Independence leaders, assuming they survive in the conflicts they wage against those who do not share their sovereignty, often become leaders of their new states, or if they should fall but their compatriots succeed they usually get a nice official memorial of some sort. None of that is particularly true in the case of Andimba Toivo ya Toivo of Namibia who died today at the age of 92, just over a quarter of a century after his goal of Namibian independence from the then apartheid state of South Africa was realized. When Mr. ya Toivo was born on August 22nd of 1924 Namibia was known as South West Africa and under the control of Britain who had taken control of the territory following the end of World War I when the former colonizer, Germany, was forced to abdicate power over all of its overseas territories. Following decolonization, the ruling duties of the territory were given to South Africa, which is where Mr. ya Toivo found his life’s work as he felt South Africa had no right to restrain the freedom of the Namibian people.
Unfortunately, such views put him in harm’s way and ended up with his incarceration on Robben Island prison, which is most famous for being where contemporary resistance leader, Nelson Mandela, was incarcerated for almost three decades. Mr. ya Toivo’s sentence was not much shorter as he was tortured for roughly 18 years for his views that South Africa was not the true rulers of Namibia. So deep was this belief that in the late 1950’s at the peak of European decolonization, he and other independence leaders formed the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) which both agitated politically and used guerrilla tactics in an attempt to shake off the chains of Apartheid. Upon the success of his movement he served as Minister of Mines for a time, rather than leading the country he so clearly loved, and although he retired over a decade ago he still commented on the need of continued improvement of Namibia.
