Under fire exile kids to apologise

The so-called struggle kids have resolved to tender an apology, at a yet to be called media briefing, for their recent unbecoming behaviour.
The group’s spokesperson Jerry Hamukwaya yesterday confirmed the pending apology following a meeting with Swapo lawyer Dirk Conradie, who visited them at their tract of land in Brakwater. Conradie is representing Swapo’s business arm Kalahari Holdings who this week slapped the struggle kids with an eviction notice to vacate the piece of land where they have been living since December of last year. During the meeting with Conradie, the group told him to inform the Swapo elders that they have no intention of moving to the Du Plessis Farm or Berg Aukas where government has promised to house them while they acquire technical skills in various fields.
One member of the group bluntly refused the government’s offer. “We are not going to spend 40 years in school. A lot of us are very old already, and we just want to start working,” he said.
“The first time we went to the Swapo headquarters to camp there was 15 September 2015.”


“We were told that it was election time and that it was not safe to have us there, so we were moved here with the hope of getting jobs, but now we have to be moved around again? That is not fair!” another member of the group lamented.
Cabinet Secretary George Simataa recently announced that the struggle kids, who will receive training at technical schools around the country, will receive meals, accommodation and a monthly allowance. Simataa chairs a technical committee constituted by Cabinet to expedite the implementation of cabinet’s decision in this regard.
The technical committee was put together following a meeting last month, which resolved that urgent measures be taken in order to address the plight of the so-called children of the liberation struggle. Conradie urged the group to register their own businesses and fend for themselves, as the government had frozen all vacancies at present, due to other pressing matters.
“You cannot depend on the government for jobs right now. You guys should be looking out for tenders and other entrepreneurial opportunities,” he said.
There was obvious distress amongst the group members and some of them accused government of sending them to farms where no one can guarantee their welfare.
“We have brothers and sisters that have lived at Du Plessis Farm and Berg Aukas who died from hunger and never got jobs,” a member of the group claimed.
Conradie, who reminded the group that he was not there as their lawyer, but rather as a friend, said the eviction notice came as a result of their unruly behaviour on the plot and outside of the plot. “You guys can’t sing struggle songs late at night when your neighbours on other farms are sleeping, sing during the day,” he said.
Hamukwaya told Namibian Sun that they were willing to wait for government to get back to them and that the group was putting their faith in Conradie to be true to his word.
“We don’t have another choice, but to trust Conradie. A lot of the people living on the plot are scared of being evicted, because they have nowhere else to go, taken that they have been living there for almost a year,” Hamukwaya said. Conradie assured the struggle kids that he would take their concerns to the Swapo leadership, adding that if he were allowed to help make a decision about their future, he would happily join in, but noted that “it was up to them to decide if they want me to be part of this process.”

KEITH VRIES