The Week's Newspaper
| PHIL YA NANGOLO STOPS IIVULA-ITHANA IN HER TRACKS: Your Parents were killed by known SWAPO Insurgent |
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| Written by Informante staff reporter | |||
| Thursday, 25 August 2011 07:39 | |||
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Phil yaNangolo of NamRights issued a media release in which he agrees with SWAPO Secretary General and Minister of Justice Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana on past violations of rights, but disagrees with her on who had killed her parents during Namibia’s struggle for liberation. According to information at the disposal of NamRights, yaNangolo claims that SWAPO insurgents led by Africa and Johnny Kalyamboga, were responsible for the death of the parents of Iivula- Ithana at their village on April 20th 1981. The statement by Phil yaNangolo asserts that the insurgents in question were also responsible for other incidents such as the Oshikuku Massacre that took place on March 10th 1982, at Oshipanda Village, 10 kilometers west of Oshikuku. YaNangolo also asserts that the same insurgents were responsible for the Oshitutuma Village massacre of Kayeya, his wife and mother in 1987. The report goes on to say that the Kayeya’s were first mowed down with an AK47 assault riffle before their bodies were dragged into a hut and the hut was set alight in full view of the villagers. The parents of Ithana and the Kayeya’s were falsely accused of collaborating with apartheid South African security forces that were then stationed at Ogongo Village. YaNangolo, however, commends the minister of justice for standing up for her parents and for justice. He points out that the ruling party SWAPO, for which Minister Iivula-Ithana is Secretary General, has on numerous occasions rejected calls for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate the truth about human rights violations, war crimes and the crimes against humanity perpetrated during the war of liberation in Namibia. NamRights said it has over the years called for the institution of a campaign similar to South Africa’s TRC, to probe the question of what had transpired during Namibia’s struggle for independence, in which many Namibians went missing while in exile and some died in South African prisons in Namibia. The call was sparked by a book written by a German clergy titled: ‘The Wall of Silence’, which made some startling revelations about what had transpired to Namibians in exile. A subtle debate ensued but was subdued shortly, as some of the political groups in Namibia seemed not well disposed to the idea. Still, yaNangolo persisted rather mildly and it seems to have found a new take to the campaign. Despite efforts to solicit comment from Ithana-Ivula, she did not reply to her cellphone, to an SMS and several calls to her office.
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