April 16 2008

PRESS RELEASE


NSHR wishes to respond to the systematic Mubage-style and or Hitler-style propaganda campaign of scape-goating, obfuscation, scare tactics and fear mongering that is currently underway in the country. This campaign is spearheaded by some—not all---SWAPO Party officials, especially those that are closely aligned with former SWAPO Party President Sam Nujoma. In most material respects, this propaganda campaign is reminiscent of the scape-goating tactics that right-wing and other extremists and opportunists have used throughout history as a means to shift the blame and responsibility away from themselves by attributing it to others.



Case in point: Human rights sources in the Ohangwena Region and media reports said that SWAPO Party’s Oshana Region Coordinator, Erastus Uutoni, had claimed over the weekend inter alia that the “likes of Phil ya Nangoloh” had blocked the Epupa hydroelectric scheme and thus had caused the serious power shortages as well as other socio-economic ills currently being experienced in the country. The term “the likes of Phil ya Nangoloh” is direct reference to NSHR executive director Phil ya Nangoloh. Uutoni also boasted that his SWAPO Party had “liberated Namibia” and that the SWAPO Party was not “a child’s play beats people”.



Mr. Uutoni then urged his audience not to join any other political parties in Namibia, “such as Radopa”. “Radopa” is a derogatory reference to the newly founded Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) party, led by former liberation struggle ideologue Hidipo Hamutenya. Uutoni also claimed that “Radopa” is hell-bent on bringing about tribalism and war in this country. He was addressing a SWAPO Party rally at Ohangwena village, on Saturday, April 12 2008. The village is situated in the Ohangwena Region.



In the recent past Uutoni had also engaged in scape-goating Phil ya Nangoloh. Uutoni made similar incendiary and fear-mongering remarks during another SWAPO Party rally held at the town of Ongwediva on February 24 2008. NSHR also closely monitored this rally, where SWAPO Party Secretary General Ms. Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana seriously attempted to discredit Ovakwanyama king and Namibian anti-colonial hero, Mandume ya Ndemufayo.



It is therefore understandable that, having so far dismally failed to bring about genuine democracy as well as to alleviate the abject poverty, diseases, unemployment, and gross income disparities and inequities in this country during the last 18 years, the SWAPO Party now relies on hostile propaganda and scape-goating. Its spin doctors and fear mongers, such as Erastus Uutoni, apparently have no more or never had any honest, positive and or truthful message to tell the people of Namibia. Rather, they heavily rely on false history and resort to scape-goating and or fear-mongering in order to perpetuate their personal rule, self-enrichment and corrupt practices at the expense of the poor and impoverished people in the country. This practice is very similar to what Robert Mugabe has been doing in “his” Zimbabwe.



Furthermore, SWAPO Party propagandists present the facts selectively in order to encourage people to come to a particular conclusion. They often deliver loaded messages designed to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that they present. For example, by inter alia using distorted history, the spiteful SWAPO Party propagandists constantly deceive the people of Namibia by creating a false impression that their party hero, former SWAPO Party President Mr. Sam Nujoma had single-handedly liberated Namibia from Apartheid South African occupation. They also fallaciously claim that old-age and disability pension, war veteran’s subvention, drought relief and other welfare programs come from the “SWAPO Party Government”, instead of the Government of Namibia. The rationale behind using the term “SWAPO Party Government” is to deliberately confuse unsuspecting citizens into believing that State welfare programs and other amenities are paid for from the coffers of either the SWAPO Party or directly from the pockets of Uutoni’s hero, Mr. Nujoma.



They also resort to using propaganda messages as part of the mainstream news media as well as propaganda movies (such as Sam Nujoma’s movie), music (such as the hate music by Ndilimani) and other media.



In addition to Mugabe, the propaganda and scare tactics of some of SWAPO Party’s spokespersons is glaringly similar to those that Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler used in an attempt to mold, to his own purposes, the opinions and attitudes of his intended victims. Division, doubt, and fear were the weapons Hitler used against his opponents. His purpose is summed up in his own phrase—to sow “mental confusion, contradiction of feeling, indecision, and panic.”



Like the upraised arm for Nazi supporters, the SWAPO Party salutation—the upraised fist, called the mannetjie—is created to identify loyal party members. In Nazi Germany, further identification with Nazism was given through the use of the party salutation “Heil Hitler”. Similarly, SWAPO Party members are urged to use the salutation “Viva Nujoma”. Other Nazi slogans, such as Blut und Boden (meaning Blood and Soil) are similar to the SWAPO Party’s “Now Hard Work” slogan.



As the Nazis did to the German people, SWAPO Party propagandists hypnotize the Namibian people by inter alia staging dramatic and spectacular public rallies and demonstrations. Similar to the Nazi’s Propaganda Office, the SWAPO Party’s Department of Information and Mobilization nowadays spends most of its time as well as State resources on planning rallies, making uniforms and costumes as well as hoisting flags on cars, trees and houses in order to give glitter to the party’s hegemonism. This state of affairs creates a false impression in the minds of the public that the SWAPO Party is everywhere in the country, even in trees and bushes.



SWAPO Party members are now also being urged by the party’s Secretary for Information and Mobilization Jerry Ekandjo to paint everything even their teeth in the party’s blue, red and green colors!



The Nazis were ruthless in stamping out all vestiges of the German Republic. The symbols of the Führer and the Nazi party became preeminent. The so-called “leadership principle”, which exalted Hitler into an infinitely wise and a godlike chieftain, was one of the fictions created by his followers. Similarly in Namibia, by heaping the accolades of “Founding Father of the Namibian Nation”, “Founding President” and “Leader of the Namibian Revolution”, the likes of Erastus Uutoni and Jerry Ekandjo urge party members and supporters as well as other frightened Namibians to extol Nujoma into an almost godlike idol.



Furthermore, parallel to the Nazi’s Ministry of Propaganda, the SWAPO Party also has newspapermen, such as Namibia Today’s Asser Ntinda, under its control, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, the party demonizes the independent media in the country. In many cases when a crisis develops in the country, such as the recent border conflicts in the Kavango and Caprivi regions, the “SWAPO Party Government” expelled foreign correspondents who sought to tell it like it is what was going on. Similarly, whenever a crisis developed in Germany, the Nazis also expelled foreign correspondents who sought to tell the truth of what was going on in the country. Moreover, as the Nazis had done in Germany, the SWAPO Party has virtually taken over the national broadcaster, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).



In Hitler’s Germany, the Nazis cleverly drained away some of these resentments by scape-goating ethnic groups, such as the Jews and others, against whom they blamed the difficulties they (the Nazis) themselves had caused and faced. Similarly in Namibia, SWAPO Party propagandists are currently targeting the Kwanyama people, blaming them for the party’s own state of affairs and thus seem to wash former SWAPO Party President Nujoma of all blame. Like Nujoma, Iivula-Ithana and SWAPO Party National Council MP Hilma Nicanor, Erastus Uutoni is one of the real or perceived strongest anti-Kwanyama elements within the SWAPO Party. Coincidentally, Uutoni was also one of the SWAPO Party elements who was strongly opposed to President Lucas Hifikepunye Pohamba becoming president of the SWAPO Party and who had exhorted party supporters to back Nujoma to remain SWAPO Party President for life.



However, despite all the cunning propaganda tricks and the creation of dazzling new symbols, the Nazis could not take the minds of the German people entirely off their troubles. Similarly, the Namibian people are increasingly opening their eyes wide and waking up to the socio-economic injustices, such as the education, health and housing crises as well as abject poverty, unemployment and gross income inequalities and inequities. The Namibian people are also fast waking up to the SWAPO Party’s scape-goating, scare tactics and fear-mongering. So, as slain popular Jamaica reggae musician Peter Tosh had said: ‘You can only fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’.



Mr. Erastus Uutoni owes his current political fortunes to Mr. Sam Nujoma. During May 2004, Nujoma imposed Uutoni on the residents of the town of Ongwediva in one of his (Nujoma’s) most undemocratic antics. Despite the fact that he was rejected by the SWAPO Party members and supporters at the town, Uutoni became the irreplaceable Mayor of the town. To the chagrin of the Ongwediva electorate, four SWAPO Party town councilors – viz. John ya Kanandjembo, Nangolo Auala, Samuel Nanguti and Angelina Amushigamo - who the voters had elected - have summarily been removed from the list of candidates to be sworn in.



As a popular reaction to this undemocratic move by Mr. Nujoma and his praise singers, on June 1 2004 Ongwediva residents held a peaceful demonstration to condemn the removal of the duly elected town councilors. The demonstrators demanded that the four candidates be sworn in immediately. Read an anti-Uutoni petition handed to senior Oshakati Magistrate Ms. Helena Ekandjo:



“In the spirit of openness, transparency, consultation, justice and mutual respect, we call upon the SWAPO Party Secretary General, the Electoral Commission of Namibia and the Oshakati Magistrate's Court to come clean and clear, and act in accordance with the will and wishes of the Ongwediva Town Electorate. [..]We feel strongly that this practice does not auger well for unity, transparency, fairness and democracy in SWAPO Party structures in Ongwediva Town. […] We … are intelligent and politically mature enough to choose the people we want and trust to lead us in this town. We do not want anybody else to dictate us and impose non-nominated and unselected people on us. […] We all call upon comrades Erastus Uutoni, Patricia Kashuupulwa, Angela Angula and Isak Ndokosho to accept their defeat and respect the wishes and aspirations of the residents of Ongwediva Town.”



Some of the posters carried by the demonstrators bore slogans such as: ‘We need change in Ongwediva’, ‘If you are not elected, you are not wanted’, ‘Let's practice democracy’, and ‘We want transparency in the Swapo Party’. As Ongwediva resident Josef Namwandi, who also took part in the demonstration, put it:



"[W]hen we are talking about democracy and transparency, then we must mean it. We cannot use double standards when we talk about these two things - otherwise we are fooling the people and ourselves."



For further information please call: Dorkas Phillemon at Tel: +264 61 236 183 or +264 61 253 447 (during office hours only) or E-mail: nshr@nshr.org.na or nshr@nshr.org.na or visit National Society for Human Rights :: Tolerance - Liberty - Happiness