'Kill all whites' call a strategy, says suspect
* WERNER MENGES

A SELF-STYLED "black revolutionary" not only offered no apologies, but also repeated his call for all white people in Namibia to be killed when he appeared on a charge of racial discrimination in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court on Friday.

The 33-year-old Methuzal Matundu, also known as 'Malcolm X' Matundu, is the second suspect to have been arrested and charged with offences under the Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act in connection with the display of a hand-written placard stating 'Kill all whites' at a public demonstration in Windhoek on August 24.

"I am the authentic author of that placard," Matundu told The Namibian before he appeared in court before Magistrate Sarel Jacobs on Friday.

"The intention was to solicit the support of black people to employ that strategy, because the Mau Mau school of thought, of which I'm the head, believes that killing all white people is the only way that we will get people to take black people seriously," he said.

Matundu said he had reported himself to the Police to take responsibility for the placard that was carried along Windhoek's Independence Avenue during a demonstration led by Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako.

The event was supposed to be a march in support of demands that Germany should pay reparations for the genocide of the Herero people in the anti-colonial war of 1904 to 1907.

The march also featured protests against suggestions that Germany should be given a permanent seat on the United Nation Security Council.

The real purpose of the demonstration has, however, been eclipsed by the reaction to one of the placards displayed during the march.

The poster, stating 'Kill all whites, was condemned by Government and the National Society for Human Rights.

Matundu, an unemployed resident of Khomasdal in Windhoek, on Friday described himself as "a black revolutionary, subscribing to two ideological pillars: black consciousness and socialism".

For him, making and displaying the placard was a matter of strategy on the way to achieving his primary goal - the economic emancipation of black people, Matundu said.

A key part of achieving this goal is repossessing all land owned by white people - who are the ones still in control of the economic calabash in Namibia, he said.

"The only language which we think the white people can understand, is the approach that was followed in Zimbabwe, and that is the approach of revolution," he said.

"The killing of white people is a strategy to achieve our goal, which is the repossession of our wealth from white people," he said.

"The only way we can repossess our wealth, is to get people to take black people seriously, and the only way people will start taking black people seriously, is when (whites') lives are threatened."

He might be calling for acts of genocide, but he is no criminal, Matundu maintained.

"We are not criminals," he said.

"We are just continuing what Hosea Kutako started.

We did not start with the revolution to be drawers of water and hewers of wood in our own country."

Like Gerson Ndjavera (40), the first suspect arrested in the case, Matundu has been charged with contravening the Prohibition of Racial Discrimination Act by publishing or distributing material with the intent to threaten a group of persons on the grounds of their membership of a particular ethnic group.

They are also facing a charge of contravening the Act by having intended to cause, incite or encourage hatred between different racial groups.

The Act states that such offences can be punished with a fine of up to N$100 000, or up to 15 years' imprisonment, or both.

Matundu and Ndjavera have to return to court for a second appearance on November 22.

They have both been granted bail of N$500.