By Bob Newland
Sam Nujoma was born in 1929 in Ovamboland, at the time, part of South African administered South West Africa. After years of leading the struggle for independence, in 1990 he became the first President of newly independent Namibia.
South West Africa had been a German colony until the end of World War I. Following Germany’s defeat, the League of Nations gave South Africa a mandate to control the territory. Following the victory of the National Party in 1948, the introduction of apartheid laws in South Africa was also extended to South West Africa.
Nujoma gained a limited education by attending night school and began working life as a railway worker. This was short lived as he was dismissed because of his efforts to establish a railway workers’ union. This was the first step in Nujoma’s struggle for workers’ rights and the independence of his country.
His next action was to establish the Ovamboland People’s Organisation campaigning to end South Africa’s mandate. After being forced into exile in Tanzania, in 1960, Nujoma joined with others to form the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), unifying a number of pro-independence groups. He was elected its first President. He developed his pan-African outlook at this time, attending the All-African Peoples’Conference in newly independent Ghana. There he met with other African nationalist leaders including Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Franz Fanon. Like Fanon, he came to understand the necessity, under certain circumstances, to take up arms to fight for liberation.
After six years of petitioning South Africa for independence, in 1966, SWAPO launched its armed struggle, establishing the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) which fought a 22 year battle until eventual success.
Like the ANC’s O.R. Tambo, Nujoma spent many years in exile travelling from country to country fighting the battle for international recognition and support. Nujoma also led a diplomatic campaign directed at the United Nations (UN) and in 1973 the UN General Assembly recognised SWAPO as the sole legitimate representative of the Namibian people. This was a momentous achievement of Nujoma’s sophisticated combination of diplomatic and armed struggle. He also showed great tactical ability by drawing on substantial Soviet support for the armed struggle while gaining support for Namibian independence from western states.
Nujoma was not simply a nationalist seeking power within his own country. He had a powerful grasp of the nature of imperialism and colonialism. At the 1977 World Conference Against Apartheid, he stressed the need to destroy the colonial system and the institutions of the apartheid regime in Namibia. He also warned against installing ‘neocolonialist marionettes’ who would superficially change the appearance of the regime without changing the conditions of the people.
Wider global and regional events contributed to SWAPO’s eventual victory. The collapse of the Portuguese empire and its fascist regime in 1974, was prompted by successive military defeats in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. This meant that South Africa now had a hostile border with the rest of Africa rather than a friendly one. Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed wing could now establish bases in a number of independent African states and increase its own armed struggle.
South Africa’s response was to step up its repression at home and to invade newly independent Angola. A combined force of the Angolan army, PLAN, MK along with Cuban advisers fought back. South Africa also funded and armed a counter-revolutionary Angolan movement, UNITA, thereby fomenting a long civil war. Eventually, in 1988, Angolan patriotic forces and their allies including over 3,000 Cuban troops, routed UNITA and the South African Defence Force at Cuito Cuanavale in Southern Angola. This led to the withdrawal of South African forces. Angola then supported SWAPO’s armed struggle, allowing them to establish training camps in Angola, enabling them to step up their actions against South African occupation.
Within a year, negotiations for the independence of Namibia were complete and in 1989, SWAPO decisively won the elections and Sam Nujoma became the first President of independent Namibia.
Unlike many other leaders of African liberation movements, Nujoma had no interest in appointing himself ‘President for life’ and retired after 15 years. Although only educated to primary level himself, Nujoma introduced a major programme of education transforming literacy in the country. He also promoted women’s rights addressing the issue of women’s destitution after the death of their husbands and forcing absentee husbands to pay child support.
As with most of the former settler colonies in Southern Africa, the land question was a major issue for newly independent Namibia. Nujoma nationalised 12% of the country’s agricultural land for redistribution to the dispossessed. However, agriculture was only a small part of Namibia’s economy. To develop, it became necessary to exploit her considerable mineral wealth but with this came new problems of relationships with former colonial exploiters. These continue to dog Namibia today.
Another of Nujoma’s significant achievements was his contribution to the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity, which grew out of the many independence struggles across the whole of Africa, into today’s African Union.
Nujoma was a visionary as well as a revolutionary, but he was socially conservative. He went along with Thabo Mbeki’s theory that aids was a western imperialist plot to denigrate Africans. He also faced criticism for permitting SWAPO’s security forces to execute large numbers of alleged ‘informers’ after large scale South African bombing raids on PLAN camps in Angola. The security forces argued these raids could only be successful with inside information. While South Africa clearly had agents within PLAN, hindsight tells us that many of these ‘informers’ were victims of South African disinformation intended to divide and undermine the liberation movement.
None of this, however, can take away from the Nujoma’s legacy. Namibia’s recognition of the rights of women and children, their education, and health service, and of course their independence owe much to his contribution. His rejection of tribalism brought unity and security. It is not without considerable justification that he became known as ‘The Founding Father of the Namibian Nation’ – a Liberation Hero.
Sam Nujoma (1924-2025)
Bob Newland is a Liberation member and was a London Recruit
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation.
This is a series of articles Liberation is running to raise awareness of people, in history or active today, more or less well known who have made a significant contribution to popular struggles for freedom, against imperialism and for peace, social justice and human rights in the Global South. Who is your Liberation Hero? Get in touch with us at info@liberationorg.co.uk – and if you’d like, tell us a bit about this person, why you think deserve recognition and their story told
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Photo: World Conference for Action Against Apartheid Opens in Lagos, Seated at the table are Sam Nujoma (left), President of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), and Theo-Ben Guribab, Representative of SWAPO in New York. 22/Aug/1977. UN Photo/J Riedel.
