Evidence collected by, among others, Father Heinz Hunke prior to his deportation from Namibia, suggests that prisoners captured in Angola by the South African Defence Force have since been beaten and tortured.
Over 700 Namibians were killed in Angola by the SADF at the beginning of May 1978, 600 of them at the Kassinga refugee camp and 100 at camps located further south towards the Angola-Namibia border. According to official South African sources about 200 prisoners, mainly Namibians, but also including some Angolans allegedly captured in error, were brought back into Ovamboland. 63 people were released about three weeks later, followed after a few days by five Angolans.
Information supplied by ten of the released prisoners was subsequently published in the West German press. A 20 year old Ovambo girl stated that she and 200 other prisoners who had survived the South African attacks had been loaded into trucks and brought back over the border to a military camp at Oshakati. She described the treatment she had received here as "Okufika ko omalusheno", to burn with electricity. Marks were visible where wires had been attached to her hands and feet. Other prisoners interviewed reported that electric wires had also been plugged into their ears, resulting in burns and loss of hearing. "Several witnesses" stated that they had been handcuffed and hung upside down for hours at a time. Interrogation was geared to finding out the prisoners' motives for crossing the border and joining SWAPO, and who had recruited them. Those interviewed stated that a Major Roux had ordered an end to torture on the advice of doctors, but that the police had continued their methods when he was not present.
In a letter to the SWA Administrator General, Justice Steyn, on 5 June, Father Hunke stated that all the released prisoners to whom he had spoken "were firmly convinced that the people still in the hands of the South African security forces in the prison camp (were) still being tortured". None of the estimated 120 prisoners remaining in custody at that time have since been reported to have been released. Trials currently taking place before the Ondangwa Regional Court appear to involve at least some of them.
Justice Steyn, in a press statement on 22 June, has rejected all allegations made by Father Hunke and the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Investigations had established that the questioning of the prisoners had been completed in five days, meaning that "not more than a few minutes" could have been devoted to the interrogation of each person. Major Roux had regularly visited the prisoners and had received no complaints from them, as had a number of independent parties, including a group of Windhoek businessmen, General Sir Walter Walker (formerly 'Commander-in-Chief of NATO forces in Europe and a British visitor to South Africa and Namibia at this time), Professor Chris Barnard and a BBC television team, and the Attorney-General for South West Africa. Justice Steyn further stated he himself had, on 12 May, visited all those captured and seen "no signs of torture whatsoever".
