Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican government has decreed three days of national mourning, starting this Wednesday, in memory of the Founding President of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, who died on Saturday after a long illness.
The President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, on Saturday sent a message of condolences to the Government of Namibia.
In the message addressed to the President of Namibia, Nangolo Mbumba, Daniel Chapo highlighted that the death of Sam Nujoma represents a loss for the entire African continent and emphasizes that he was a “great leader”, fundamental in the movement for independence in that country as well as for the contribution he made to peace and security in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
As leader of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), the liberation movement he co-founded in 1960, Sam Nujoma won Namibia’s independence in 1990 from South Africa, which had taken control of the territory from Germany after the First World War. In 2021, he dismissed Germany’s offer to pay more than €1 billion in compensation for the massacre of tens of thousands of indigenous Herero and Nama people, considered the first genocide of the 20th century, as insufficient. “Namibia must return to the negotiating table with Germany,” he said, describing the offer as “terribly insignificant”.
Born on 12 May 1929 into a farming family, Sam Nujoma was the eldest of ten children. He tended cows and goats until, at the age of 17, he left his remote northern village to move to the western port city of Walvis Bay.
There, he became aware of discrimination against blacks and soon became a trade unionist, attending night classes where he met pro-independence activists.
Forced into exile in 1960 first to Botswana, then Ghana and the United States, he had to leave behind his wife and four children.
He led Swapo and launched the armed struggle in 1966. The war of independence cost more than 20,000 lives. When he became president, Sam Nujoma refused to set up a commission to examine the atrocities committed during the 23-year conflict between Swapo and pro-South African death squads.
After retiring from politics, Sam Nujoma returned to school and obtained a master’s degree in Geology, convinced that the mountains of Namibia are full of unexplored mineral wealth.
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