SABOTAGE The trial of three SWAPO members arrested following the derailment of a train near Karibib and the sabotage of a road bridge near Keetmanshoop earlier this year, opened in the Windhoek Supreme Court on 31 October. JOHANNES ALFONS PANDENI (28), an unemployed teacher, and PETRUS NANGOLO IILONGO (25), both pleaded guilty to charges of participating in guerilla activities aimed at disrupting the present system in Namibia, stating that "they had acted on orders from PLAN, SWAPO's military wing, and not as SWAPO supporters." They were described by the police as "highly trained saboteurs". The third accused, WILLEM BIWA (26), a farmer from Hanaus, Gibeon pleaded guilty to charges of harbouring or aiding guerillas.
According to the Attorney General, Pandeni and Lilongo were responsible for damaging the Guruchab road bridge between Keetmanshoop and Grunau on 19 May, and for the partial derailment of a mixed goods and passenger train by blowing up the railway line to Swakopmund between Karibib station and Kranzberg with TNT on 21 June. The two men, who had first appeared in court on remand on 29 September, were alleged to have received guerilla training in Angola, Zambia and Tanzania between August 1974 and October 1975.
While the road bridge incident was described by the police as an "amateurish" job, the train was derailed by means of "an estimated 100 kg. of plastic charges (which) folded the massive U shaped beams of (a low water bridge on the rail track system) as if they were matchsticks." The two incidents, furthermore, occurred around 600 and 300 miles south of the Angolan border and the area conventionally regarded as subject to infiltration by SWAPO guerillas.
The three men now appearing in court were arrested nearly two months after the train derailment, in August, when the South African Railways Police revealed that they had discovered an explosives and arms cache on a small farm near Gibeon in Namaland. (Explosives had also been allegedly buried in the black township at Okahandja.) The discovery had led to four arrests and the detainees had been "positively identified" with both the Keetmanshoop and Kranzberg incidents. The Attorney General subsequently confirmed that all four would be charged. (The identity and fate of the fourth detainee are not known).
No further information is available on four other SWAPO members, David Haindongo, Fillip Hamakali, David Shilongo and Julius Kapapu (SWAPO Branch Secretary) arrested in Karibib in June, also in connection, it is believed, with these sabotage incidents.
REGISTRATION FESTUS AARON (26), SAGARIUS NAMBULI (42) and ANDREAS KODI (21), three SWAPO members charged with "coercing people not to register as voters" for elections organised by the South African government, appeared in the Otjiwarongo Magistrate's Court for the third time in August. They were remanded to appear in the Outjo Regional Court on 20 August. Under legislation introduced by the SWA Administrator General, the offence carries a penalty of up to 3 years imprisonment and/or a fine of R3,000.
BORDER CROSSING In a trial before the Gobabis Magistrates Court, six alleged SWAPO members were convicted on 5 October of assisting 34 youths, also SWAPO supporters, in an illegal attempt to leave the country for Botswana. TOIVO YA SHOOMDE (27), GABRIEL ITHETE (29), NEHEMIA KAVARI (25), JOHANNES HANGULA (37), KAKUNE KANDJAVERA (21) and AUGUST JAEB (24) were each sentenced to 6 months imprisonment, or R1000 fines with 6 months suspended. All the accused had pleaded not guilty. An officer in the security police, Captain W.A. Nel, told the court that on 30 August, a group of about 20-25 schoolchildren from Uis had crossed the border into Botswana. Acting on information he had received that a number of pupils had run away from a local school about two weeks later he had intercepted the six accused and 34 schoolchildren, travelling in three microbuses towards the Buitepos post on the Botswana border. He said that about 250 people had crossed the border illegally in the last four years.
A youth, one of those stopped, testified that he and some friends had decided to leave the country and had been given instructions by Bernardus Petrus (Chairman of the SWAPO Youth League in Windhoek) on how to get to Botswana. From Francistown they were to be taken to Lusaka to receive university training at the Namibia Institute.
All 34 youths were remanded in custody. Charges of illegally attempting to cross the border were subsequently dropped against 28 of them, but the remaining six were due to go on trial on 6 October.
RECRUITING HEIKKIE SHILILIFA, a school teacher and shop owner in Ovamboland, appeared before the Otjiwarongo Regional Court at the end of August on four charges of aiding and abetting people to leave Namibia illegally to receive military training. He had allegedly taken recruits from his shop at Ukwadongo near the Angolan border and handed them over to SWAPO people on the other side. Shillilifa pleaded not guilty to all charges. Evidence was heard from two men who had been captured by the SADF on 4 May from the "Vietnam" base in southern Angola. The trial was postponed to 11 September (final outcome unknown).
APPEAL Ms. KATHY BURT (28), the sister of Peter Manning, a member of SWAPO detained in Windhoek at the beginning of this year before being deported, has been successful on appeal against a four month prison sentence. According to a decision by the Pretoria Supreme Court on 20 October, the prosecutor in Ms. Burt's trial in March had failed to comply with Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act. She had been convicted for refusing to answer questions about her brother, and released on bail.
