The case history of Axel Johannes, SWAPO's Administrative Secretary, is a striking illustration of the persistent harassment and official intimidation to which SWAPO members and officials are subjected inside Namibia.
Previous issues of FOCUS have recorded Axel Johannes' extensive experience of detention without charge, imprisonment, interrogation and torture:
- 1974 – spent five months in solitary confinement under the Terrorism Act.
- August 1975 – arrested in Windhoek following the assassination of Ovamboland Chief Minister Filemon Elifas, along with virtually the entire leadership of SWAPO inside Namibia. Detained incommunicado for more than five months, during which he was tortured. Sentenced in March 1976 to a year's imprisonment for refusing to give evidence in the trial of Aaron Muchimba and five other SWAPO members.
- February 1977 – rearrested in Ovamboland and detained for several months on completion of his prison sentence.
- November 1977 – arrested and detained after failing to respond to a subpoena requiring him to appear as a state witness against Victor Nkandi, charged with complicity in the Elifas assassination.
On 14 April 1978, Axel Johannes was again arrested under Section Six of the Terrorism Act, and told that he was being held for questioning in connection with the assassination of Chief Clemens Kapuuo. (FOCUS 16 p.6)
According to detailed information compiled by SWAPO in Windhoek, Axel Johannes was interrogated on the first day of this detention by Brig. van Niekerk, head of the CID, and told that the police were prepared to use rough methods if he did not cooperate. Johannes told them that on the day of Kapuuo's assassination, he was at the Tsumeb Corporation's Matchless Mine, hundreds of kilometers to the north of Windhoek, at a meeting with workers. Despite this alibi, he was transferred after the first week to Seedis prison east of Windhoek, where he was held until 28 April. Then he was brought to a first floor office of the Security Police Headquarters in Windhoek. Captains Coffee and Nel, Sergeant Botha and four black security policemen began interrogating him about his participation in the Chief's assassination, an allegation which he denied.
His interrogators then handcuffed his arms behind his back, attached a rope to the handcuffs and led the rope through the bars on the overhead window and back to the floor. The four black policemen pulled on the rope until Axel's feet left the floor, putting a great strain on his arms and shoulders. A cloth was tied over his mouth behind his head, and Captain Nel struck him repeatedly on the face with open hands. The other policemen struck him in the buttocks and stomach with a map-pin causing bleeding. A blanket was tightened around his neck making breathing impossible. The cloth gag caused bleeding from his mouth. He was hit over the upper arms and shoulders with a wooden plank. Hairs were pulled out of his head and beard. He was then taken by his interrogators to his house to search for a pistol, the murder weapon, allegedly hidden there. Nothing was found.
A little while later, when they were back at the Security Police Headquarters, the police suggested that Axel had hidden the pistol in a river bed north of Windhoek. They drove him along the Okahandja Road to a bridge over the Okapaka river. They walked along the dried-up river bed, and when Axel was unable to show them the pistol, handcuffed his wrists from behind, attached a rope which they threw over a branch and began pulling him off the ground. According to Axel, "I was crying and screaming". He finally "confessed" that he had buried the pistol in a hole in the sand and would show them where. He was let down and began digging a hole in the sand nearby.
The policemen then forced him into the hole, and covered his whole body with sand including his head. Three policemen stood on top. He was unable to breathe and lost consciousness. He was taken out and, when he revived, placed in a nearby pool of water. One policeman held his feet while another held his head under to get another "confession". (Another SWAPO member, Festus Thomas, was undergoing the same treatment of being buried alive about 100 metres away – Axel could hear him screaming. Details of Festus Thomas's torture were reported in FOCUS 18 p.16)
Other forms of torture used during Axel Johannes' detention included being hit on the nose, causing bleeding and being forced to lick up the blood from the floor; being struck on the ears, causing bleeding; being forced to fight with an ex-SWAPO man, Moses Paulus Iriko, who had also "confessed" responsibility for Kapuuo's death; sleep deprivation; denial of toilet facilities, during which he was forced to lie face-down on the floor, his wrists handcuffed to two chairs, and repeatedly struck on the buttocks with a rubber petrol hose; having bullets fired so close to his legs that he could feel them pass.
Axel Johannes eventually signed a full "confession" prepared by the police. On 5 May 1978 he was interrogated by a magistrate who promised to send a doctor (who never arrived). On 7 May he was returned to Seedis prison and held in solitary confinement until 27 June 1978. On 28 June he was told he was being released from custody under the Terrorism Act but would continue to be detained under the Administrator General's Proclamation AG 26. He was then transferred to Gobabis prison, further to the east, where he joined 15 other SWAPO members also detained under AG 26. They were finally released on 16 September 1978 on condition that they did not participate in public meetings or ask people to boycott the South African-organised elections planned for December 1978. (Namibian Political Prisoners Conditions of Detention, paper issued by SWAPO in Windhoek, December 1978)
On 3 December, the day before the start of polling, Axel Johannes was again arrested with five other members of the national executive. Most of the six had been due to speak against the elections at a mass rally in Katutura township that afternoon. They were released after the election results had been announced. (FOCUS 20 pp.2-3)
In the latest in this long chain of arrest and detention, Axel Johannes was found guilty in the Ondangwa Magistrate's Court on 16 February 1979 of having contravened regulations imposed by the Administrator General prohibiting the movement of vehicles at night in "security districts" in Namibia. He had been arrested the day before while traveling in Ovamboland and detained in Oshakati. He was fined R200 (or 100 days) (WO 17.2.79; WA 19.2.79)
In December 1978, SWAPO's headquarters in Windhoek pointed out that Axel Johannes, now aged 33, had spent 7½ years of his life in detention and imprisonment.
