It is D-Day
Today is June 16, a day set for what many expect to be a mass protest which is also the culmination of weeks of drama.
Organised by the Affirmative Repositioning Movement, the mass protest against the envisaged N$2.2 billion parliament building has been a hot topic on social media and in the press.
In recent days, the controversy also involved the police, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, the Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu) and the Namibia National Students Union (Namso).
The protest is expected to start at the Katutura Youth Complex at 09:00, from where protesters will march to Ausspannplatz in the heart of the city. At 13:30 a petition will be handed over to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Peter Katjavivi, and the mass action is expected to end at 14:00.
The protesters will march along Independence Avenue, cross Hosea Kutako Road and assemble at the Ausspannplatz traffic circles. AR is said to have had a meeting with police chief Sebastian Ndeitunga where the route was agreed upon.
Nanso pledges allegiance
In a media report yesterday, Nanso executive committee member Herman Rutz said the union was distancing itself from the protest. He also said the union’s president, Wilhelm Wilhelm, was being victimised did not have the power to go against a national executive committee resolution not to join the protest. Wilhelm has since hit back at Rutz, calling him an “opportunist”.
“In the midst of this crisis, we have an opportunist in the form of a plastic paralysed student leader, one Herman Rutz, who is requesting students not to take part in the 16 June mass action, it is in his best interest that students are trapped in poverty and marginalisation,” Wilhelm wrote.
He said student leaders had resolved to participate in the protest. These are said to include student leaders from the University of Namibia (Unam), Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), the College of the Arts, the Institute of Bankers, secondary schools as well as the Nanso regional structures.
“As the president of Nanso I call on all our members, the learners in primary and secondary schools, not to go to school tomorrow [today] but to join the mass action and commemorate the Day of the African Child the manner you want to,” he wrote.
“It can never be morally justifiable to build a N$2.2 billion parliament when students and the youth are trapped in poverty and marginalisation.
“The challenges we experience today are happening on our watch, and we should have the courage to face that fact, and to act. The alternative is about tough choices, we have country rich with mineral wealth and natural resources but our student and youth population are at the receiving end,” Wilhelm said in the statement.
Democratic right
Human rights lawyer Norman Tjombe said the protest is a democratic right. He said earlier police attempts to ban demonstrations were uncalled for and undemocratic.
“People normally resort to such protest action once other avenues are ineffective or unavailable, but it remains a human right,” he commented.
“I think such mass action heralds a new form of political activism not seen since 1988,” Tjombe commented.
GORDON JOSEPH
Organised by the Affirmative Repositioning Movement, the mass protest against the envisaged N$2.2 billion parliament building has been a hot topic on social media and in the press.
In recent days, the controversy also involved the police, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, the Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu) and the Namibia National Students Union (Namso).
The protest is expected to start at the Katutura Youth Complex at 09:00, from where protesters will march to Ausspannplatz in the heart of the city. At 13:30 a petition will be handed over to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Peter Katjavivi, and the mass action is expected to end at 14:00.
The protesters will march along Independence Avenue, cross Hosea Kutako Road and assemble at the Ausspannplatz traffic circles. AR is said to have had a meeting with police chief Sebastian Ndeitunga where the route was agreed upon.
Nanso pledges allegiance
In a media report yesterday, Nanso executive committee member Herman Rutz said the union was distancing itself from the protest. He also said the union’s president, Wilhelm Wilhelm, was being victimised did not have the power to go against a national executive committee resolution not to join the protest. Wilhelm has since hit back at Rutz, calling him an “opportunist”.
“In the midst of this crisis, we have an opportunist in the form of a plastic paralysed student leader, one Herman Rutz, who is requesting students not to take part in the 16 June mass action, it is in his best interest that students are trapped in poverty and marginalisation,” Wilhelm wrote.
He said student leaders had resolved to participate in the protest. These are said to include student leaders from the University of Namibia (Unam), Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), the College of the Arts, the Institute of Bankers, secondary schools as well as the Nanso regional structures.
“As the president of Nanso I call on all our members, the learners in primary and secondary schools, not to go to school tomorrow [today] but to join the mass action and commemorate the Day of the African Child the manner you want to,” he wrote.
“It can never be morally justifiable to build a N$2.2 billion parliament when students and the youth are trapped in poverty and marginalisation.
“The challenges we experience today are happening on our watch, and we should have the courage to face that fact, and to act. The alternative is about tough choices, we have country rich with mineral wealth and natural resources but our student and youth population are at the receiving end,” Wilhelm said in the statement.
Democratic right
Human rights lawyer Norman Tjombe said the protest is a democratic right. He said earlier police attempts to ban demonstrations were uncalled for and undemocratic.
“People normally resort to such protest action once other avenues are ineffective or unavailable, but it remains a human right,” he commented.
“I think such mass action heralds a new form of political activism not seen since 1988,” Tjombe commented.
GORDON JOSEPH
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article