Erkki Nghimtina

Minister Nghimtina at the 2012 New Champions Annual Meeting in the PRC

Erkki Nghimtina (born September 16, 1948 in Eembidi , South West Africa ), incorrectly also more commonly Errki , is a Namibian politician of SWAPO .

He was last Minister for Labor, Union Relations and Job Creation from March 2015 to March 2020 .

Life

He was born to Meriam Shopati and Johannes Nghimtina. He began his professional life in 1970 as a clerk in Oshakati and worked in the South West African postal service from 1972–73 . He has 13 children, eight daughters and five sons with different wives.

exile

In 1974 Nghimtina fled to a SWAPO camp in Oshatotwa in Zambia . From there he was sent to the Soviet Union for political and military training in the same year . There he received, among other things, military training as a radio operator until 1976. After his return to Zambia, he first became an instructor and later a training manager (until 1979) in the so-called "Eastern Front" of the PLAN ( People's Liberation Army of Namibia), the military arm of SWAPO. From 1979, Erkki Nghimtina was director of the SWAPO propaganda office in Shilumbaba in Zambia. During this time he obtained a diploma at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Wilhelm Pieck University in Rostock in what was then the GDR . From 1983 to 1989 he was head of propaganda and political commissar of the People's Liberation Army (PLAN).

Return to Namibia

In 1989, after fifteen years in exile, Erkki Nghimtina returned to Namibia with the rank of colonel in the People's Liberation Army. He held this post until his discharge from active military service in the newly created Namibian armed forces in 1995. During that time, Nghimtina was, among other things, responsible for cooperation with the armed forces of other Marxist-oriented states in the region (such as Zimbabwe, Angola , Mozambique etc.).

Rise in Namibia and political stance

Nghimtina has been a member of the National Assembly since 1995 . After retiring from active military service, Erkki Nghimtina was initially Deputy Minister of Defense. On December 11, 1997, President Nujoma appointed him to succeed Phillemon Malima as Minister of Defense of Namibia. In the same year he was also appointed to the Central Committee of SWAPO . During a political speech in 2001, which he gave as Namibia's Defense Minister during the conflict in the Angolan civil war, he insulted Namibian sympathizers of the rebel group UNITA as traitors and publicly threatened them with shooting.

From March 20, 2005 to March 2010, he was Minister of Mines and Energy. At the SWAPO party congress in December 2007, Erkki Nghimtina was also appointed to the Politburo of the SWAPO Central Committee. At this party congress, the governing bodies of SWAPO were purged of all dissenters who were suspected of sympathy for the newly founded opposition party Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) .

In the parliamentary elections of 2009, which were again accompanied by allegations of massive election fraud against the ruling SWAPO party, Erkki Nghimtina was re-elected to the National Assembly and on March 23, 2010 by President Pohamba, despite all public accusations and despite police investigations, as Minister for Public Works, Transport and Communications was in turn appointed to his cabinet.

Allegations of serious human rights violations

In 2008, the President of the National Society for Human Rights , Phil ya Nangoloh , announced that he was calling for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against, among others, Erkki Nghimtina before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague . With this lawsuit, Nangoloh wanted to force clarity about the disappearance of numerous SWAPO dissidents as well as the investigation of political murders during the time in exile . Phil ya Nangoloh himself had been arrested and tortured several times by the SWAPO secret police at that time . The ICC declined to investigate because it was not responsible for offenses prior to 2002.

In addition to Erkki Nghimtina, the NGfM has filed a lawsuit against the former President of Namibia, Sam Nujoma , the former Chief of Staff of the Namibian Army , Lieutenant General Solomon Hawala and Colonel Thomas Shuuya, temporary commander of the First Battalion of the Namibian Armed Forces, for human rights violations that occurred before Namibia's independence and before Part should also have taken place afterwards. Solomon Hawala was during the eighties, head of the notorious SWAPO - torture center in Lubango in Angola .

To this day it has not yet been fully clarified what role Erkki Nghimtina and the former President of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, played in the years 1998 and 1999 during the Caprivi conflict in suppressing the separatist uprisings in the area of ​​the Caprivi Strip . According to information from independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) , police and military actions aimed at smashing the liberation movement on the part of the Namibian security forces led to serious violations of elementary human rights and international martial law and to torture against prisoners.

Controversies of 2008

In September 2008, Erkki Nghimtina allegedly fired several shots at a younger relative for joining the newly formed opposition party Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) . The incumbent RDP party secretary Jesaya Nyamu described the act at a press conference as an attempted murder.

After a press conference, President Hifikepunye summoned Pohamba Nghimtina to the state house to discuss the matter. During the meeting, he allegedly forced Nghimtina to resign - both from his post as Minister of Mines and Energy and from his mandate as a member of the National Assembly. From this discussion a real farce arose about the alleged resignation of the minister.

After a meeting of high-ranking government and party officials, including SWAPO General Secretary Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana , the resigned minister was recalled to the state house. It was left with a reprimand and Erkki Nghimtina was able to remain in office despite the allegations and the urgent suspicion. Shortly after the meeting, Nghimtina was questioned by the police about the allegations. Angry about the interrogation, he resigned from all his offices. On September 2, Nghimtina claimed in an interview with The Namibian newspaper that he had by no means resigned, and other SWAPO party officials also described his resignation as pure speculation.

Even President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who was in Zambia for the funeral of President Levy Mwanawasa at the time , was unable to shed light on the confused situation. The following day it was reported that Nghimtina had withdrawn his resignation, President Pohamba had been overruled by senior SWAP officials and had to withdraw the minister's dismissal despite the serious allegations.

The 2009 scholarship affair

In early November 2009, various newspapers in Namibia reported that there had been irregularities in the award of scholarships by the Chinese government to students from Namibia. The opposition party DTA and the independent public service union (Public Service Union of Namibia, PSUN) had issued sharp criticism. In written statements, they spoke of “scandal grants” and charged them with corruption.

The scholarships were invariably given to the children of senior officials and SWAPO officials, including President Hifikepunye Pohamba, Mining Minister Erkki Nghimtina, Interior Minister Rosalia Nghidinwa , Minister of Justice and SWAPO Secretary General Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana and Defense Minister Charles Namoloh and police chief Sebastian Ndeitunga . In a press release, PSUN General Secretary Victor Kazonyat and PSUN President Johannes Hoeseb described the "Chinese scholarship scandal" as further evidence that the government under President Pohamba had failed in the fight against corruption because people in high positions were not politically involved able or willing and have lost their moral integrity.

Web links

• Official Profile, Parliament (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at parliament.gov.na  
2. ↑ Erkki NGHIMTINA  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at whoswhosa.co.za  
3. ↑ Unita collaborators will be shot, says Nghimtina ( Memento of May 27, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) in The Namibian , November 22, 2001
4. ↑ Marc Springer: SWAPO excludes deviants , report in the Allgemeine Zeitung from December 4th 2007
5. ↑ Eberhard Hofmann , report in the Allgemeine Zeitung of March 21, 2010 (eleven MPs want to wait for a court decision)
6. ↑ Eberhard Hofmann , report in the Allgemeine Zeitung of March 23, 2010 (Pohamba appoints a cabinet of continuity)
7. ↑ Amnesty International Report 2008 - Namibia. Amnesty International, May 28, 2008.
8. ^ Welt am Sonntag from September 1, 2002 (Namibians want to chase Germans away)
9. ↑ Amnesty International: Report of August 3, 2003 (NAMIBIA: Justice delayed is justice denied - The Caprivi treason trial)
10. ↑ Henning Melber , report in the Allgemeine Zeitung of July 31, 2009 (Namibia's forgotten political prisoners)
11. ↑ ^{a b c d} Nghimtina quits, Govt in denial ( Memento from September 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) in The Namibian , September 3, 2008
12. ↑ Eberhard Hofmann: Nghimtina's departure denied , report in the Allgemeine Zeitung of September 4, 2008
13. ^ Minister Nghimtina backtracks on resignation ( Memento of December 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) in The Namibian , September 4, 2008