IDA JIMMY (35), a SWAPO member, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in October 1980 on charges under the Riotous Assemblies Act and Section 3 of the Terrorism Act. She is the only woman Namibian political prisoner currently known to be serving a prison sentence.
Jimmy, a resident of Luderitz, was arrested after making a speech at a public SWAPO rally in Luderitz on Sunday 13 July 1980. The charges brought against her were that, in her speech, she "incited, provoked or commanded another person, or persons directly or indirectly to assist terrorists". Extracts from her speech read as follows:
> "My address is on the occurrences in northern Namibia during the past months from May to June, regarding the propaganda put out by the South Africans and their concealment of the true facts. When we speak of northern Namibia we get cold chills down our spines because we know what the South African government did in the north."
She went on to describe an incident in May 1980 in which the South African Defence Force claimed to have suffered four casualties in a clash with SWAPO guerillas.
> "They only named four, but the ambulances travelled back and forth 18 times that morning. Now if there were only four corpses why did the ambulances travel to and from Ukwanjama and Oshakati 18 times that morning? What was the reason and where are the other bodies?"
She referred to other incidents in which the SADF allegedly concealed their own casualties or presented the corpses of black members of the South African armed forces as those of SWAPO combatants.
She alleged that on 27 May 1980, "the SADF started shooting, after the freedom fighters had finished. They started shooting in the bushes without warning the people occupying that land. This is how the SADF shoot innocent people who are looking after their cattle, and turn around and say that it is the work of the SWAPO terrorists."... "The SADF which is protecting people in northern Namibia does not care about sick patients. Neither about old people. They intimidate those people and torture them until they are mad".
Jimmy also referred to claims by the South African government that SWAPO's military capability had been destroyed following the interception of a shipment of ammunition. But, "the masses of SWAPO do not depend on ammunition. From 1966, SWAPO of Namibia fought without any ammunition, without any lorries. The freedom fighters of SWAPO do not fight with lorries. They walk with their feet from Angola to Namibia."
> "Here in Luderitz we are always told not to accept the freedom fighters. As the boers say, 'terrorists'.... So called terrorists must not be given food. Or if you give a terrorist a sleeping place then you must suffer for that action.
> "There is no terrorist. A thing like a terrorist does not exist. These are our sons that leave the country. I will give you an example. If my son David leaves the country and he returns, must I reject him? Must I just look at him and say, 'You were in Angola. Go back, you can't come into my house?' What must I do, because he is my child."
"So fellow comrades, South Africa is playing with the mass of the Namibian people. So give the freedom fighters food. Give them sleeping places so that they can go forward and carry out their tasks. They are not terrorists, they are your children. They do not come to murder you, but to save you from the oppression of the South African boer regime."
Jimmy also referred to a security policeman stationed in Luderitz named Blaauw, who with his colleagues had arrested a number of young girls and interrogated them about SWAPO, "These young girls have had a tough time under the South African regime. Last month they locked [one] up, knocked and bumped her head against the wall to force her speak about SWAPO and what SWAPO is. Why don't they come to us? SWAPO is not something separate. It is not Thomas, it is not Miriam, it is the masses of Namibia. SWAPO of Namibia, the leader of our people, will exist in Namibia and will fight until the last boer hands over his farm and sheds his blood here in Namibia."
In a signed declaration taken by the police in Luderitz and dated 28 July 1981, Ida Jimmy stated:
> "I, Ida Jimmy, do not deny that I appeared as a speaker during a public meeting of SWAPO on Sunday 13 July 1980. I am conscious of what I said. I know that I said that freedom fighters were their children and that they must give the freedom fighters food and water. I said these things during the SWAPO meeting on 13 July 1980 in the Luderitz black township when I appeared as a speaker. I make this statement in Afrikaans because Afrikaans is my home language. My father is a Coloured and that is why our home language is Afrikaans. This is all that I am prepared to say."
