Debate at Westminster to focus on Namibia's "stony ground"
Next month the Royal African Society in London will join the Friends of Namibia Society to host a debate in the House of Commons at Westminster under the title of "Namibia at 20", with a motion that reads: "This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy, and development."
Speakers in the debate, to be held on 18 March, include Inge Zaamwani-Kamwi (managing director, Namdeb), Tangeni Amupadhi (Editor, Insight Namibia), Professor David Simon ( Royal Holloway College , London ) and Dr Henning Melber (executive director, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation , Sweden ).
Namdeb, the company of which Ms Zaamwani-Kamwi is managing director, mines diamonds at Oranjemund but is looking to future production based on marine diamonds. In a statement in June 2008 concerning the expected exhaustion of the land mineral resources of the region, Ms Zaamwani-Kamwi stated that the company was "now finally sitting on the verge of an end tail of Namdeb land operations".
Tangeni Amupadhi is editor and part-owner of Insight Namibia, is a former political editor at The Namibian ( Windhoek ) and was a reporter on the Mail & Guardian.
In a radio interview on 14 August last year on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Mr Amupadhi stated that Nuctech - a Chinese company previously associated with a son of the president of China , Hu Jintao - had been involved in an allegedly corrupt relationship with Namibians. (See here: