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This is the transcript of an interview recorded by the late Theo-Ben Gurirab, carried out for the United Nations in 1999. Gurirab had just become President of the UN General Assembly when he was in charge. interview took place.
Jean Krasno: First, President Gurirab, could you, please, explain where you were born and educated and when you were involved in the independence of Namibia?
Theo-Ben Gurirab: My biographical data is readily available. I was born on January 23, 1939, in a small railway town, 142 kilometers east of Swakopmund, our coastal town. In fact, in my language the name of the place is usually broke like Usakos. At the time of my childhood, it was the main rail link throughout the country. Growing up, I felt that I was actually living in a paradise. I did not know that I lived at the headquarters of racism. Communities were divided according to racial criteria not only between whites and blacks, but also between different black communities. But it was a fun place to have grown up in. It is there that I started my schooling. Unlike a much larger number of my siblings and my cousins, I was one of the lucky ones to not have to heal the livestock and do the necessary household chores in the village and in many settlements in Usakos and surrounding areas. I was fortunate to have done my primary studies in a missionary school where I had done my elementary studies.
I did my high school and my teacher training in Okahandja, about 75 kilometers northwest of Windhoek, the capital. place called Augustinium. It is a place that links in different ways the history of Namibia to the reform led by Martin Luther in Germany several centuries ago. The people who were associated with setting up this education and training center in Namibia were first Lutherans and money had been made available to these missionaries to set up this school. Its importance to me, more than the link with the church, is that it was at that time the focal point of all African students, those who were eligible or who had the opportunity to participate. opportunity to go to school and get together. This was not the intention of the colonial administration nor the intention of the administration of the school
from elsewhere; it was the economic situation. It was cheaper to have all participants in the same place than to create schools and training centers in different parts of the country.
What we did not realize at the beginning was that thanks to this arrangement, Namibia's future leaders from all parts of the country could be together in one place.
It is there that most of us met. He has become the center of political consciousness in the fullness of time. It was this school and the one that was next door, not far from there, a Catholic school in Dobra. To return to my first education, it is there that I did my high school and my teacher training. I qualified as a teacher in 1960 but I chose to go to Walvis Bay, our port city, to work in fishing factories. They paid a little more than other job opportunities that were open to blacks. My intention was, while I was qualifying as a teacher, that I wanted to continue my studies.
I had not thought that it would have been possible to go abroad, but I had planned that if I had enough money saved that I would find a way to continue my studies in South Africa. But politics came into being in the mid-1950s with respect to my own involvement from 1957. In fact, the political awareness unfolded while I was at it. Augustinium between the years 1958 and 1960. African political resistance movements were forming, including SWAPO now in power, as well as SWANU and others. From time to time, some of the early leaders of this process, this movement, came quietly on the night of
Windhoek to school and were providing political education classes and rallies for us.
But that's where it started. African teachers are not allowed by law to participate, if they are generous, in the public service in any political activity. But the pressure was rising and we became receptive to demand because we were the educated people and we also had to take the lead in people's political mobilization, talk to people about the problems they could face and do what they could do. They could do it. protest and protest and so on. That's how my political activities started. I had to be discreet; it was the requirement of the law while I was a teacher. But I nonetheless got involved in political activities until in 1962, when I decided to leave the country clandestinely and find my way to the newly autonomous Tanganyika that I reached in October 1962.
JK: When did you talk about a lot of leaders from Namibia started meeting at the high school where you were, including Sam Nujoma and Hage Geingob and some of those people?
TG: Not Sam Nujoma, but Hage Geingob and myself, Hidipo Hamutenya. We came at different times. Hage Geingob and I came together. But there were others in front of us. Not necessarily in the previous generation, but I'm talking about when political activism started. There were people who were older than us but the same generation we were. They were older than us significantly. They would be from Nujoma's age group.
But he was a worker; he was not at this school. Our Deputy Prime Minister, Hendrik Witbooi, is older than us and has also been a teacher. Finally, my generation of Namibian leaders in government and parliament, even in the private sector, comes from Augustinium, the majority of them.
JK: So you left in 1962. Where did you go from there? Been to Tanganyika?
TG: Yes, but it was a long, long trip. I left the country under a false pretext. I have concocted a story, which has succeeded and helped me where I am today. The story being that me and my friend who left with me, Jan Bamba Uirab who now lives in Sweden and shuttles between Sweden and Namibia, was that we were natives, natives meaning that our countries did not belong to any country. were not independent and we were no longer citizens Malawi, then Nyasaland. The story was that we had been under contract in South West Africa (Namibia), working in local factories in Walvis Bay and that we had gone beyond the terms of our contract. We were good people. We did not violate any law, but we were advised to leave the country. We had a friend in the magistrate's office who was very skilled and very helpful, and who gave us two documents to that effect. One was a voluntary eviction order with all appropriate citations and a travel passage whose blacks were to be in possession. On this basis, we left Walvis Bay by train and crossed the rest of the country, through South Africa, through Botswana. Botswana was not independent – through Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, through Northern Rhodesia. JK: When did you become a member of SWAPO?
TG: SWAPO was formed in 1960 and I officially became a member in 1961.
JK: When did you become first? TG: In 1963, while I was in Tanganyika. I won a UN scholarship. It was a UN scholarship that brought me to the United States in June 1963 as a student at the Temple University of Philadelphia. English was not our official language and was not widely spoken in Namibia at that time. Initially, we had to deal with language, science and math classes. Then I finally became a student at Temple University where I did my undergraduate studies in Political Science and Graduate Studies in International Relations. My personal association with the country started in 1963 and continues, I should think.
JK: SWAPO achieved a very unusual status at the UN. He became an official observer of the UN. How was this established and what were the forces that came together to establish this status for SWAPO?
TG: Yes, there were a number of forces. First, when the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded on May 25, 1963, shortly before my departure from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Perhaps less than a year after its establishment, one of the committees created by the Organization of African Unity called the Liberation Committee. The full title is the Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa, but it briefly refers to the Liberation Committee, which was headquartered in Dar es Salaam. It brought together the leaders and representatives of all existing national liberation movements from Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, who were not there. not independent, from Guinea Bissau, from all non-independent countries. They came mainly from East, Central and Southern Africa. The question was for these leaders to indicate to the Committee of Liberation the ways and means by which they as people of the countries consent, propose to proceed to find freedom, to realize freedom and independence for their countries and their peoples. They were therefore invited after this first meeting to go back and prepare so-called action programs, outlining their goals and objectives.
This was done so that the Committee of Liberation not only recognize the movements that in their judgment deserved to be recognized and supported, but on the other hand, and above all, to go around the world , independent African countries and other third world countries to mobilize support for these movements. We did it. SWANU, the part of our fellow countryman you mentioned, Moses Katjiuongua, who was one of the prominent members, were both movements. We both presented our programs of action. In our case, SWAPO, we said that in addition to the United Nations mobilizing the international community for support assistance, we would also organize a military resistance organization. We specifically asked the Liberation Committee and the OAU Member States to help us train our fighters to launch the armed struggle. SWANU considered that the objective conditions in Namibia and the modalities of transfer from Namibia to Namibia were such that they had no time to launch the armed struggle. Others, like Guinea-Bissau, opted for armed struggle in addition to political campaigns and diplomatic activities. But SWAPO and SWANU were recognized as an appropriate support and were supported until finally, the OAU decided that it was the SWAPO that was doing the most campaigns and had won the recognition and support beyond the OAU member states. internationally, including by the UN. So, that is how the UN and the OAU worked together. So, that was one thing.
Secondly, on this basis, in 972, at a summit held in Rabat, Morocco, the OAU decided to recognize the liberation movements which, according to them (from the member states of the United States). OAU) and as recommended by the Liberation Committee, should be provided. Resources were scarce and, therefore, he did not want to waste money on organizations that had no chance of making a difference. In the case of Namibia, SWANU was not discredited per se, but it was not present and did not do what was expected of the m. After this exercise, the OAU, in 1972, recognized the liberation movements as the unique and authentic representatives of their people. They campaigned for recognition, support and assistance from the international community.
Member States of the OAU, when they came to the UN in resolutions of the General Assembly, inserted measures taken by the OAU and initiated a similar action. here in the UN and got support. So, it was on the basis that in 1972, SWAPO was recognized as the unique and authentic representative of the Namibian people. And, step by step, I was directly involved from that moment.
We reached a point where in the late 70s; SWAPO was recognized as a permanent observer (19459007), as opposed to an observer in 1972, a permanent observer. There is a difference in quality between the two. JK: So you became the representative
TG: I became the representative here.
JK: What year was it?
TG: The initial recognition came in 1972, but this recognition that elevated SWAPO to the level similar to countries like Switzerland, the Holy See which represents the Vatican, intergovernmental organizations like the Organization of the States American [OAS] the Organization of African Unity [OAU] etc. It was only SWAPO and the PLO, for Palestine, liberation movements that enjoyed this status. (to follow)
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