Hero’s funeral for HH

STAFF REPORTER

The family of struggle stalwart Hidipo Hamutenya has accepted government’s offer to give him a hero’s funeral at the Heroes Acre.

Hamutenya died last week Thursday in a Windhoek hospital after a long illness. He was 77.

A family member told Namibian Sun yesterday that the family had accepted the government’s offer.

No funeral details were available at the time of going to press yesterday.

President Hage Geingob, who visited the family upon his return from an official mission in South Africa at the weekend, told mourners that Hamutenya would get a “proper send-off”.

Hamutenya, who was a former trade, information and foreign minister, was regarded by many in Swapo as a tactful, shrewd politician and diplomat. After leaving the country for exile in the 1960s, Hamutenya studied in the USA together with Geingob and former National Assembly Speaker Theo-Ben Gurirab.

The trio, among others, represented Swapo in the Americas, including mobilising support for the party and Namibia’s cause for independence at the United Nations in New York. Hamutenya later became Swapo’s secretary for education and was the deputy head of the UN Institute for Namibia in Lusaka in the late 1970s.

At the time of his death he had rejoined Swapo after having defected to form the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in 2007.

Among those who paid tribute to Hamutenya included Founding President Sam Nujoma. “We the people of the Republic of Namibia have lost a true freedom fighter Cde Hidipo Hamutenya with whom we fought many battles against the minority white apartheid regime of South Africa which illegally occupied and oppressed the Namibian people. Comrade Hidipo Hamutenya made a great contribution in the maintenance of peace and stability in our country. Comrade Hidipo Hamutenya will be remembered by present and future generations of all Namibians,” Nujoma wrote in the book of condolences opened at the family residence.