The Anglican Archdeacon of Odibo, the Ven. Philip Shilongo, was arrested in Ovamboland on 31 July and detained by South African security forces. In an early morning raid, a party of 150 troops, reportedly including members of the South African secret police and supported by four armoured cars, surrounded and searched St. Mary's Anglican Mission near the Angolan border. According to the Rev Ed Morrow, the Anglican Vicar-General in Namibia, Archdeacon Shilongo may have been taken away by the security forces on suspicion that guerillas had been sleeping at the Mission. He was released on 2 August after being detained and interrogated at Oshakati, whose South African military base is believed to be also used as a detention camp for Namibian prisoners. There is believed to be a further prison camp at Enana.
In a statement issued by its London office, SWAPO described Archdeacon Shilongo's arrest as "yet another instance of the oppressive measures used by the illegal South African regime to try to crush the Namibian people. While trying to foist a charade of independence on the people of Namibia and on the world, South Africa is greatly increasing its military presence in northern Namibia and its acts of violence against the Namibian people." There are believed to be of the order of 16,000 South African troops in Namibia, a number which may well have been increased since the imposition of rigid security measures on the three northern "homelands" of Ovamboland, Kavango and Caprivi in May 1976.
Three weeks before his arrest, Archdeacon Shilongo's private secretary, Ms. Olivie Ngenge, and her fiancé, Mr. Thorothimus Jacobus, were reportedly beaten up by tribal police of the Ovambo "homeland" administration. Mr. Jacobus subsequently died of his injuries in Oshakati Hospital. According to Rev Morrow, the couple had failed to produce their identity documents when challenged by tribal policemen.
At the end of May the Anglican Archdeacon of Ovamboland, Rev Lazarus Haukongo, was stopped and detained by a South African military patrol as he was travelling to a church conference in Windhoek. He was released three days later after being bound and blindfolded. During his interrogation he was asked about the activities of Bishop Colin Winter, Bishop of Damaraland-in-exile, who was expelled from Namibia in 1972. According to Rev Morrow, two sub-deacons and a priest of the Anglican Church have disappeared in recent months, one being the Rev Stephen Shimbode, the priest at Epinga. Epinga village has been evacuated by South African security forces as part of "free-fire" zone strategy. Two Anglican priests at the village of Onamana, which also falls in the 1 km cleared zone adjoining the Angolan border, are reported to have been assaulted by police during clearing operations, while a subdeacon, Cornelius Nshitende, was shot and killed by unknown snipers in June at a spot 25 miles east of St. Mary's Mission.
Pastor Cornelius Ndjoba, Chief Minister of Ovamboland, has said in a radio broadcast that the security forces have been instructed to "shoot to kill" if necessary in the depopulated border zone. Members of the South African Defence Force have already been given powers of search, arrest and interrogation in the three northern homelands, equal to those of the police. The risks for civilians living in such a situation of martial law would appear to be considerable. According to Herman Nangolo, SWAPO's representative in Luanda, "people have been tortured, they've been killed everyday" in an effort to elicit information about the movements of guerilla forces. South African military activity in the north has been sustained as guerilla units have succeeded in penetrating south of Ovamboland into the Police Zone or white area of Namibia.
In evidence recently submitted to the Windhoek Supreme Court an Ovambo man, Mr. Ngumbualle Jakob, has described how a South African national serviceman opened fire on a vehicle containing adults and children after previously ordering them into it. Four Ovambo women also gave evidence of injuries and sexual assault during incidents near Oshikango in March 1976, at the summary trial of two white national servicemen, Brian Parry and Daniel Odendaal, on charges of murder and assault. Parry has since been given a 6 month suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay £220 damages to two Ovambo men, while Odendaal was acquitted. Passing sentence, Mr. Justice Badenhorst said that the soliders' actions could "bedevil race relations".
In April 1976, two South African national servicemen, who broke into the house of an 85-year-old pastor in Ovamboland, beat him up and raped his 76-year-old wife, were given suspended prison sentences and several cuts with a cane in Windhoek Supreme Court. Pte. H.S. Scholz (19) and Pte. D.M. Stratford (20) were convicted of housebreaking with intent to assault the occupants indecently, indecent assault and malicious damage to property, after an attack on Rev Paulus and Mrs. Elizabeth Nailenge in August 1975. The two soldiers were on an army patrol in the area following the assassination of Ovamboland's Chief Minister, Filemon Elifas, and were, according to the Judge-President, "on the look-out for black women."
ARRESTS UNDER R17
According to Mr. Kruger, the South African Minister of Police, a total of 45 men and 12 women were arrested during 1975 in terms of Regulation 19 of the emergency Proclamation R17, in force in Ovamboland since 1972. 3 of these were arrested in connection with malicious injury to property, 52 on suspicion of murder or attempted murder and contravention of the Terrorism Act, and 2 for illegal possession of arms and ammunition. By April 1976, 41 men and 9 women had been released after being held in detention for periods of up to 168 days. Only 5 people, 2 men and 3 women, were ever charged.
At the time of going to press, extensive evidence was published in the Guardian, London, of torture and brutality by South African troops in northern Namibia. Information had been received by the newspaper from two South African servicemen and a Catholic priest. Full details will be published in the next issue of FOCUS.
