Former Finnish president Tarja Halonen will be among ten heads of state who will attend the state funeral of Namibia’s Founding President Sam Nujoma this weekend, Confidente has learned. 
Halonen and Nujoma’s paths crossed back in 2000, when they co-chaired the United Nations Millennium Summit with President Nujoma. 
Her office said in a press release that “she will attend the memorial service on Friday and the burial the next day at Heroes Acre.” 
The statement described Nujoma as a “revered liberation hero and the last of the liberation fighters of his generation, who served as the first President of Namibia from 1990 to 2005.”
Her ties to Nujoma and Namibia rubber stamps a relationship between the two nations, which was fostered by amongst others, the late former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. 
Athisaari was instrumental in Namibia and its decolonisation process with his crucial role in its United Nations supervised transition to independence, as documented in his biography, aptly titled The Mediator.
The government of Namibia awarded Athisaart an honorary Namibian citizenship after independence. 
Athisaari was described as a friend of the Namibian liberation struggle and a leading peacemaker who ‘midwifed the birth of an independent Namibia.