WINDHOEK, Aug 24 — Namibia today held a solemn reinterment ceremony at Heroes’ Acre in Windhoek, honouring liberation struggle martyrs whose lives and sacrifices contributed to the country’s independence.
President Dr Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah described the occasion as a moment of “national significance” and an act of remembrance, return and restoration. She said the reinterment represents the restoration of dignity and the reunion of fallen liberation heroes with the land and people for whom they sacrificed.
The ceremony followed the return to Namibia on 21 August of 84 ancestral human remains that had been kept at the Iziko Museum in South Africa. The President said the remains represent individuals whose identities and histories were disrupted during the colonial era and that they will subsequently be kept at the national museum. Namibia also received the mortal remains of two heroes who died while serving prison sentences on Robben Island.
Among those honoured were prominent liberation struggle figures Brendan Kangongolo Simbwaye and Tobias Hainyeko, whose burial sites remain unknown. Symbolic graves have therefore been established for them at Heroes’ Acre.
Simbwaye, born in 1934 at Lisikili Village in the then Caprivi, was a teacher and prominent liberation leader who mobilised communities against colonial rule. He resigned from teaching in 1963 to dedicate himself fully to the liberation struggle. He was arrested in 1964 and later subjected to imprisonment and isolation. He was last seen in 1972 and is believed to have died that year under unclear circumstances, with his remains still unaccounted for.
Hainyeko, born in 1932 in southern Angola and later raised in northern Namibia, was among the early leaders of Namibia’s liberation struggle and served as the first commander of SWALA, later PLAN. He received military training in Egypt, Algeria and the Soviet Union and helped establish the SWAPO military training centre at Kongwa, Tanzania. He was killed in action while crossing the Zambezi River on 18 May 1967, while the location of his remains remains unknown.
The other heroes honoured during the ceremony were Eliaser Tuhadeleni, Hafeni Immanuel Shifidi, Nduuvu Fillemon Nangolo, Nathaniel Maxuilili, Simon Petrus Niilenge and Festus Nehale. Their remains were either exhumed from burial places within Namibia or returned from South Africa after decades.
President Nandi-Ndaitwah said the reinterment should be understood not simply as the movement of human remains, but as an act of restorative justice and the correction of a historical wrong. She stressed that the ceremony also serves to strengthen national memory, reconciliation, identity and the education of future generations.
She called on universities, schools, museums, archives, cultural institutions and the media to preserve, teach and share the stories of Namibia’s liberation struggle in their full depth and humanity.
“The highest tribute we can pay them,” the President said, is to build the Namibia for which they struggled — a country where citizens live in dignity, opportunities are broadened, poverty is defeated, justice is protected and national unity remains strong.
The President concluded by declaring that the fallen heroes had finally come home.
“Namibia will remember you. Namibia will honour you. Namibia will preserve your legacy.”
Photo:MICT
