Thread: NSHR vs Kanana Hishoono

The following is being republished verbatim! Thus, caveat lector!

1. My name is Phil Iyaloo ya Nangoloh. I describe myself inter alia as a Namibian human rights activist and a political commentator cum analyst as well as a researcher. The Namibian newspaper’s edition of September 24 2007 prominently featured a story about certain offensive and unbecoming utterances which reportedly came out of the mount of the Secretary of Swapo Party Elder’s Council (SPEC), uncle Kanana Matias Gideon Hishoono, about my person and others.

2. That newspaper story was entitled Swapo Elders to focus on NSHR. In accordance with that story, Hishoono addressed the fourth SPEC congress of between 400 and 500 delegates and he spoke under the theme Elders for Peace, Unity and Social Progress. Topping the SPEC agenda was the perceived “threats to peace” by a “maliciously fabricated propaganda campaign” against [the Swapo Party] and its leadership by “reactionary opportunistic elements led by a certain Mr. Phil ya Nangoloh and his cohorts in the National Society for Human Rights”.

3. What immediately came to my mind following the above utterances by uncle Hishoono was the fact that I had known from oral history that Matias Gideon Hishoono, whom I identify as the same person as Kanana Hishoono, was an informer for the apartheid regime during the liberation struggle for Namibian independence. I am saying that he was an informer of the apartheid regime because Hishoono was a State witness during the 1967-1968 Pretoria High Treason Trial against several Namibian patriots. These patriots, led by the legendary Herman Tovio ya Toivo, were rounded up by SA security forces in the then Ovamboland and elsewhere and were subsequently taken to Pretoria where held and tortured before they faced high treason charges under the notorious the Suppression of Communism Act 1950 (Act 44 of 1950) and the Terrorism Act 1967 (Act 83 of 1967).

4. Hishoono made the aforementioned remarks against my person and those of my NSHR comrades following our still pending petition before the International Criminal Court (ICC) that this Court investigate the former Namibian President and three others ratione personae for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed under their supervision before and after Namibian independence.

5. I took a very serious offense at what Hishoono had said both about my person and my NSHR colleagues. However, at the time I did not have enough documentary proof to mount a counter attack and expose Matias Gideon “Kanana” Hishoono for the fact that he was a quisling for the SA apartheid regime. Respectfully though, I now would like uncle “Kanana” Hishoono to sallow his baseless accusations that either myself and or any of my NSHR colleagues had waged “maliciously fabricated propaganda campaign” against the Swapo Party and its leadership and or that either myself and or my NSHR colleagues were and or are “reactionary opportunistic elements”.

6. Now I am ready for the long-awaited counter offensive. Here it goes: Documentary evidence in my possession reveals that Matias Gideon Hishoono had been a State witness against Herman Toivo ya Toivo at the Pretoria High Treason Trial between October 3 1967 and October 6 1967 and that, as a result of inter alia Hishoono’s voluntary and enthusiastic treasonous testimony under oath, uncle Toivo ya Toivo had to receive a long-term prison sentence of 27 years on Robben Island in or around 1968! Hello? Is uncle Hishoono there, next to you? If he is, please ask him if he still remembers his reactionary testimony against ya Toivo in particular. Please also ask him who real “reactionary opportunistic element” was.

7. Please never throw stones if you live in a glass house!