The South West Africa Territory Force (Namibia's 'independent' army) is reportedly investigating allegations of soldiers made "callous and mocking displays" of the corpses of persons shot dead during counter-insurgency operations in the Tsumeb area. A spokesman for SWA Territory Force headquarters in Windhoek said that complaints had been received via the media but that the Territory Force itself had "no knowledge of the matter".
Han Rohr, a member of the SWA National Assembly, said that he had received numerous complaints. "Prominent businessmen" had told him that soldiers had laid out three bullet-ridden bodies on the Tsumeb airfield, in front of a large group of civilians, including women and children. The dead men, allegedly SWAPO guerillas, were not covered and were dressed only in underpants.
Rohr was also told that a senior officer of the Tsumeb Commando, in reply to a question, said that the bodies would be sent to a butchery where they would be turned into polony. Soldiers and members of the public allegedly stuck cigarettes in the dead men's ears and noses, and between their toes. Further bodies were reportedly shown to a group of Tsumeb schoolchildren.
A 90-page Guide to Psychological Action issued in August 1976 by the South African Army Headquarters Directorate of Operations in Pretoria recommends "the display of deceased insurgent leaders' bodies to the population" as a way of undermining support for SWAPO.
134 school students were expelled from a school in Keetmanshoop, southern Namibia, by the Nama bantustan authorities, for taking part in a class boycott to commemorate the third anniversary of the Kassinga massacre. The Secretary of the Nama Administration stated that the students had been expelled for "breaking school rules" after they boycotted classes at the Hoerskool J. A. Nel, and left hostels to take part in a march through the Tseiblaagte township.
The students have been turned out of both the school and their hostel and will only be allowed to return conditionally next year.
In the Damara bantustan, black pupils were reported to have boycotted classes and sung freedom songs to mark the anniversary. More than 600 Namibian refugees were killed by South African troops during attacks on the Kassinga refugee settlement and other Namibian refugee transit centres in southern Angola, on 4 May 1978.
A new publication from IDAF, Remember Kassinga (IDAF Fact Paper No. 9), includes an extended interview with a 26-year-old Namibian nurse who survived the Kassinga massacre. She was taken prisoner by South African troops from a transit centre approximately 200 km to the south of Kassinga itself, and taken back with other captives into northern Namibia. She was held in detention and interrogated at the Oshakati military base for six months before being released without charge. While she was at Oshakati, a group of her fellow detainees was removed from the base to the Hardap Dam detention camp near Mariental, where they have remained up to the present time.
