Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo (22 August 1924 – 9 June 2017) was a Namibian anti-apartheid activist, politician and political prisoner. Ya Toivo was active in the pre-independence movement, and is one of the co-founders of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960, and before that, its predecessor the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) in 1959. After growing up in northern Namibia, Ya Toivo spent some time in Cape Town in the 1950s. He became politicised there and joined the African National Congress (ANC). Back in Namibia he became one of the early petitioners to the United Nations, advocating for the independence of Namibia. Due to his political activism he was tried in 1966 under the Terrorism Act, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served 16 years in Robben Island in the same section as Nelson Mandela, to whom he was a personal friend. He was released in 1984 and rejoined SWAPO as secretary general in exile in Lusaka, Zambia. Ya Toivo returned to Namibia in 1989 in the wake of the country's independence and served as a member of parliament and as cabinet minister in Sam Nujoma's first government. He retired from active politics in 2006. Ya Toivo is a national hero of Namibia. Early years Andimba Toivo ya Toivo was born on 22 August 1924 as second of seven children in Omangundu in Ovamboland, northern South West Africa. He attended the church school at Onayena but was herding cattle often, as was common for boys in this area. He trained to become a carpenter at Ongwediva Industrial School between 1939 and 1942. In 1942 during World War II Ya Toivo voluntarily joined the Native Military Corps, a unit of the racially segregated army of the Union of South Africa. He fought on the British side of the Allied Forces. and attained the rank of a corporal during his service. When he was tried for terrorism in the 1960s he remembered his motivation thusly: My lord, you found it necessary to brand me a coward. During the Second World War, when it became evident that both my country and your country were threatened by the dark clouds of Nazism, I risked my life to defend both of them, wearing a uniform with orange bands on it. But some of your countrymen, when called to battle to defend civilisation, resorted to sabotage against their own fatherland. I