The trial of six individual members of SWAPO, charged under the Terrorism Act, opened on 16 February in Swakopmund Supreme Court as, ostensibly, an investigation into the assassination of Chief Filemon Elifas, Chief Minister of Ovamboland, in August 1975. It was still proceeding towards the end of April, but by this time it had become clear that the "accused" on trial, rather than a number of individuals, was in effect the liberation movement. In its efforts to discredit SWAPO as a "terrorist" organisation, the State has resorted to police torture and intimidation of witness, distorted translations of Ovambo texts and tape recordings, and testimonies which bear no apparent relationship to the incidents detailed in the charges.
AARON MUCHIMBA, (31, SWAPO National Treasurer and organising Secretary), ANDREAS NANGOLO, (56, a shop-keeper), HENDRIK SHIKONGO, (31) RAUNA NAMBINGA, (a nurse in her early twenties) NAIMI NOMBOWO (18) and ANNA NGAIHONDJWA (also both nurses), are all charged with taking part in "terrorist activities aimed at overthrowing the lawful administration of South West Africa". The specific charges against Shikongo are that he provided transport for Chief Elifas's killers, and that he also entered the liquor store where the assassination took place, shortly beforehand, "to spy on the Chief Minister's whereabouts". Nangolo is alleged to have "habitually used" a blue landrover employed in the killing and subsequently confiscated by the security forces after a gun battle in northern Ovamboland. Muchimba and the three women accused are all said to have supplied money and equipment to the liberation movement. In summarising the State's case on the opening day of the trial, the prosecutor, Mr. J. Jansen, said that the State would also attempt to prove that members of SWAPO had been sent overseas for training.
During the first week of the trial, a number of State witnesses were called to give evidence of the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Chief Elifas at a liquor store in Oshakati on the night of 16 August 1975. In his cross-examination, defence counsel, Dr. W.E. Cooper, told the court that an inspection in loco would become necessary as the case progressed. The trial was later adjourned for ten days to allow the defence team to visit Ovamboland, but a request from Dr. Cooper that the court as a whole should have an inspection to "get to the bottom of things", and to see for itself the "ridiculousness" of the testimony of some witnesses, was refused.
On 24, 25 and 26 February, evidence was taken from a number of nurses at Engela Hospital in Ovamboland, colleagues of the three women accused. They had been arrested by a force of South African soldiers in October 1975, and, like a number of other state witnesses, detained incommunicado and in some cases in solitary confinement throughout the months preceding the trial. The testimony of two of the nurses began to reveal the torture and intimidation suffered by the detainees at the hands of the security police. Eva Maundengi described how she had been present at three meetings at the hospital when Usko Nambinga, the brother of Rauna Nambinga, had spoken about Namibia's liberation and had been given money for those who had fled over the border. She also said that she and the three accused had each crossed into Angola over the past year and met SWAPO soldiers. She then revealed that she had been questioned by the police before giving her evidence and told to keep to the statement she had given them. Her first statement to the police, she said, had been torn up.
Kauno Malua, another nurse, also said that she had made a statement which, because it failed to satisfy the police, had been torn up. She alleged in court that, following her arrest she had been strung from the ceiling of a room by a chain attached to her right wrist, for ten hours. After that she had made another statement to the police. Mr. Justice Strydom, presiding, said that he had noticed two black marks on her right wrist and the court was told that the matter would be investigated.
Another State witness, Victor Nkandi, provided further evidence of police brutality. He told the Court that he had been arrested by two police sergeants in September 1975 and taken to a place where he was chained up. He was made to stand in a corner while an investigating officer taunted him with being a "terrorist" and hit him until he lost consciousness. Water was thrown on his face to keep him awake for four days and nights. "A Police Colonel and Lieutenant G. Dippenaar, the investigating officer, then visited me and said I looked worried and asked me what was the matter," Nkandi said. "I did not answer them, as I was wearing a white shirt which was covered in blood and they could see for themselves." He was then taken to another place where he could hear people screaming and was told "he would scream like them unless he co-operated." "I gave them a statement because I was afraid and was told that they would hang me up if I didn't speak." Despite his ordeal, Nkandi refused to testify against the accused and was jailed for twelve months for contempt of court. Another State witness, Axel Johannes, was also sentenced to a year's imprisonment for refusing to give evidence.
In the third and fourth weeks of the trial, a number of witnesses were being produced by the prosecution to testify against SWAPO as an organization, its aims and objectives, methods and ideology. They included an unidentified Ovambo who had allegedly trained as a guerilla with SWAPO more than ten years previously, and two officers of the security police, Lt-Col. Willem Schoon and former captain Petrus Albertus Ferreira - the latter described as "an expert on SWAPO and its activities". Ferreira gave testimony of SWAPO's commitment to armed struggle and of the setting up of guerilla training camps in Zambia. He said that after a number of Ovambos had been trained in these camps, "a spate of murders and abductions by SWAPO" had followed in 1975. On 1 March tape-recorded SWAPO songs were played back to the court by the prosecutor, as evidence of SWAPO's "terrorist leaning". The translation of the songs from Ovambo into Afrikaans was subsequently challenged by the defence on the grounds that the usual word for "people" had in this instance been translated back as "terrorists". The word "land-mine", non-existent in Ovambo, also appeared in the transcription.
In his cross-examination of Ferreira, Dr. Cooper drew on the experience of the churches to refute the pinning of a "terrorist" label on SWAPO. Ferreira was requested to read to the Court a memorandum, drawn up by a number of churches in Ovamboland, giving the underlying reasons for the flight of Namibian refugees out of the country. It listed "the enforced carrying of identity cards bearing their fingerprints, which made people feel like criminals; a constitution forced on the people under which they could be flogged and tortured with electric current; claims that racial and ethnic segregation had only been strictly applied against blacks; and the oppressive powers of the police which had caused fear and hatred towards the police in South Africa instead of respect for them as a helper of the people." These were all reasons, Dr. Cooper said, for not "grossly oversimplifying matters" by "attributing all the problems in Ovamboland to SWAPO."
The first defence witnesses were called by Dr. Cooper and his team on 6 April, and by the time of the court's adjournment for the Easter weekend, four of the six accused had also been called to give evidence. Hendrik Shikongo, accused No.4, was cross-examined on 12 April. Questioned on the character and objectives of SWAPO, Shikongo told the court that "Peace and freedom are SWAPO's main goals. As I see it the people of Namibia are not free. The freedom we want is for everyone in the country to be free... and everyone must see one another as brothers... Everyone must see one another as a person in his own right and not ask what that person is."
The prosecution subsequently alleged that a conspiracy had existed in Ovamboland during 1975, to abduct a number of black political leaders, including Chief Elifas, his successor as Chief Minister of Ovamboland, Pastor K. Ndjoba, and Chief Clemens Kapuuo of the Herero. Mr. Jansen claimed that the conspirators had planned to take their captives to Zambia and there force them to broadcast "subversive propaganda" over Radio Zambia. He named the conspirators as a group of 7 men, including Aaron Muchimba, one of the accused, and Usko Nambinga, the brother of Rauna Nambinga, also accused.
Rauna Nambinga herself was called to give evidence on 14 and 15 April. She told the court that she had joined SWAPO in 1974 after attending a meeting that had stirred her. She found that "SWAPO rejected apartheid, the homelands concept and stood for a single unitary state with the principle of one man, one vote". She described how she had crossed into Angola with her brother and met and also distributed food and goods to people who had fled across the border from Ovamboland. She said that they had appeared in need of help and were unarmed, and had left Namibia, among other reasons, to escape from the policy of apartheid, floggings and oppressions. Anna Ngahondjwa and Naimi Nombowo, who gave evidence on 15 April, are also alleged by the prosecution to have collected money for "SWAPO terrorists" in Angola.
In a press statement issued by its London office on 22 April, SWAPO has described the Swakopmund hearings as "the show trial to climax the reign of terror... At Swakopmund the South Africans' aim is to break SWAPO". Despite the used of torture and intimidation, a series of statements expressing clear support for SWAPO's aims and ideals have been heard in court from individual accused and state witnesses. These, and the action of other State witnesses in refusing to give evidence, suggest that the South African administration is unlikely to succeed in its aim. But under the Terrorism Act the accused face minimum sentences of 5 years, and the possibility of the death sentence.
