Mokganedi Thlabanello, Publicity & Information Secretary Daniel Tjongarero, Vice-Chairman Jason Angela, Secretary for Labour Emmanuel Ngajizeko, deputy Administrative Secretary Rev. B.J. Karuaera
Mr. Thlabanello and Mr. Tjongarero were out of Namibia on overseas missions at the time of the arrests.
In a statement issued in Windhoek on 30 April, SWAPO's deputy Publicity and Information Secretary Mr. Philip Tjerije, said that "if SA thinks that it will destroy SWAPO by detaining SWAPO leaders and members, it is completely mistaken. You can detain people, but not the ideas embodied by SWAPO". A week later, a rally of SWAPO supporters, reported by SWAPO to be the largest ever held in the capital, took place in Windhoek. The speaker addressing the crowd was arrested on the platform and attempts were made by the police to break up the rally by firing into the air.
Axel Johannes, asked while on a brief visit to London in March 1979 why, in view of his long history of detention and torture, he was nevertheless planning to return to Namibia, replied:
> When I am in gaol I think I am going to leave the country as soon as I am released, I can't carry on like this. But as soon as I come out there is the support of the people and I forget everything. I can't believe it myself really.
One day in 1975 I nearly became mad. I went 14 days and nights without sleep. I think it must be a record. At one stage I started fighting the police — I couldn't do it otherwise because sometimes we were being tortured, assaulted, just as they like to do with you.
So on the day I was released I said, "No more — I must leave this country. I can't carry on like this". But I didn!
This was in 1975. It's always like this. People come to greet me. Then, sometimes on the very same day, we organise a public meeting. When I'm on the stage and I see the crowd — a very big crowd — I can't leave. People are always surprised. They say, "all the other people have left the country, why not you?"
The mass arrests at the end of April are believed to have been preceded by an extensive military call-up of South African troops for Namibia. There have been indications of a reinforcement of SA's military presence in the territory prior to the extension of martial law on 10 May. At the end of March, the authorities announced that a "number of suspects" had been arrested in the Ondongwa and Kwanjama areas of Ovamboland in the course of counter-insurgency operations.
