Phil ya Nangoloh

Phil ya Nangoloh
Namibian human rights activist and alleged spy
Born	22 September 1954 Ogongo, Omusati region

Phil ya Nangoloh is a Namibian human rights activist who founded the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) in 1989. NSHR is now known as "Namrights".

In April 2015, Phil ya Nangoloh addressed an open letter to Namibia's newly elected President Hage Geingob with a four-point plea:

Dear Mr President, Please proceed and do the following:

1. Help pay reparations for our Nama and Herero citizens in respect of the 1904-1908 German genocide.

2. Publicly acknowledge the wrongs that have been done to the hundreds of our citizens who have unjustly been accused of being apartheid South African spies during the liberation struggle in exile. Clear their names publicly and pay reparations to survivors. Also, institute a national truth and reconciliation process to account for what has happened on both sides of the conflict during the liberation struggle as well as to promote truth, justice and guarantees of non-recurrence.

3. Immediately release and or “pardon” all those Caprivi Strip political prisoners who are currently languishing in our Namibian prisons and pay compensation to all those wronged.

4. Address and resolve issues and concerns our Rehoboth Baster tribe. Return their communal lands and other community properties which the Namibian Government has expropriated without just compensation.

Mr President in acceding to my plea as above you will have absolutely nothing to lose, but everything to gain and you will go down as a true transformational and a transactional father and healer of our tormented and divided nation.

Dated and DONE at Windhoek, April 9 2015

Phil ya Nangoloh

Namibian Citizen

Cell: +264 81 129 9886

Accused of spying

In search of better educational opportunities Phil ya Nangoloh left Namibia in 1974 and went as a temporary agricultural worker to Angola. He was later imprisoned in Zaire under the pretext of spying for Rhodesia and was handed over to the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) which transferred him to Lusaka. In January 1975 he joined SWAPO and became a member of its military wing People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN).

Ya Nangoloh was subsequently sent to the Tallinn Naval College in Estonia (then part of the Soviet Union) in order to complete a degree in radio engineering. Following a visit to Finland, he came under renewed suspicion of espionage and was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union. His application for political asylum in Switzerland was rejected and in 1981 ya Nangoloh went to the United States to study electrical engineering at the New York Institute of Technology (1982-86), funded by a UN Council for Namibia bursary. In the late 1980s ya Nangoloh returned to Namibia, where he began campaigning for the release of those who had been detained by SWAPO in exile.

Alleged spy accuses

In February 2007, Phil ya Nangoloh reported that former President Sam Nujoma has long term links with South African intelligence and the CIA dating as far back as March 1960, when Nujoma travelled to Congo-Kinshasa’s Katanga Province and met its leader Moise Tshombe:

"In the late 1970s, SWAPO in-exile shared its London offices with 'superspy' Craig Williamson;

"On pages 277 to 279 of his book "Where Others Wavered", Nujoma wrote “unhindered and continued access to raw minerals, strategic minerals and sea lanes” had motivated US policy towards Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s. On page 257 Nujoma credits his close friend, Dr Henry Kissinger, for having “raised our profile among the few countries that objected to our being sole and authentic representative of the people of Namibia”;

"On 6 March 2007, in his Internet article entitled "Eliminating Political Opponents", Namibian writer Charles Courtney-Clarke says that Nujoma's confidant and economic adviser Maurice Tempelsman “arrived in Namibia in 1989 to ensure the control of the new Namibian government and De Beers' control of its diamonds”. Evidence reveals that Tempelsman, whose role in the confluence of public policy and private profit as a middleman for the De Beers diamond cartel, helped to shape practically every major covert CIA action in Africa since the early 1950s";

In Phil ya Nangoloh's view, Nujoma's CIA links explain why and how Namibia’s mineral resources remain under the control of Big Business, such as Anglo-American Corporation, Rio Tinto Group and Lonrho.

What's the big deal?

In May 2015, Charles Courtney-Clarke responded to ya Nangoloh's allegations:

"Namibian human rights activist Phil ya Nangoloh has a political agenda. His activities prior to independence of Namibia in 1990 and thereafter are partial to particular crimes in the human rights spectrum and anti-SWAPO. All political leaders are communicating with intelligence entities. The prime task of spies is to infiltrate leaders’ space. So what’s the big deal?

"The extent to which the CIA infiltrated SWAPO is directed entirely by the vested interests to the wealth of the country. The manipulation of the services of the United States (CIA) by corporate interests to influence affairs in Namibia for their sole corporate benefit is a fact – these days extensively practised western world wide.

"The point is to what extent does the SWAPO leadership REALLY understand what is going on in this economic colonisation context?? State governance of its faculties and assets is corroding in incremental steps with a constant increase in total debt all merging towards an exchange of hard assets in a settlement."

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 31 May 2015.
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