Andimba Herman Toivo Ja Toivo

·         Andimba Herman Toivo Ja Toivo

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·         Toivo Ja Toivo was born in 1924.

·         He was deliberately educated in Namibian elementary schools.

·         He was an active trade unionist and organizer.

·         He also played a role in a number of protests in the 1940's and 1950's .

·         Toivo Ja Tiovo also worked in Cape Town in South Africa.

·         In April 1959 he founded the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) later Congress with the likes of Jacob Kahange and Sam Nujoma.

·         Aware of his activities in Namibia and South Africa, the Apartheid authorities repatriated him to South Africa.

·         In 1962, OPO became the South West Africa People's Organization. It was his activities and those of Sam Nujorna that helped found the organization in Cape Town.

·         Tiovo Ja Toivo and Sam Nujuma organized migrant workers from South West Africa into SWAPO which then spread back home.

·         SWAPO had a strong base in the north of Nairobi. His role and that of Sam Nujoma made the movement to be officially recognized by the UNO and the OAU.

·         Although he was an ardent supporter of SW APO, which he was co-founder; Tiovo Ja Toivo was also tolerant to other nationalist organizations like South West Africa National Union (SWNU) and other small tribal parties in the south of the country.

·         Between 1960 to 1968 the Apartheid regime in South Africa restricted nationalist parties and the nationalists themselves between the reserves or ‘homelands’.

·         In 1968 with other 36 SW APO guerrillas and nationalists were charged in a treason trial. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail on the Robben Island.

·         At the trail in Pretoria he showed clarity, undivided affirmation of faith and loyalty to the cause of independence. He also concluded a statement; "Only when we are granted our independence, will the struggle stop. Only when our human dignity is restored to us, as equals of the whites will there be peace between us.”

·         In 1984, Tiovo Ja Toivo was unconditionally released with four years of his jail sentence to end.

·         He was also elected Secretary General of SW APO shortly after his release and become one of Nujoma's trusted right hand men.

·         From 1985 until independence he continued to criticize the South African Apartheid regime with appeal to the international community to isolate and put sanctions on South Africa.