Peter Katjavivi is not one of those renowned leaders of the African liberation movement and few people will even know his name, yet he has dedicated his life to the liberation of his homeland, Namibia, and been in the forefront of its struggle for liberation and been active during its path to become a modern democratic state. He has been one of those vitally important “backroom boys”, writes John Green.
He was born in Okahandja on 12 May 1941, attending primary school in Windhoek and later Government College Umuahia, Nigeria before going on to the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he studied History, Law, and Political Science. It was there that he joined the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) – the equivalent in Namibia of the ANC in South Africa. During the 1960s he was made head of SWAPO’s overseas offices in London. There he spearheaded SWAPO’s campaign for recognition as the real representative of the Namibian people and for the ending of South Africa’s illegal occupation. In this campaign he worked closely with Dr Sean McBride, who was the UN High Commissioner for Namibia at the time.
From his tiny, makeshift office in east London, he led a vigorous campaign on behalf of his homeland, producing literature and regular press releases, addressing meetings and winning over politicians and a wider public to support the struggle.
He was a warm-hearted and modest man, content to wage the struggle on the political battlefield without seeking the limelight. Those years until independence came in 1990 were long and hard, with Western governments quite happy to leave Namibia under South African control, so that the country’s rich assets of minerals, diamonds and uranium could continue to be exploited and kept out of “communist hands”. It was an uphill struggle for him.
On behalf of SWAPO, Peter Katjavivi maintained cordial relations with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, particularly with the GDR, where SWAPO’s magazine, Namibia News, and other literature was printed and published.
He helped wage a successful international campaign for the release of both Aaron Muchimba, SWAPO National Organiser, and Hendrik Shikongo who had been sentenced to death on the trumped-up charge of murder, in Namibia, in May 1976. This also happened under South African jurisdiction.
Incidentally, he was also instrumental in securing my own release in 1975 after I and my partner were arrested in southern Angola by UNITA as supposed South African spies while making a documentary about SWAPO.
He clearly felt most at home in Academia and over the years published a number of research papers and books on Namibian affairs, including, ‘The Development of Anti-Colonial Forces in Namibia’, in Namibia: 1884-1984, ‘The OAU and the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa’ (African Books, London, 1989), and with Jacobs, W.R. ‘The Relevance of Gandhian Thought to Contemporary Namibia’, A History of Resistance in Namibia, James Currey/UNESCO/OAU (1988).
He has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates, including from Bath University. There, Professor Richard Mawditt summed up Peter Katjavivi’s contribution in his oration in 2018: “Peter Katjavivi has dedicated his life to the causes of social justice, education, good governance and democracy, building international support for his country and its African neighbours through diplomatic activity with a special persona recognised throughout Africa and beyond.
In those long, dark years of political and diplomatic struggles, when his country was externally governed, Peter was in exile engaged in the Namibian nationalist movement, SWAPO, as their Representative in the United Kingdom and Western Europe (1968-76). He was a member of the SWAPO Central Committee, being both instrumental in the preparation and a signatory to the Independence Constitution, that came at last in 1990!”
Following Independence, he became a Member of Parliament in the Namibian National Assembly, playing a major role in formulating new legislation and repealing discriminatory and outdated laws inherited from the apartheid era.
He also became Special Advisor on Higher Education to the Government leading the process that established the University of Namibia by Act of Parliament and, not surprisingly, left Parliament to become the Founding Vice-Chancellor of the University of Namibia (UNAM) and held this post for the next decade.
From 1992 to 2003 he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Namibia, of which he was one of the founders. He was ambassador to the European Union from 2003 to 2006 and to Germany from 2006 to 2008, and Director General of the Namibian National Planning Commission from 2008 to 2010.
After a quarter of a century of peace and stability, Namibia is now the ‘go-to’ country in Africa with two fine universities and an outstanding Medical School, due in no small part to our distinguished honorary graduate today.
Katjavivi was also a member of numerous national and international educational, cultural, and research organisations. He served as President of the Namibia Economic Policy Research Unit beginning in 1990, as Chairman of the Council of National Monuments, and as an Executive Council Member of UNESCO. He was appointed as Director-General of the National Planning Commission on 8 April 2008.
Following the November 2009 parliamentary elections, President Hifikepunye Pohamba appointed Katjavivi to the National Assembly as one of the six non-voting members of parliament. Subsequently, he was SWAPO’s Chief Whip in the National Assembly, and when the National Assembly began sitting for its new term on 20 March 2015, Katjavivi was sworn in as Speaker of Parliament.
He is married to Jane, a British woman who he met during his time in London, and they have five children. Besides his native Herero, he speaks five other languages.
John Green is a former trade union official, a journalist and former documentary film-maker, which in the 1970s involved clandestine filming assignments in South Africa in the 1970s aimed at helping bring the abhorrent practices of the apartheid regime to world attention. He is the author of numerous books, including Ken Sprague, People’s Artist, A Revolutionary Life: Biography of Friedrich Engels and Britain’s Communists: The Untold Story.
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation.
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Photo: Bert Verhoeff for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
