Background
Johannes was born on November 10, 1927, at Rouxville, 100 miles south of Bloemfontein.
Johannes was born on November 10, 1927, at Rouxville, 100 miles south of Bloemfontein.
Educated at Outjo Primary School, then at Ficksburg High School, 110 miles east of Bloemfontein. Graduated at Witwatersrand University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture.
After returning to farm in South-West Africa he became technical officer to the Afrikander Cattle Breeders’ Association from 1955 to 1957. He was chairman of the Northern Agricultural and Industrial Show of South-West Africa in 1959 and 1960. He served on many agricultural committees including
the National Cattle Committee as South-West Africa’s representative and he was on the executive of the Afrikander Cattle Breeders’ Association from 1959.
He entered Parliament as MP for South-West Africa’s Namib constituency in 1964. Two years later he was elected MP for Karas. When he was appointed Commissioner-General the post almost seemed a sinecure but eighteen months later the latent tensions exploded in the big strike of 13,000 Ovambo workers and clashes with the police. He flew to Cape Town in January 1972 for emergency talks with the South African government and secured police and troop reinforcements. Although he blamed “foreign influences” in South-West Africa he eventually recognised that better labour relations were needed and that political concesssions would have to follow.
Prominent, prosperous farmer and cattle breeder drafted by the Nationalists as a man who knows the territory well. Having lived almost all his days on the land in South-West Africa he shows his reluctance at being in a government hot seat by listing his only recreation as “studying agricultural problems”.
Thickset, with the build of a former rugby player, he has found he cannot overcome Ovambo opposition merely by calling in South African Defence Forces. Shrewd enough to recommend that the Pretoria government make concessions on the contract labour system, he recognises that political changes must follow and that he has other problems to study than agricultural ones.