Making a Difference

14 The 1989 Elections

Ireturned to Windhoek after my visit to Fransfontein and started work. I was assigned to look after the health of our ‘returnees’ as we were known, and I was informed that some preparations had been made in Katutura Hospital and that wards had been reserved to receive any patients arriving from exile who might be sick and need treatment, and for any malnourished children. Nobody was admitted there on arrival. Our children jumped off the plane; they were healthy; and there were no malnourished children. So the empty wards stayed empty at Katutura Hospital. I set up a clinic in the SWAPO office and continued what I had been doing in the centres in Zambia and Angola, namely treating our sick people. The local health fraternity welcomed me and we started bridging courses to integrate the nurses who came back from exile. I worked with Ena Barlow, whom I respected very much. She was forward-looking and very understanding. I found her in the Health Department when I became Minister of Health and Social Services some years later and we worked together again. We soon got our nurses registered and they worked alongside the local nurses. I was happy that this included my trainees from the Morenga Enrolled Nursing School. Election Campaign I recall how exciting the whole experience of adapting to Namibia again and working in my motherland was. On the other hand, politics were boiling over. Rallies were held in the months leading up to the elections for a Constituent Assembly in November 1989. The SWAPO rallies were jam-packed, particularly when we went to the northern part of our country. The atmosphere was always electric; support for SWAPO was overwhelming, assuring us of an imminent victory. I was assigned to campaign in the Okakarara area, in the east-central part of Namibia. It was Hereroland and a stronghold of the opposition 119 The 1989 Elections parties, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) and the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), so I had a hard time. However, I was Herero-speaking and had ancestral connections there, so it was a little easier than it might have been for others. My grandmother was kidnapped from that area and I had relatives in Okamatapati, not far from Okakarara, who knew me before I went abroad and were pleased to see me back – people like Mitiri Mureko, Vihajo and Salatiel Tjakuva were there. I was received well but I don’t think I persuaded the people there to vote for SWAPO. Nevertheless, despite the political inclinations of the people, I encountered no violence, animosity or disrespect from the people in the Okakarara region. I was listened to politely but there was an engrained anti-SWAPO sentiment. The opposition parties were tribally based. Most Hereros belonged to one or other of these parties and referred to SWAPO as an Owambo party. After listening to me they would say, ‘We hear what you are saying but we are waiting for our own leaders.’ I realized that we, SWAPO, had very little or no support in that region. Of course, the propaganda machine of the DTA supported by the South African apartheid regime was very active and we were portrayed as man-eaters; but my team soldiered on. The farmers, particularly those of German origin, were a different story; they were very hostile. Their farm workers were warned not to attend our meetings and told they would be observed on television when they were voting and it could be seen for whom they had voted. Some German farms were literally no-go areas. In fact some farmers prevented SWAPO people from entering their farms. One day I was with Comrade Otniel Kazombiaze. We went to talk to the workers of De La Bat tourist camp at the Waterberg Plateau. This camp was run by some young, arrogant, white men and I was told they were former South African army soldiers, now in Nature Conservation uniforms. We were threatened and chased away by those young Afrikaner boys. Those who were running that camp were spitting hatred when they spoke to us. I was convinced that, if it had not been for the presence of the United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG), such virulent racists could have killed us. The 1989 elections took place under the supervision and control of UNTAG but the physical control was still in the hands of the police who reported to the South African Administrator General. By nature and [3.135...