Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
03-03-2025
WINDHOEK: African leaders past and present gathered in Namibia on Saturday to bury the country’s “founding father” Sam Nujoma, who challenged colonialism and a military occupation by South Africa’s racist white minority government.
Dignitaries including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, former President Thabo Mbeki and ex-Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete attended the funeral of Nujoma, who rose from herding cattle as a boy to lead the sparsely-populated, mostly desert southern African country on March 21, 1990.
“We fought under your command, won the liberation struggle, and forever removed apartheid colonialism from the face of Namibia,” President Nangolo Mbumba said in a speech.
His coffin draped in the red, green and blue national flag, Nujoma was laid to rest two weeks after his death at the age of 95 at a North Korean-built war memorial spire called Heroes’ Acre.
The monument honors those who fought for independence from genocidal German colonialism and later, after Germany lost the territory in World War I, South African occupation.
Nujoma served from 1990 to 2005 and sought to project himself as a unifying leader bridging political divides.
However, he faced criticism over his intolerance of critical media coverage, diatribes against homosexuality and over the 1998 constitutional amendment allowing him to run for a third term.
Sam Nujoma, the activist and guerrilla leader who became Namibia’s first democratically elected president after it won its independence from apartheid South Africa, died aged 95 on Saturday, the Namibian Presidency said on Sunday.
Nujoma rose to head the thinly populated southern African country on March 21, 1990 and was formally recognized as “Founding Father of the Namibian Nation” through a 2005 act of parliament.
The acclaim was balanced out by domestic and international criticism over his intolerance of critical media coverage, his railing against homosexuality and over the 1998 constitutional amendment that let him run for a third term.
He was a longtime ally of Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe, backing Mugabe’s land seizures from white farmers, though at home Nujoma stuck to a “willing buyer, willing seller” policy.
“The foundations of the Republic of Namibia have been shaken,” the presidency said.
“Our venerable leader, Dr. Nujoma did not only blaze the trail to freedom but he also inspired us to rise to our feet and to become masters of this vast land of our ancestors.”
The presidency said Nujoma had been hospitalized for medical treatment over the past three weeks, adding: “Unfortunately, this time, the most gallant son of our land could not recover from his illness.”
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said Nujoma’s leadership of a free Namibia laid the foundation for the solidarity and partnership the two countries share today, “a partnership we will continue to deepen as neighbors and friends.”
“Dr Sam Nujoma was an extraordinary freedom fighter who divided his revolutionary program between Namibia’s own struggle against South African colonialism and the liberation of South Africa from apartheid,” he said in a statement.
African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat hailed Nujoma as one of the continent’s “most illustrious revolutionary leaders” and “the epitome of courage.” (Int’l News Desk)
