Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
The reported exclusion of the US ambassador from Namibia’s National Fisheries Indaba should not be reduced to a diplomatic incident. It should provoke a deeper conversation about sovereignty, protocol and who has the right to participate in Namibia’s national decision making.
There are moments when a seemingly ordinary incident reveals a much larger question about the character of a nation.
The report by New Era that US ambassador to Namibia John Giordano was denied entry to the Walvis Bay Town Hall, where President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was attending the National Fisheries Indaba, has generated discussion about diplomacy, security and foreign access.
But before turning the incident into a diplomatic controversy, we should pause and ask a more fundamental question:
Why should a foreign ambassador automatically have access to a national meeting simply because he is a diplomat?
The answer is that he should not unless he has been invited, accredited or otherwise authorised to participate.
The National Fisheries Indaba was not an international summit. It was a national meeting convened to help Namibia determine how its fisheries resources should be governed, protected and utilised for the benefit of the country and its people.
The minister of agriculture, fisheries, water and land reform, Inge Zaamwani, has explicitly described it in those terms.
That distinction is essential.
A national meeting is not an open diplomatic forum
Diplomatic relations do not erase national boundaries.
An ambassador represents a foreign state. That representation gives him an important diplomatic role, but it does not give him automatic access to every meeting held by the government of the host country.
Presidential events are governed by protocol. Security arrangements determine who has access. Invitations and accreditation determine participation.
The United States itself has a formal office of the chief of protocol responsible for coordinating foreign diplomatic participation in official presidential functions and for arranging visits and engagements involving foreign dignitaries.
Therefore, Namibia should not feel apologetic for enforcing its own protocol.
If ambassador Giordano was not invited or accredited for the National Fisheries Indaba, then the security personnel were not necessarily committing a diplomatic offence.
They were doing precisely what state security and presidential protocol exist to do to protect the integrity of a restricted national event.
The issue would be different if he had been formally invited and subsequently excluded without explanation.
But absent such evidence, we should resist the temptation to manufacture a diplomatic crisis.
Now reverse the question
Here is where the matter becomes more interesting.
Suppose the President of the United States were presiding over a national US meeting dealing with a strategic domestic resource perhaps energy, fisheries, critical minerals, national security or another matter considered central to American national interests.
Would the Namibian ambassador automatically be permitted to walk into that meeting?
Would diplomatic status alone entitle Namibia’s ambassador to sit at the table?
Would the ambassador be allowed to enter simply because Namibia is a friendly country?
The answer, almost certainly, would depend on invitation, accreditation, protocol and the purpose of the meeting.
And if the answer is no, there is nothing offensive about it.
It is sovereignty.
The United States has the right to determine who participates in its national policy spaces.
Namibia has exactly the same right.
The principle cannot be different simply because one country is more powerful than the other.
Sovereignty is not hostility
There is a dangerous tendency in international relations to interpret every assertion of sovereignty by a smaller country as hostility.
That must change.
Namibia can welcome American investment without giving the United States unrestricted access to its domestic policy making.
Namibia can cooperate with China without surrendering its strategic interests to China.
Namibia can work with Europe, South Africa, India, the Gulf states and others without confusing partnership with entitlement.
The principle should be universal that international cooperation does not create automatic access to national decision making.
That is not anti-American.
It is not anti-Chinese.
It is not anti-European.
It is simply pro-Namibian institutional sovereignty.
The Fisheries Indaba makes the principle even more important
The subject of the meeting matters.
Fisheries are not merely an industry.
They involve a national natural resource.
The current Indaba is examining who receives access to that resource, under what conditions, with what obligations and with what benefits for Namibians.
The government has placed issues such as quota allocation, employment, sustainability, value addition, investment, public revenue, skills and enterprise development at the centre of the reform discussion.
The technical discussions have gone even deeper, identifying weaknesses in implementation, fragmented information, accountability, institutional capacity and national value.
This is therefore not simply a conversation about fish.
It is a conversation about who governs a national resource.
And that is where sovereignty becomes real.
Ownership without control is incomplete sovereignty
Namibia may legally own its natural resources, but ownership on paper is not enough.
A country must also possess the institutional capacity to determine:
Who gets access?
Under what conditions?
What obligations accompany that access?
How much value remains in the country?
How many jobs are created?
How much technology and knowledge are transferred?
How much investment is actually made?
How much revenue reaches the public?
Who ultimately benefits?
These are the questions that the Fisheries Indaba is now confronting.
The Minister’s statement that the Indaba should help Namibia determine how this strategic national resource is governed, protected and utilised is perhaps the most important element of the entire exercise.
That is sovereignty expressed through policy.
And this is where Walvis Bay matters
The incident occurred in Walvis Bay a location whose strategic importance is growing rapidly.
Walvis Bay is simultaneously a fisheries centre, a major port, a logistics gateway and a potential connection point for Namibia’s emerging offshore energy economy.
International interest in Namibia is therefore increasing.
American officials and businesses are engaging Namibia on energy, critical minerals, infrastructure and other strategic sectors, while US officials have also highlighted Walvis Bay’s potential role in connecting Namibia’s offshore petroleum industry to regional and global markets.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this.
Namibia needs investment, technology, markets, skills and international partnerships.
But increasing international interest makes stronger sovereignty protocols, not weaker ones, necessary.
The more strategically valuable a country becomes, the more carefully it must define the rules under which external actors engage with its institutions and resources.
We should not confuse foreign investment with foreign influence
This distinction will become increasingly important as Namibia enters the era of oil, gas, critical minerals, uranium, green hydrogen and expanded logistics.
Foreign capital can accelerate development.
Foreign technology can solve technical problems.
Foreign companies can create jobs and build infrastructure.
Foreign governments can provide diplomatic and technical cooperation.
But none of these should automatically translate into political influence over Namibia’s national priorities.
The principle should be investment creates an economic relationship; it does not purchase sovereignty.
And diplomatic status creates representation; it does not create entitlement to every national decision making space.
And partnership creates cooperation; it does not transfer ownership of the national interest.
These distinctions are not anti-foreign.
They are the foundations of mature international engagement.
Namibia needs sovereignty by protocol
Rather than allowing incidents such as this to become political speculation, Namibia should use them as an opportunity to strengthen its institutional framework.
The country would benefit from a clear National Sovereignty and Protocol Framework defining access to sensitive national events.
Such a framework could distinguish between:
National policy meetings primarily concerned with domestic decision making;
International diplomatic events specifically designed for foreign governments and diplomatic missions;
Mixed stakeholder forums national meetings where international actors are invited because their expertise, investment or cooperation is directly relevant.
The rules should then be clear that Invitation. Accreditation. Security clearance. Access.
Not diplomatic status. Therefore automatic access.
Such rules would protect Namibia while also protecting diplomats from embarrassment.
If an ambassador arrives at a restricted presidential event without accreditation, the response should be firm but courteous:
Your Excellency, this is a restricted national event and your attendance has not been accredited. We would be pleased to facilitate an appropriate engagement through diplomatic channels.
That is how a confident sovereign state behaves.
Sovereignty does not require humiliation.
The same rules must apply to everyone
This is perhaps the most important condition.
If Namibia establishes sovereignty protocols, they must not be designed specifically to restrict Americans.
They must apply equally to the United States; China; Russia; Britain; France; South Africa; India; the European Union; Gulf states; international organisations; multinational corporations and, where appropriate, even powerful domestic actors.
Otherwise, we are not defending sovereignty.
We are practising selective politics.
True sovereignty is consistent sovereignty.
The danger is also inside Namibia
There is another uncomfortable truth.
Foreign influence becomes dangerous not merely because foreigners seek influence, but because domestic institutions sometimes make that influence possible.
A powerful foreign government cannot easily dictate terms to a country with strong institutions; transparent contracts; competent negotiators; independent regulators; reliable data; parliamentary oversight; public accountability and citizens who understand the value of their resources.
The real defence of sovereignty therefore begins at home.
It is not enough to keep an ambassador outside a conference hall.
Namibia must also ensure that decisions made inside the hall cannot be captured by political connections, commercial interests or foreign pressure.
A closed door means very little if the decisions behind it are already being influenced from outside.
That is why sovereignty must be both procedural and substantive.
The people must remain at the centre
There is an even deeper dimension.
The government does not own Namibia’s national resources in the same sense that a private company owns an asset.
The state is the custodian.
The ultimate democratic authority belongs to the Namibian people.
Therefore, sovereignty cannot simply mean “The foreigner cannot enter.”
It must also mean “The Namibian citizen has the right to know what happens inside.”
If fisheries reform is about national sovereignty, then transparency, accountability and public participation are indispensable.
The current Indaba’s emphasis on trusted data, accountability and national value is therefore encouraging.
The real test will come after the speeches.
Will recommendations become policy?
Will policy become implementation?
Will implementation create measurable national benefit?
Will Namibia’s marine resources generate jobs, industrial capacity, skills, businesses and public revenue?
Because sovereignty without delivery becomes symbolism.
The real lesson from the door at Walvis Bay
Perhaps Ambassador Giordano’s attempted entry will ultimately prove to have been nothing more than a protocol misunderstanding.
Perhaps there was no political message whatsoever.
And that is precisely why we should not overstate the incident.
But we can still draw an important national lesson from it.
A sovereign country must know the difference between welcoming the world and surrendering access.
Namibia should remain open.
Open to investment.
Open to technology.
Open to diplomacy.
Open to international cooperation.
Open to partnerships.
But openness must not mean that every external actor automatically becomes a participant in Namibia’s internal decision-making.
There must be boundaries.
There must be rules.
There must be protocol.
And those rules must be applied consistently.
The question Namibia should now ask
The question is not:
“Why was the American ambassador kept outside?”
The better question is:
“Does Namibia have clear and professionally administered rules determining who enters its national decision making spaces, why they enter, what role they play and what information they are entitled to receive?”
And there is an even larger question:
“As international competition for Namibia’s resources intensifies, does Namibia have the institutional confidence to engage powerful countries without allowing those relationships to redefine Namibia’s national interest?”
That is the sovereignty test.
The future will not be determined by whether Namibia closes its doors to the world.
It will be determined by whether Namibia can open those doors on its own terms.
Because sovereignty is not the absence of foreign partners.
It is the presence of national agency.
It is the confidence to say welcome to Namibia. We value your partnership. We respect your country. We are prepared to do business.
But we decide the rules of access.
And perhaps that is the simplest lesson from Walvis Bay that the door was not necessarily closed on America. It was a reminder that Namibia has doors of its own and a sovereign nation has the right to decide who enters, when they enter, why they enter, and what happens once they are inside.
That is not isolation.
That is not hostility.
That is sovereignty.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or this newspaper. They represent our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
