The South African government's decision to extend compulsory military service to Namibians of all races has created new and possibly unforeseen security problems for the South African military authorities. Now that conscription applies to both black and white Namibian males, it has inevitably led to supporters of the national liberation movement SWAPO being drafted into the South West Africa Territory Force (SWATF) or other South African armed units ranged on the opposing side to the guerillas of PLAN (People's Liberation Army of Namibia). Special arrangements have now been devised by the South African army to accommodate conscripts known to be SWAPO members and, presumably, to minimise the security risk which they undoubtedly present to the military establishment.
The SWATF's dilemma in this matter was first raised publicly in the SWA National Assembly in June, when a member of the white Opposition Herstigte Nasionale Party asked the Ministers' Council whether black conscripts were first screened to establish whether they had links with "terrorist groups". Dirk Mudge, Chairman of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) stated in reply that no attempt was made either before or during military training to ascertain the "political attitudes" of national servicemen, on the grounds that such enquiries would impinge on the "democratic freedom and rights" of the individuals concerned. He added however, that the "necessary measures" to maintain national security, details of which could not be revealed, were being applied.
Several parents of national servicemen had previously alleged that their sons had been singled out during junior leadership training at the Okahandja Military School on the grounds of their sympathies with the liberation struggle. The parents stated in a memorandum to the SWA Administrator General that their sons had been disarmed, suspended from training and sent to the operational area for "reorientation".
A SWATF spokesman subsequently confirmed that 18 out of a group of 28 trainees at the Okahandja Military School had been sent to other units in the operational area after being found "unsuitable" and showing "the wrong attitude" to leadership training. They had been separated from the rest because they had begun to "influence the other trainees". The remaining 10 trainees had been warned to improve their performance or they too would be removed from the course. The spokesman admitted that members of the group had been sent home to fetch their SWAPO membership cards, to ensure that "they were not claiming SWAPO membership in the mistaken belief that they would be discharged from the army". A further 30 to 40 trainees were also proving "unsuitable" for the second phase of leadership training and might have to be posted to other mustering.
In a tacit admission of the extreme popularity of conscription among Namibia's black population, the spokesman explained that as a general rule, the SWATF could not release servicemen claiming SWAPO membership because this could lead to many more trainees using this as grounds to avoid conscription.
A policy decision has since been announced by the Officer Commanding SWATF, Major-General Charles Lloyd. He stated in Windhoek in July that SWAPO supporters who were conscripted would not face armed SWAPO insurgents in battle situations in Namibia's northern borders. They would instead be treated as conscientious objectors and employed in non-fighting capacities. "They will not be placed in a position where they will have to defend themselves against the enemy", the General said. "They will no longer receive training in the use of weapons, but will be employed in warehouses and as clerks".
The first white conscientious objector conscripted into the SWATF was given non-military duties at the Okahandja leadership training school in June, having objected to military service on religious grounds.
The fear that SWAPO supporters who are conscripted may simply be used as "cannon-fodder" has been more explicitly voiced by SWAPO. The magazine of the liberation movement's armed wing has reported that boarding schools are being constructed at Okahandja and, it is believed, other South African military bases in Namibia, to accommodate school students and thereby prevent them from evading conscription and/or leaving the country to join SWAPO. According to SWAPO, the South African army's intention is to train such students so that they can be used as a "shield" in the event of guerilla attacks on the military bases, thereby creating "favourable conditions for accusing SWAPO of killing civilians". The schools are also intended to prevent students from coming into contact with PLAN combatants and supplying information to them.
Officially, conscription has not as yet been extended to residents of Namibia's northern 'homelands' of Caprivi, Kavango and Ovambo. In practice, however, other methods appear to be in use to obtain recruits from these areas. The South African armed forces maintain control over school students through the deployment of white national servicemen as teachers, for example, as well as more recent developments such as the relocation of schools reported by The Combatant. In the labour field, according to the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), contract workers from northern Namibia are now being required to sign undertakings that they will serve nine months in the South African armed forces, as a condition for obtaining employment.
According to a spokesman for Defence Headquarters in Windhoek, locally-recruited Namibians now constitute about one-fifth of all the soldiers in Namibia. In the northern war zones however, the Namibian component is "much higher".
Opposition to conscription has united a wide spectrum of political groups and opinions, all ranged against the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA).
Parents of 30 young Namibians, detained after having identified themselves as members of SWAPO during their basic military training, organised a demonstration in Katutura, the black township outside Windhoek, in early July. A Peoples' Action Committee bringing together a range of groups had earlier been formed to mobilise people against forced conscription. Nearly 1000 people attended the inaugural rally, and at the end of a three-hour meeting passed resolutions rejecting compulsory military service and calling for an immediate end to it. The meeting also rejected the National Assembly and the laws made by this body.
Parents of the conscripts organised the demonstration after unsuccessfully protesting to the Administrator General, the leader of the DTA, the General Commanding the South African Defence Force and SWATF, and to officials at the Okahandja military camp where the young men were being trained. The parents called for further protests and demonstrations until the law providing for compulsory military service is repealed.
