geonet%gn@cdp.uucp (10/08/89)
Record Crowd Greets Sam Nujoma's First Public Appearance
After 30 Years
London, 2 October 89 (NSC) -
SWAPO pulled out all the stops on 24 September when the
Movement's President, Sam Nujoma, addressed the largest
political rally ever seen in Namibia. It was his first
official public appearance since his return to Namibia after
30 years of exile and the crowd gave him a rapturous
greeting.
Windhoek Stadium was packed shoulder to shoulder for the day
long rally. An Agence France Press statistician estimated
the crowd inside the stadium at 60,000 with another 10,000
outside unable to get in. To date, the largest gathering
staged by the defiance campaign in South Africa has been
20,000 in a Cape Town demonstration. The statistic becomes
truly staggering when one considers that Namibia has a total
population of 1.5 million. A British rally containing the
same proportion of the population would involve some 2.8
million people.
The SWAPO President began his two and a half hour speech by
asking for a minute's silence in memory of the "tens of
thousands" who died in the fight for independence. He
stressed the need for genuine national reconciliation and
unity of all Namibians irrespective of race or economic
status. "We will work hard to heal the deep wounds which have
been inflicted in the past", he said.
Towards the end of his speech, Nujoma questioned whether the
implementation of UN Resolution 435 was really free and fair.
Proclamation AG 23, which makes it illegal to hold a public
meeting without three days notice to the police , was
hindering the SWAPO election campaign, he said. He also
expressed alarm at the participation of thousands of South
African and other foreign voters in the forthcoming
elections. "I have been living in Tanzania for ten years,
Zambia for eight years and Angola for a further ten years and
I have never voted in those countries", he said.
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Patt Haring | United Nations | Did u read
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