Sam Nujoma, Namibia’s fiery freedom fighter and first president, dies aged 95

Sam Nujoma, the fiery freedom fighter who led Namibia to independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 and served as its first president for 15 years, and was known as the father of the nation, has died. He was 95.

Nujoma’s death was announced Sunday by current Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba. Mbumba said Nujoma died on Saturday night after being hospitalized in the capital, Windhoek.

“The foundations of the Republic of Namibia have been shaken,” Mbumba said in a statement. “Over the past three weeks, the Founding President of the Republic of Namibia and Founding Father of the Namibian Nation was hospitalized for medical treatment and medical observation due to ill health.”

“Unfortunately, this time, the most gallant son of our land could not recover from his illness,” Mbumba added.

Nujoma was revered in his homeland as a charismatic father figure who steered his country to democracy and stability after long colonial rule by Germany and a bitter war of independence from South Africa. He spent nearly 30 years in exile as the leader of its independence movement before returning to be elected his country’s first democratic leader in 1990.

Nujoma, with his trademark white beard, was the last of a generation of African leaders who brought their countries out of colonial or white minority rule that included South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Mozambique’s Samora Machel.

Many Namibians credited Nujoma’s leadership for the process of national healing and reconciliation after the deep divisions caused by the independence war and South Africa’s policies of dividing the country into ethnically based regional governments, with separate education and health care for each race.

Even his political opponents praised Nujoma — who was branded a Marxist and accused of ruthless suppression of dissent while in exile — for establishing a democratic Constitution and involving white businessmen and politicians in government after independence.

Despite his pragmatism and nation-building at home, Nujoma often hit foreign headlines for his fierce anti-Western rhetoric. He claimed AIDS was a man-made biological weapon and also occasionally waged a verbal war on homosexuality, calling gays “idiots” and branding homosexuality a “foreign and corrupt ideology.”