Ya Nangoloh Cries Foul Over Lister’s Views

THE ‘Political Perspective’ of Friday April 27 2007 by The Namibian Editor Gwen Lister is totally unfair and biased against me.

I will challenge it! I pray that Lister, being a democrat, will have the courage to publish my reply in full and without any material modifications and omissions. Her column generates more questions than answers.So, let me start immediately to undress and unpack it in a systematic manner: Firstly, Lister’s article also seeks ironically to prolong what she calls “a pointless” debate around the spy-versus-spy drama, which Lister seeks to avoid.This is very ironic.My intelligence tells me that Lister was acting on Dr Gurirab’s behalf, unless on his instructions.Secondly, I did not start the Gurirab vs Ya Nangoloh battle of words.Gurirab did: as is evident from the complaint he had lodged before MISA-Namibia on April 23 2007 against myself and veteran Windhoek Observer Reporter-in-Chief Hannes Smith.Moreover, I do not understand the fact that Gurirab has the audacity to haul me before the MISA-Namibia ‘court’ to have, as he claims, his complaint heard.Gurirab apparently forget that he and Nujoma have been denying the Swapo detainees the very same right to be heard.Their names have been tarnished by the Gurirabs who have accused them, and falsely so, of being spies of apartheid South Africa! Just go and ask Paulina Dempers and Kala Gertze! To deny some people their right to be heard is such a gross injustice, such that as one of the authors of the Namibian Constitution and as Speaker of the National Assembly, Gurirab should have known better, I suppose? Thirdly, Lister makes several fundamental omissions and thereby exposes herself to my suspicion that she has agendas of her own.She is deliberately twisting the facts.For example, she says that I have written ‘revelatory’ chapters “on Swapo and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) connections”.This is not true at all.Because, as I have recently made abundantly clear to an editor of Insight Namibia magazine, my exposés in the Windhoek Observer were and are about Mr Sam Nujoma ONLY, not about anyone else, including Gurirab.Lister also claims and I quote: “Better that Ya Nangoloh make his point clear, if he has one, rather than to tarnish people and their names merely by association with some dubious characters in their lifetime”.Hence, it is clear to me that Lister has agendas of her own.She has also made herself party to this Gurirab vs Ya Nangoloh dispute.The Lister claim that I have tarnished people and their names is therefore contemptuously dismissed.Fourthly, Lister deliberately claims that she does not “really see the purpose of the Ya Nangoloh exercise” of writing the exposé of Nujoma’s CIA connections, except for historic reasons…” But then, even in the case of Nujoma, I have enumerated several fundamental reasons and principles for such exposé.Let me quote some of them hereunder from Part I: “My objective for doing this is multifaceted.Since the apple does not fall far from the tree that bears it and being a human rights activist, I am doing this merely because of my passion to help bring about justice, fairness, honesty and transparency and, most of all, the truth, true national reconciliation and genuine democratic transformation and accountability in this country.My second objective is to help write a truthful and honest account of the political history of Namibia.Moreover, it must be stressed that Mr.Nujoma has been in the forefront of name-calling in this country, accusing all and sundry, except himself, of inter alia being ‘reactionaries and agents of Western imperialism’.In so doing, [Nujoma] has been undermining genuine democratic transformation in this country and continued to do so.There has been so much distrust and disharmony in the country where even families are torn apart along political lines.[Nujoma]’s legacy has made so many people in the country to believe that he is the only one who has fought for Namibia’s independence and thus he is the only one who has the capacity to rule this country and or who has the interests of this country at heart.Everyone else has wavered!” Since Lister herself is an honest person, should she not have shown such honesty by acknowledging the above facts? She can still do it, it is not too late.Fifthly, I have also made it categorically clear and repeatedly so, in my critical analysis about Nujoma’s CIA links, that in my critical analysis about Nujoma, I have made use of what Nujoma himself has said in his own book Where Others Wavered.I have also repeatedly made it clear for the Listers of this world to see that my exposé was intended to be a retaliatory strike on Nujoma who has falsely labelled me “a homosexual” and “a CIA agent”.He made some of these things inter alia at the Mandume Primary School Hall on July 29 2006, on which occasion he also called upon his audience to “name and shame” the likes of Phil ya Nangoloh.Being this country’s best known name-caller, and Lister knows this, Nujoma has also called many other people similar names.Even as recently as April 14 2007, Nujoma, speaking at Omatjete village, urged his followers to “expose enemy stooges”.However, Lister, all of a sudden, seems to be so oblivious of this state of affairs and does not even call it “pointless”.But, when Phil ya Nangoloh defends himself, Lister sees no point and blames Ya Nangoloh for raising “a pointless” issue.Sixthly, Lister, who, several weeks ago, has ignored my e-mail request to publish the Oshiwambo version of my ‘revelatory’ analysis about Nujoma’s CIA connections, is, like Gurirab, trying to shoot the messenger.I am that messenger.Why do I say so? Because all I have said in passim about Gurirab was fair comment, in the public interest and in the name of democratic debate.Seventhly, as I have pointed out ad nauseam and clearly for anyone, including this normally very clever and intelligent lady to see, whatever I have said, in passing, about Gurirab was and is based on widely publicised and uncontradicted facts.In other words, the facts about Gurirab’s own association with CIA agents, operatives, case officers, handlers or, as per Lister, ‘dubious and strange friends’, are not an invention by Phil ya Nangoloh.These shocking revelations had been published years before by other academics and people many places and cases as far back as 1985 and also later on, including by Lister herself.Let me give only two examples here where Lister herself has been involved: On March 9 2001, Lister published in The Namibian a story linking, among others, Gurirab to Tempelsman and I quote from the relevant passage: “Reports have said a Namibian Defence Force Captain, Timoteus Ekandjo, received the mine on behalf of President Sam Nujoma.The mystery surrounding the [diamond mining] operation has been deepening with some reports suggesting that Belgian, British and American nationals are involved.One of the people being linked to the Namibian operation is American diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman.The businessman, whose links with the CIA go back to 1957, has been a close confidante of President Sam Nujoma, Foreign Affairs Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab and other Government leaders since the 1960s.”On August 21 2002, Lister also published another story again linking inter alia Gurirab with Tempelsman, and again I quote from the relevant text: “[Maurice] Tempelsman is politically well-connected in Namibia.He has funded Swapo operations and paid for the private expenses of several Cabinet members during the liberation struggle, while at the same time working with De Beers.”Eighthly, from the above quote I reasonably suspect Tempelsman to be a CIA agent, and even a puppeteer of certain Swapo leaders in exile.Had Nujoma’s security service known about this fact during the liberation struggle, they would have immediately classified Tempelsman as an “enemy” and those Swapo leaders whose expenses Tempelsman had been paying for would have been rounded up and instantly thrown into the Lubango dungeons as “enemy agents”.Now I hear from the Listers and Gurirabs that associating with CIA agents does not necessarily mean that one is also a CIA agent! In the above quote, Lister and The Namibian also claim that Tempelsman had paid for Swapo’s operations.I assume that such operations include Nujoma’s torturous and murderous security service in exile.The gross atrocities that his security service had committed against innocent people are widespread, systematic and well known.I am saying the above because Gurirab has been deeply involved in this so-called spy drama because, according to The Namibian, on February 16 1986 at a London press conference, Gurirab announced that 100 “SA spies”, who include four members of the Swapo Central Committee, had been arrested.The said announcement by Gurirab has been classified by many people in this country as character assassination.Is it true, Mr.Gurirab, these people were SA spies? If it is, what were their names and where are they today? Did they include Swapo Central Committee members Pejavi Munjaro, Tauno Hatuikulipi, Victor Nkandi and the list goes on? Fast and easily do the Gurirabs and Listers seem to forget! Ninthly, Gurirab, on April 23 2007, confessed before MISA-Namibia to having had “longstanding interaction with”, among others, Tempelsman.Can you imagine what the Nujomas would say, were Phil ya Nangoloh was said to have received money from Tempelsman? This would have immediately qualified to be smoking gun evidence that Phil ya Nangoloh is a CIA agent.These people must therefore drink their own medicine! Hence, it is totally absurd, or so I would say, for Lister, and by extension her protégé, Gurirab, to accuse me of “tarnishing people and their names by associating them with some dubious characters in their lifetime”.After all, I personally have been attacked and my person character tarnished, including, on numerous occasions, through the pages of The Namibian and on NBC Radio.At times I was called ‘the enemy of the Namibian nation” and so on, during the last seventeen years.Moreover, Lister herself suggests in her “Political Perspective” that several Swapo leaders, whom she, nevertheless, failed to mention, have been having links with certain “dubious characters”.Who were these Swapo leaders and who were these dubious characters, Lister? This apparently is not “tarnishing people and their names” simply because it was said by the Listers.However, it immediately and automatically becomes “tarnishing people and their names” only when and if the Phil ya Nangolohs are involved.Or is this so because Phil ya Nangoloh is not on Lister’s list of “academics”? Poor me! Tenthly, I don’t even understand what Lister’s business is if I were to tarnish people and their names.Because Lister herself and or The Namibian face at least two SLAPP cases from, among others, Nujoma whom, I am made to understand, is claiming that Lister and or The Namibian have tarnished him and his name by associating or linking him (i.e.Nujoma) to the Avid-Social Security Commission scam.Or is this SLAPP just a ruse? Or is Lister now trying to curry favour with the likes of Nujoma so that they would perhaps withdraw their ill-conceived SLAPP suits? Have these SLAPPs been already secretly withdrawn? “SLAPP” refers to Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.This is a form of litigation often filed by a powerful public figure to intimidate and silence less powerful critics so that they abandon their criticism.The other persons SLAPP-ing Lister for “tarnishing them and their names” are certain members of the Vito Palazzolo family.Or is this case also merely a make believe subterfuge? So, is Lister really concerned and worried about my so-called tarnishing people and their names? If so, is this not a classic example of a pot calling a kettle black? Or is Lister throwing stones at me while she herself lives in a glasshouse? Where is Bob Kandetu? Eleventhly, although I have been accused by Gurirab and Nujoma of being KGB and CIA agents, respectively, I have never materially said that Nujoma and or even Gurirab are CIA agents themselves.Rather, what I have said, and I am saying it also here, is that, given and based upon the documentary facts in my possession, I am unable to rule out the possibility that both Gurirab and Nujoma might have been CIA agents through, among others, Tempelsman.Twelfthly, but let me now briefly deal, for argument’s sake, with this Lister’s statement: “… I am not buying the ‘Sam Nujoma was a CIA agent’ line at all.Absolutely not.Some other Swapo seniors, perhaps, but Nujoma, no”.Hmmmm.Can your hear? Whoever tried to sell that line to Lister? In any event, the above Lister statement rhymes well and fits in well with Nujoma’s claims that any and all other Swapo leaders and members and perhaps even all other Namibians have wavered; only Nujoma has not.Moreover, my question is: how does Lister know for sure that Nujoma has not been a CIA man? Has she been present with the CIA at all times and in all its recruitment places? It looks like Lister has specific sleeper information about the CIA and Nujoma? As far as I can remember, Lister only came to know Nujoma personally lately following the two’s maiden meeting in Nujoma’s Paris hotel, in the 1980s! But be as it may, the bottom line for me is: Nujoma was supposed to be an unwavering anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist fighter and enemy Number One for the apartheid regime.However, for whatever reasons he mysteriously came to Namibia in 1966 and, although, according to himself, he was considered to be “highly dangerous”, he was later let go.Now you tell me: if you arrest your enemy Number One, would you let him go to enable him to fight and harm you again? This is absolute rubbish! Mr.Nujoma must please explain these things himself.He should not hide behind the Gurirabs and Listers! Thirteenthly, besides all the above, Lister does not seem to dispute the substance in my critical analysis of Nujoma.She only advises me, or so I suppose, to rather leave it up to her academics.Shouldn’t newspaper editing also be left exclusively to the academics, like Lister? Fourteenthly, Lister impliedly claims that “[academics] couldn’t be accused of agendas as someone like [Ya Nangoloh] clearly has in this matter.Ya Nangoloh himself faced similar allegations when he returned from the US to Namibia after years in exile”.What is Lister talking about here? Is she claiming that academics are accusation-proof? Is it really true that they have never been accused of agendas in this country by the likes of Nujoma? Just go and ask nearly all my best known academics, such as Andre du Pisani, Joe Diescho, Henning Melber, Alexactus Kaure, Alfredo Hengari, and the list goes on.They have been accused, on numerous occasions by the Nujomas, of having agendas! Not so? Just go and ask, among others, Oshana Governor Klemens Kashuupulwa about whether or not academic Diescho has agendas? Lister, also being an academic herself, I now also accuse her of having agendas because of the so many ludicrous omissions and double talk contained in her ‘Political Perspective’ column! Fifteenthly, by ruling out any possibility that Nujoma has wavered and or has had CIA links, Lister suggests that “other Swapo seniors” might have been CIA agents instead.Who were these Swapo seniors? According to her, Nujoma only “had some strange and dubious friends”.But then the Nujomas might also argue, for example, that if Ya Nangoloh had friends who are thieves, is Ya Nangoloh also a thief or not? What about if ya Nangoloh had “strange and dubious friends”? Is it not reasonable for anyone to suspect that Ya Nangoloh is also “strange and dubious”? What if Ya Nangoloh had friends who are CIA agents, and so on? Is Ya Nangoloh also a CIA agent or not? Sixteenthly, like Gurirab, Lister seems to doubt and underestimate my capacity and intelligence to write about historical facts.Is this supposed to be a compliment? Gurirab, who had accused me of having the capacity of making inter alia “outrageous vendetta”, “vicious diatribe” and “intentional political character assassination”, had all of a sudden this to say about me and I strongly resent it: “If you are, Phil ya Nangoloh, able to pull off a millennium Houdini by proving the negative, in this case, you will be known worldwide as the man who earned for Namibia a Nobel Prize for a magical first! Who really put you up to this? It is too heavy and involved for your mind and capacity!” In a similar fashion Lister also claims that, had my exposé been for historic reasons, then I should have either shut up, or that I should have “best left to academics to pursue”.So, the implication is very clear: Phil ya Nangoloh is not at all qualified to write about academic things.Of course, Lister herself, being an academic of repute, she has the right to write anything in her ‘Political Perspective’ as she sees fit.The last time I have heard about this type of reasoning was during the apartheid era where and when it was claimed that black people lack the capacity to say or do anything white people could do.Hence, blacks were only expected to play a subordinate role vis-à-vis their white counterparts.May Sarel Becker’s soul rest in peace! Phil ya Nangoloh Windhoek Note: Your piece has been minimally edited for typographical errors, libel and superfluous words.It is also excessively long for a right of reply! For your info, an academic is a person ‘belonging or relating to a place of learning, esp a college, university or academy’.I am not an academic and neither are you.I am a journalist and you head a human rights organisation.I have criticised former President Nujoma and many others for hate speech.I think written records will bear me out.My point is really that you, as the head of a human rights organisation, should not be conducting such vendettas, as per your own admission you intended a “retaliatory strike” against Nujoma with your writings.This in turn is contradictory of your statement that you want to write the ‘true’ history of Namibia.I flung no mud at you – merely stated that you should discontinue this fruitless campaign of spy allegations because they serve no purpose.You need to give proper context to the articles we wrote and which you quote.Those were not my words.You are quick to resort to the same sort of tactics you claim to abhor in others, Nujoma for example, instead of keeping yourself above the fray.It is not necessary for example, and insulting to boot, to refer to Gurirab as my ‘protégé’ or vice versa.Neither was it necessary for you to insinuate a ‘deal’ being struck to withdraw SLAPP cases! No cases have been withdrawn, and neither would I countenance any ‘deals’.Worst is, you know these allegations are not true.For the record, we did not publish your lengthy, several-part, ‘history’, for abovementioned reasons; neither were we prepared to publish it in Oshiwambo as you requested.We are, in our own way, contributors to the history of this country, which I agree, should be written truthfully, but this is a task for historians and ‘real’ academics to undertake.It is also below you to play the race card, as it has no bearing on this discussion! – Gwen ListerHer column generates more questions than answers.So, let me start immediately to undress and unpack it in a systematic manner: Firstly, Lister’s article also seeks ironically to prolong what she calls “a pointless” debate around the spy-versus-spy drama, which Lister seeks to avoid.This is very ironic.My intelligence tells me that Lister was acting on Dr Gurirab’s behalf, unless on his instructions.Secondly, I did not start the Gurirab vs Ya Nangoloh battle of words.Gurirab did: as is evident from the complaint he had lodged before MISA-Namibia on April 23 2007 against myself and veteran Windhoek Observer Reporter-in-Chief Hannes Smith.Moreover, I do not understand the fact that Gurirab has the audacity to haul me before the MISA-Namibia ‘court’ to have, as he claims, his complaint heard.Gurirab apparently forget that he and Nujoma have been denying the Swapo detainees the very same right to be heard.Their names have been tarnished by the Gurirabs who have accused them, and falsely so, of being spies of apartheid South Africa! Just go and ask Paulina Dempers and Kala Gertze! To deny some people their right to be heard is such a gross injustice, such that as one of the authors of the Namibian Constitution and as Speaker of the National Assembly, Gurirab should have known better, I suppose? Thirdly, Lister makes several fundamental omissions and thereby exposes herself to my suspicion that she has agendas of her own.She is deliberately twisting the facts.For example, she says that I have written ‘revelatory’ chapters “on Swapo and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) connections”.This is not true at all.Because, as I have recently made abundantly clear to an editor of Insight Namibia magazine, my exposés in the Windhoek Observer were and are about Mr Sam Nujoma ONLY, not about anyone else, including Gurirab.Lister also claims and I quote: “Better that Ya Nangoloh make his point clear, if he has one, rather than to tarnish people and their names merely by association with some dubious characters in their lifetime”.Hence, it is clear to me that Lister has agendas of her own.She has also made herself party to this Gurirab vs Ya Nangoloh dispute.The Lister claim that I have tarnished people and their names is therefore contemptuously dismissed.Fourthly, Lister deliberately claims that she does not “really see the purpose of the Ya Nangoloh exercise” of writing the exposé of Nujoma’s CIA connections, except for historic reasons…” But then, even in the case of Nujoma, I have enumerated several fundamental reasons and principles for such exposé.Let me quote some of them hereunder from Part I: “My objective for doing this is multifaceted.Since the apple does not fall far from the tree that bears it and being a human rights activist, I am doing this merely because of my passion to help bring about justice, fairness, honesty and transparency and, most of all, the truth, true national reconciliation and genuine democratic transformation and accountability in this country.My second objective is to help write a truthful and honest account of the political history of Namibia.Moreover, it must be stressed that Mr.Nujoma has been in the forefront of name-calling in this country, accusing all and sundry, except himself, of inter alia being ‘reactionaries and agents of Western imperialism’.In so doing, [Nujoma] has been undermining genuine democratic transformation in this country and continued to do so.There has been so much distrust and disharmony in the country where even families are torn apart along political lines.[Nujoma]’s legacy has made so many people in the country to believe that he is the only one who has fought for Namibia’s independence and thus he is the only one who has the capacity to rule this country and or who has the interests of this country at heart.Everyone else has wavered!” Since Lister herself is an honest person, should she not have shown such honesty by acknowledging the above facts? She can still do it, it is not too late.Fifthly, I have also made it categorically clear and repeatedly so, in my critical analysis about Nujoma’s CIA links, that in my critical analysis about Nujoma, I have made use of what Nujoma himself has said in his own book Where Others Wavered.I have also repeatedly made it clear for the Listers of this world to see that my exposé was intended to be a retaliatory strike on Nujoma who has falsely labelled me “a homosexual” and “a CIA agent”.He made some of these things inter alia at the Mandume Primary School Hall on July 29 2006, on which occasion he also called upon his audience to “name and shame” the likes of Phil ya Nangoloh.Being this country’s best known name-caller, and Lister knows this, Nujoma has also called many other people similar names.Even as recently as April 14 2007, Nujoma, speaking at Omatjete village, urged his followers to “expose enemy stooges”.However, Lister, all of a sudden, seems to be so oblivious of this state of affairs and does not even call it “pointless”.But, when Phil ya Nangoloh defends himself, Lister sees no point and blames Ya Nangoloh for raising “a pointless” issue.Sixthly, Lister, who, several weeks ago, has ignored my e-mail request to publish the Oshiwambo version of my ‘revelatory’ analysis about Nujoma’s CIA connections, is, like Gurirab, trying to shoot the messenger.I am that messenger.Why do I say so? Because all I have said in passim about Gurirab was fair comment, in the public interest and in the name of democratic debate.Seventhly, as I have pointed out ad nauseam and clearly for anyone, including this normally very clever and intelligent lady to see, whatever I have said, in passing, about Gurirab was and is based on widely publicised and uncontradicted facts.In other words, the facts about Gurirab’s own association with CIA agents, operatives, case officers, handlers or, as per Lister, ‘dubious and strange friends’, are not an invention by Phil ya Nangoloh.These shocking revelations had been published years before by other academics and people many places and cases as far back as 1985 and also later on, including by Lister herself.Let me give only two examples here where Lister herself has been involved: On March 9 2001, Lister published in The Namibian a story linking, among others, Gurirab to Tempelsman and I quote from the relevant passage: “Reports have said a Namibian Defence Force Captain, Timoteus Ekandjo, received the mine on behalf of President Sam Nujoma.The mystery surrounding the [diamond mining] operation has been deepening with some reports suggesting that Belgian, British and American nationals are involved.One of the people being linked to the Namibian operation is American diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman.The businessman, whose links with the CIA go back to 1957, has been a close confidante of President Sam Nujoma, Foreign Affairs Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab and other Government leaders since the 1960s.”On August 21 2002, Lister also published another story again linking inter alia Gurirab with Tempelsman, and again I quote from the relevant text: “[Maurice] Tempelsman is politically well-connected in Namibia.He has funded Swapo operations and paid for the private expenses of several Cabinet members during the liberation struggle, while at the same time working with De Beers.”Eighthly, from the above quote I reasonably suspect Tempelsman to be a CIA agent, and even a puppeteer of certain Swapo leaders in exile.Had Nujoma’s security service known about this fact during the liberation struggle, they would have immediately classified Tempelsman as an “enemy” and those Swapo leaders whose expenses Tempelsman had been paying for would have been rounded up and instantly thrown into the Lubango dungeons as “enemy agents”.Now I hear from the Listers and Gurirabs that associating with CIA agents does not necessarily mean that one is also a CIA agent! In the above quote, Lister and The Namibian also claim that Tempelsman had paid for Swapo’s operations.I assume that such operations include Nujoma’s torturous and murderous security service in exile.The gross atrocities that his security service had committed against innocent people are widespread, systematic and well known.I am saying the above because Gurirab has been deeply involved in this so-called spy drama because, according to The Namibian, on February 16 1986 at a London press conference, Gurirab announced that 100 “SA spies”, who include four members of the Swapo Central Committee, had been arrested.The said announcement by Gurirab has been classified by many people in this country as character assassination.Is it true, Mr.Gurirab, these people were SA spies? If it is, what were their names and where are they today? Did they include Swapo Central Committee members Pejavi Munjaro, Tauno Hatuikulipi, Victor Nkandi and the list goes on? Fast and easily do the Gurirabs and Listers seem to forget! Ninthly, Gurirab, on April 23 2007, confessed before MISA-Namibia to having had “longstanding interaction with”, among others, Tempelsman.Can you imagine what the Nujomas would say, were Phil ya Nangoloh was said to have received money from Tempelsman? This would have immediately qualified to be smoking gun evidence that Phil ya Nangoloh is a CIA agent.These people must therefore drink their own medicine! Hence, it is totally absurd, or so I would say, for Lister, and by extension her protégé, Gurirab, to accuse me of “tarnishing people and their names by associating them with some dubious characters in their lifetime”.After all, I personally have been attacked and my person character tarnished, including, on numerous occasions, through the pages of The Namibian and on NBC Radio.At times I was called ‘the enemy of the Namibian nation” and so on, during the last seventeen years.Moreover, Lister herself suggests in her “Political Perspective” that several Swapo leaders, whom she, nevertheless, failed to mention, have been having links with certain “dubious characters”.Who were these Swapo leaders and who were these dubious characters, Lister? This apparently is not “tarnishing people and their names” simply because it was said by the Listers.However, it immediately and automatically becomes “tarnishing people and their names” only when and if the Phil ya Nangolohs are involved.Or is this so because Phil ya Nangoloh is not on Lister’s list of “academics”? Poor me! Tenthly, I don’t even understand what Lister’s business is if I were to tarnish people and their names.Because Lister herself and or The Namibian face at least two SLAPP cases from, among others, Nujoma whom, I am made to understand, is claiming that Lister and or The Namibian have tarnished him and his name by associating or linking him (i.e.Nujoma) to the Avid-Social Security Commission scam.Or is this SLAPP just a ruse? Or is Lister now trying to curry favour with the likes of Nujoma so that they would perhaps withdraw their ill-conceived SLAPP suits? Have these SLAPPs been already secretly withdrawn? “SLAPP” refers to Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.This is a form of litigation often filed by a powerful public figure to intimidate and silence less powerful critics so that they abandon their criticism. The other persons SLAPP-ing Lister for “tarnishing them and their names” are certain members of the Vito Palazzolo family.Or is this case also merely a make believe subterfuge? So, is Lister really concerned and worried about my so-called tarnishing people and their names? If so, is this not a classic example of a pot calling a kettle black? Or is Lister throwing stones at me while she herself lives in a glasshouse? Where is Bob Kandetu? Eleventhly, although I have been accused by Gurirab and Nujoma of being KGB and CIA agents, respectively, I have never materially said that Nujoma and or even Gurirab are CIA agents themselves.Rather, what I have said, and I am saying it also here, is that, given and based upon the documentary facts in my possession, I am unable to rule out the possibility that both Gurirab and Nujoma might have been CIA agents through, among others, Tempelsman.Twelfthly, but let me now briefly deal, for argument’s sake, with this Lister’s statement: “… I am not buying the ‘Sam Nujoma was a CIA agent’ line at all.Absolutely not.Some other Swapo seniors, perhaps, but Nujoma, no”. Hmmmm.Can your hear? Whoever tried to sell that line to Lister? In any event, the above Lister statement rhymes well and fits in well with Nujoma’s claims that any and all other Swapo leaders and members and perhaps even all other Namibians have wavered; only Nujoma has not.Moreover, my question is: how does Lister know for sure that Nujoma has not been a CIA man? Has she been present with the CIA at all times and in all its recruitment places? It looks like Lister has specific sleeper information about the CIA and Nujoma? As far as I can remember, Lister only came to know Nujoma personally lately following the two’s maiden meeting in Nujoma’s Paris hotel, in the 1980s! But be as it may, the bottom line for me is: Nujoma was supposed to be an unwavering anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist fighter and enemy Number One for the apartheid regime.However, for whatever reasons he mysteriously came to Namibia in 1966 and, although, according to himself, he was considered to be “highly dangerous”, he was later let go.Now you tell me: if you arrest your enemy Number One, would you let him go to enable him to fight and harm you again? This is absolute rubbish! Mr.Nujoma must please explain these things himself.He should not hide behind the Gurirabs and Listers! Thirteenthly, besides all the above, Lister does not seem to dispute the substance in my critical analysis of Nujoma.She only advises me, or so I suppose, to rather leave it up to her academics.Shouldn’t newspaper editing also be left exclusively to the academics, like Lister? Fourteenthly, Lister impliedly claims that “[academics] couldn’t be accused of agendas as someone like [Ya Nangoloh] clearly has in this matter.Ya Nangoloh himself faced similar allegations when he returned from the US to Namibia after years in exile”.What is Lister talking about here? Is she claiming that academics are accusation-proof? Is it really true that they have never been accused of agendas in this country by the likes of Nujoma? Just go and ask nearly all my best known academics, such as Andre du Pisani, Joe Diescho, Henning Melber, Alexactus Kaure, Alfredo Hengari, and the list goes on.They have been accused, on numerous occasions by the Nujomas, of having agendas! Not so? Just go and ask, among others, Oshana Governor Klemens Kashuupulwa about whether or not academic Diescho has agendas? Lister, also being an academic herself, I now also accuse her of having agendas because of the so many ludicrous omissions and double talk contained in her ‘Political Perspective’ column! Fifteenthly, by ruling out any possibility that Nujoma has wavered and or has had CIA links, Lister suggests that “other Swapo seniors” might have been CIA agents instead.Who were these Swapo seniors? According to her, Nujoma only “had some strange and dubious friends”.But then the Nujomas might also argue, for example, that if Ya Nangoloh had friends who are thieves, is Ya Nangoloh also a thief or not? What about if ya Nangoloh had “strange and dubious friends”? Is it not reasonable for anyone to suspect that Ya Nangoloh is also “strange and dubious”? What if Ya Nangoloh had friends who are CIA agents, and so on? Is Ya Nangoloh also a CIA agent or not? Sixteenthly, like Gurirab, Lister seems to doubt and underestimate my capacity and intelligence to write about historical facts.Is this supposed to be a compliment? Gurirab, who had accused me of having the capacity of making inter alia “outrageous vendetta”, “vicious diatribe” and “intentional political character assassination”, had all of a sudden this to say about me and I strongly resent it: “If you are, Phil ya Nangoloh, able to pull off a millennium Houdini by proving the negative, in this case, you will be known worldwide as the man who earned for Namibia a Nobel Prize for a magical first! Who really put you up to this? It is too heavy and involved for your mind and capacity!” In a similar fashion Lister also claims that, had my exposé been for historic reasons, then I should have either shut up, or that I should have “best left to academics to pursue”.So, the implication is very clear: Phil ya Nangoloh is not at all qualified to write about academic things.Of course, Lister herself, being an academic of repute, she has the right to write anything in her ‘Political Perspective’ as she sees fit.The last time I have heard about this type of reasoning was during the apartheid era where and when it was claimed that black people lack the capacity to say or do anything white people could do.Hence, blacks were only expected to play a subordinate role vis-à-vis their white counterparts.May Sarel Becker’s soul rest in peace! Phil ya Nangoloh Windhoek Note: Your piece has been minimally edited for typographical errors, libel and superfluous words.It is also excessively long for a right of reply! For your info, an academic is a person ‘belonging or relating to a place of learning, esp a college, university or academy’.I am not an academic and neither are you.I am a journalist and you head a human rights organisation.I have criticised former President Nujoma and many others for hate speech.I think written records will bear me out.My point is really that you, as the head of a human rights organisation, should not be conducting such vendettas, as per your own admission you intended a “retaliatory strike” against Nujoma with your writings.This in turn is contradictory of your statement that you want to write the ‘true’ history of Namibia.I flung no mud at you – merely stated that you should discontinue this fruitless campaign of spy allegations because they serve no purpose.You need to give proper context to the articles we wrote and which you quote.Those were not my words.You are quick to resort to the same sort of tactics you claim to abhor in others, Nujoma for example, instead of keeping yourself above the fray.It is not necessary for example, and insulting to boot, to refer to Gurirab as my ‘protégé’ or vice versa.Neither was it necessary for you to insinuate a ‘deal’ being struck to withdraw SLAPP cases! No cases have been withdrawn, and neither would I countenance any ‘deals’.Worst is, you know these allegations are not true.For the record, we did not publish your lengthy, several-part, ‘history’, for abovementioned reasons; neither were we prepared to publish it in Oshiwambo as you requested.We are, in our own way, contributors to the history of this country, which I agree, should be written truthfully, but this is a task for historians and ‘real’ academics to undertake.It is also below you to play the race card, as it has no bearing on this discussion! – Gwen Lister