A Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has been set up, for a period of one year, by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It held its first session from 9 to 13 June 1980, and is 'examining questions relevant to enforced or involuntary disappearances of persons' in a number of countries.
Cases of mysterious disappearance have become common in Namibia, especially in the north. Evidence suggests that these fall into a number of categories.
People who have 'disappeared' may have decided to go into exile and/or undergo guerilla training. They may not tell their relatives for fear of reprisals against the latter by the authorities, and may later reappear in a refugee camp in Angola or Zambia, or as part of SWAPO's guerilla force.
However, in addition to these voluntary 'disappearances' there have been frequent reports of people disappearing as a result of police or army action.
These fall into those who are arrested and detained incommunicado, and people who have been shot or otherwise killed in curfew or free-fire zones in the operational areas. While detailed evidence is often scarce, the case of three missing husbands, which was the subject of a court case last October, illustrates the gravity of the situation and the distress and anguish caused to relatives.
SWAPO has periodically attempted to compile lists of people who had been described as 'missing' but had in fact been arrested. A SWAPO member responsible for compiling lists in northern Namibia described one case in a letter in 1977:
One woman told us that soldiers went to her home and took her husband to their camp. The soldiers laughed and said to her, 'Didn't your husband go home? We sent him yesterday'. When the woman was leaving the camp, a black worker there told her that he had seen the South African soldiers kill her husband the previous night, wind his body in socks soaked in petrol and burn it.
This is not the only story like this here. There are a lot of stories like this. These things are happening here every day.
In a letter to the Windhoek Observer, a certain Penda Onitsha described the situation in the north:
... people are being thrown into prison and held there incommunicado. People are being taken from their homes in a stealthy manner during the night, on the grounds that they are suspected of having helped SWAPO guerillas.
Their relatives are informed that SWAPO abducted their kin. Many were never heard of after their detention.
South African armed forces have captured and abducted an unknown number of Namibians and Angolans during raids into neighbouring Angola and Zambia. These have in many cases never been subsequently traced. For instance, during an attack on the hamlet of Chiede in Cunene Province on 12 May 1980, South African troops reportedly took away 'countless families', and on 21 May during an attack on Savate in Cuando Cubango province, a large number of people were reported kidnapped.
The most prominent case of enforced 'disappearances' is that of the Kassinga detainees. Until May 1980 South Africa categorically denied that some 127 persons, who were kidnapped during a raid by South African paratroops on Kassinga refugee camp in Angola during May 1978, were being held in detention. There had been persistent reports of ill-treatment and mutilation of the detainees. The former Administrator General of Namibia, Gerrit Viljoen, rejected a SWAPO statement listing the names of the prisoners as 'mere propaganda'. However, on 8 June 1980, officials from the International Red Cross visited a secret military camp in southern Angola where 118 SWAPO members were found to be being held.
While the Red Cross officials gave no further details, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in a letter to the SA Minister of Foreign Affairs, alleged that the Kassinga detainees were being held in inhumane conditions, and had been ill-treated and tortured.
The treatment of the Kassinga detainees is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions relating to captured prisoners of war.
As an example from inside Namibia, three persons were reportedly kidnapped at night from their homes by South African secret police and have not been seen or heard of since May 1980. They are Wilho MATEUS, Aaron IPINGE, and Festus KADHIKWA of Luderitz Bay. The latter two have been reported detained.
