiders’. Article 22 provided that ?the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory shall be explicitly defined in each case by the Council [of the League]’. South African rule continued from then, on through World War II, all the time increasing and intensifying the oppression and apartheid laws of the regime. In 1946, the League of Nations itself was dissolved, and the United Nations assumed negotiations with South Africa to place South West Africa under the trusteeship of the UN. But the new body, dominated at the beginning by Western powers, was unwilling to apply sufficient pressure to make South Africa, their war-time ally under General Smuts, place our country under its trusteeship system. Instead, South Africa — in order to convince the international community that [it] had the support of the majority of the South West African people — used dirty tricks. A bogus referendum was held in which the puppet chiefs, mainly from Ovamboland (whom South Africa considered to represent the majority of the population) voted on behalf of the people to incorporate South West Africa as a fifth province of the Union of South Africa. This ploy might have succeeded had it not been for the actions of Chief Tshekedi Khama of British Bechuanaland, and Paramount Chief Frederick Maharero of the Hereros, who was living in exile in British Bechuanaland. They sent the Rev Michael Scott to South West Africa to see Chief Hosea Kutako in 1947. Chief Maharero also wrote a letter warning Chief Kutako about the danger of incorporating South West Africa into the Union of South Africa as the fifth province. Slaves in all but name In Angola and Mozambique, migrant labourers had been reserved especially to be recruited to go and work in South African mines. There was an agreement between the Anglo-American Corporation and South African authorities to pay British pounds sterling for each labourer recruited from these two Portuguese colonies. The money was exchanged in gold to maintain the Portuguese regime in Europe. Workers were treated like slaves, ill-treated and paid starvation wages, and many of them died, without compensation to their families. Migrant workers were also recruited from Central Africa (then Belgian Congo, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland) and further east in East Africa (Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda). They were transported by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WENALA) transport planes, which had special aircraft purchased by Anglo American Corporation. Workers from Kenya would be transported by road to Mbeya in Tanganyika and then to Broken Hill in Northern Rhodesia, thereafter to Mungu in then Barotseland (now Western Province of Zambia). Then they would be flown to Francistown in British Bechuanaland, where they would be transported by railway to Johannesburg. What must be recognised is that slavery had been abolished by law throughout the world. But in the British colonies of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika, and also in the Belgian Congo and in the Portuguese colonies, the slave contract system nevertheless continued until those countries achieved their independence. Life under the settlers As young people we were not afraid of the whites, and certainly did not feel inferior to them. We, however, as Africans, knew first-hand and were concerned about the oppression and racial discrimination, the pass laws which restricted the movements of the indigenous people, SWANLA’s modern slavery contract labour system, and the starvation wages paid to the Africans in their own country. I started working as an office sweeper with the South African Railways (SAR) in Windhoek, immediately after getting my working-pass from the Native Commissioner in March 1949. With a starting salary of £5 per month, I continued to support my parents, and brothers and sisters who were at school. They still lived outside the ?cash economy’, and for them money was very hard to obtain although they had enough food throughout the year. Our family led a happy life and had adequate food at home. I began to learn about the racial discrimination that existed in an extreme form on the railways where Afrikaners predominantly occupied supervisory positions. Posts of many kinds were reserved for whites only, even for those who lacked any education. The drivers of motor cars used by railway officials, for example, were all white and it was forbidden for a black person to be a driver. Even while cleaning a vehicle, blacks were not allowed to touch the steering wheel. That was taken as a threat to the white man, and a cleaner could be fired with immediate effect for such an offence. Painting was equally for white men: the blacks could climb up the ladder to clean the old paint, but a white person would come and do the painting. Such demeaning practices had existed before the National Party came to power [in South Africa], but the situation became more serious when the National Party won the general election in South Africa in 1948, under Daniel Malan, with Hendrik Verwoerd as his minister for native affairs form 1951. Verwoerd later introduced innumerable repressive laws to govern the lives of blacks. He even instructed that trousers worn by blacks should have one leg shorter than the other so that blacks would be seen to be different from whites even in their clothing. Similar discrimination was also applied to cemeteries and residential areas. We saw how the Boers, now that they had their own government, looked after their own people — at the expense of blacks. Hundreds of Boers came from as far as south of De Aar to work on the railways. Some of them were very poor, even bare-footed, and all were given jobs superior to the highest paid black railway employees who were considered inferior. This reflected the superior position the Boers considered themselves to have in relation to the English and other whites in South Africa. Contract workers Windhoek railway station was a good example of apartheid in practice: whites bought their travelling tickets inside the station, coloureds (mixed race) outside but under the cover of some shade, and blacks out in the open where they had to purchase their tickets from behind a wooden screen so that they could not see the white ticket clerk. This was insulting, but trivial compared to the treatment of contract workers on the railways. I saw much of this myself, as I could volunteer for overtime to boost my earnings, doing work on the line, especially after the railway lines were washed away in the south. Contract workers were brought into work in the goods shed and on the construction of the railway itself, where we could work side by side in my overtime. [As a boy] I saw a group of men being transported in cattle trucks. I asked Mother Aune Katangolo why these people were travelling in cattle trucks. She told me that they were contract workers going to the places of their employers. It shocked me very much but there was nothing I could do at that time. For blacks, travelling required a pass issued by the colonial authority, and finding employment was also heavily restricted by law. The only option, if we wanted to work in the south, was to become a contract labourer. Boys in rural regions such as Ovamboland, Kavango and Kaokoland were recruited by SWANLA (South West Africa Native Labour Association). This was a notorious South African government-sponsored organisation which took young boys and able-bodied men to work for the white settlers as near-slave labourers in mines, farms, factories and as domestic servants in towns like Windhoek, Omaruru and others in central and southern Namibia. We heard stories of abuse and humiliation of the contract workers at the hands of white employers. Each of the various colonial governments had instituted different systems of slavery and forced labour. Workers recruited through SWANLA were systematically humiliated: for example, they were transported in cattle trucks with tags around their necks on which the names of their masters-to-be were written. Since the white settler employers paid a certain amount of money to SWANLA in order to be provided with cheap labourers, such whites would normally consider that they had actually bought the workers and considered them as slaves. Young boys could be sent away to work for as long as two years before the contract expired, without leave to visit families and entitled neither to sick leave or to be accompanied by any family member, including even a wife. Families would not be allowed to visit, even in the event of terminal illness. In the event of an accident, causing a man to have a leg amputated or lose an arm, SAR would simply send him back to the north through SWANLA, and recruit a new worker. No compensation whatsoever was paid. It was from seeing this happen that I learned — more than from anything else — that we had to do something in order to change the situation. Ghana’s example We knew about Indian independence in 1947 and were inspired by the seizure of power by Sukarno of Indonesia in 1945, by Abdul Nasser’s victory against Britain, France and Israel for control of the Suez Canal in 1956. But the most important of all these, however, was Ghana’s independence in 1957, which had a tremendous impact and provided a ray of hope for the future of our own liberation. In 1957, at the age of 29, I resigned from SAR with the purpose of devoting my time to politics. However, I had to face the problem that, by law, an African not employed or not in the service of a white man was not allowed to live in Windhoek or elsewhere in the urban districts. My solution was to seek employment with the Windhoek Municipality doing some clerical work. But when I found myself doing the work of lazy Boers, with too little money as my salary, I resigned and found employment with Hurbert Davis, a subsidiary of a Cape Town company that supplied and fitted electric cables in new buildings. On 2 August 1957, the Ovamboland People’s Congress (OPC) was formed by Namibians who were working in Cape Town, South Africa. Its aims and objectives were to petition the United Nations to force the South African regime to agree to surrender South West Africa to the Trusteeship Council of the UN, and also to terminate the inhuman contract system. But, to us, the most important international political development after the end of the Second World War was the struggle for the independence of Ghana, which was finally celebrated on 6 March 1957. Ghana’s fight for freedom inspired and influenced us all, and the greatest contribution to our political awareness at that time came from the achievements of Ghana after its independence. It was from Ghana that we got the idea that we must do more than petition the UN to bring about our own independence. And so, on 19 April 1959, we formed our own liberation movement, the Ovamboland People’s Organisation (OPO). (Next month, in Part II, President Nujoma talks about the struggle for Namibian independence). ?Where Others Wavered — the autobiography of Sam Nujoma? is published by Panaf Books, 75 Weston St, London, SE1 3RS. Tel +44 870 333 1191, 1192, 1193. Fax: +44 870 333 1196. Email: sales@panafbooks.com £25 hbk, 476 pages. This book comes with high recommendations from New African. We urge all our readers to get a copy.
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