Complaints about atrocities and intimidation carried out by the Ovambo Home Guards, which substantiate earlier reports from church sources, have appeared in the Namibian press. According to one report, Home Guards burned down the house of Mrs Hileni NAMALAMBO in Ukwamibi, Ovamboland, after having chased the occupants from the house. Mrs Namalambo is the mother of Axel JOHANNES, SWAPO Administrative Secretary who has been in detention since April 1979. Local residents told the reporter that this kind of intimidation is the order of the day in Ovamboland.
In a letter to the Windhoek Observer, a reader complained that "it has become habitual for the Home Guards of the Ovamboland government to break into peoples' houses. They do whatever they feel like and they cause destruction to private property. Here it is well known that most of the Home Guards are soldiers who defected from Dr Jonas Savimbi in Angola. They treat our people in an inhuman manner, beating and raping women".
The correspondent relates how on 18 January two women, on their way back from a wedding ceremony, were forced by Home Guards to accompany them to the house of the late Mr Shikongo and were raped at gunpoint. Whey they reported the matter to the local chief, they were told to go to the police at Oshakati. No action was taken against the offenders.
Another reader complained about the behaviour of the security police at a SWAPO rally held in Bethanie on 14 January 1980. Apparently, after failing to organise a boycott of the meeting, the speakers at the rally were verbally abused by the security official, and the organiser threatened with arrest under AG26.
