June 13, 2017By Emily Langer
Mr. ya Toivo kisses the ground upon his return to Namibia from exile in Angola in 1989.
Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, (click here) a Namibian independence leader whose struggle against his country’s South African rulers landed him for 16 years in the infamous Robben Island prison, where with his steadfastness he earned the admiration of Nelson Mandela, a fellow inmate, died June 9. He was 92.
His death was reported by the Associated Press and by Namibian outlets including New Era, which said Mr. ya Toivo died at his home in a suburb of Windhoek, the country’s capital, of a suspected heart attack.
Mr. ya Toivo fought what the London Guardian once described as a decades-long “war of nerves” with South Africa in behalf of Namibia. South Africa assumed control of the onetime German colony through a League of Nations mandate at the end of World War I....
