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The Honourabe Mr Kala-Gertze, Member of Parliament of Namibia and PNND member, passed away on the 13th of March due to a fatal asthma attack at the age of 47.
Mr Kala-Gertze was a strong proponent of Namibia's ratification of the Pelindaba Treaty and of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament world wide. He is held in high esteem by all his parliamentary colleagues for his courage, vivacity and service to his country. Mr Kala-Gertze joined Namibia's liberation movement, SWAPO, in exile in 1978. In 1983 he was arrested, imprisoned and tortured in SWAPO's secret dungeons in Angola until he falsely confessed to being a South African spy. It was in these dungeons, a horrific and secretive period in SWAPO's history, that he contracted asthma.
After Namibia's independence from South Africa in 1990 he was the founding chairman of Breaking the Wall of Silence- a body which fought to uncover the truth of the Angolan dungeons for the families of all who disappeared. He served in Namibia's national assembly from 2005 and was a founding member of the Congress of Democrats party.
Mr. Kala-Gertze met a representative of the PNND on the 7th of January 2008, and immediately joined the organisation becoming its strong proponent and supporter of the drive to encourage Namibia to ratify the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (Pelindaba) Treaty. He died three days before Mozambique ratified the treaty- something he would have taken delight in seeing.
He is sorely missed not only by his wife and children but by the PNND and all those who had a vision for a world free from nuclear weapons.
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