African leaders previous and current gathered in Namibia on Saturday to bury the nation’s “founding father” Sam Nujoma, who challenged colonialism and a navy occupation by South Africa’s racist white minority authorities.
Dignitaries together with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, former President Thabo Mbeki and ex-Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete attended the funeral of Nujoma, who rose from herding cattle as a boy to steer the sparsely-populated, largely desert southern African nation on March 21, 1990.
“We fought below your command… gained the liberation battle, and eternally eliminated apartheid colonialism from the face of Namibia,” President Nangolo Mbumba mentioned in a speech.
His coffin draped within the purple, inexperienced and blue nationwide flag, Nujoma was laid to relaxation two weeks after his loss of life on the age of 95 – at a North Korean-built battle memorial spire known as Heroes’ Acre.
The monument honours those that fought for independence from genocidal German colonialism and later – after Germany misplaced the territory in World Struggle I – South African occupation.
Nujoma served from 1990 to 2005 and sought to challenge himself as a unifying chief bridging political divides.
Nevertheless, he confronted criticism over his intolerance of essential media protection, diatribes in opposition to homosexuality and over the 1998 constitutional modification permitting him to run for a 3rd time period. —Reuter
