namibia PRISONERS AND DETAINEES ROBBEN ISLAND RELEASES Four SWAPO members serving sentences on Robben Island were transferred to Windhoek Central Prison in October 1981 pending their release after completion of their sentences. Three of the prisoners, Jeremiah EKANDJO, Martin Mwula KAPAWASHA and Jacob Shinkiku INDI-NUA (Nghiduna) were tried at Swakopmund in November. 1973 on charges under the Sabotage Act. They had been arrested in connection with a SWAPO rally held in Katutura on 12 August 1973 and accused of inciting or encouraging people at the rally to take up arms. On the first day of the trial, Ekandjo, then chairman of the Windhoek branch of the SWAPO youth league, challenged the court's right to try the case. In an address to the Judge President he said: 'We don't recognize the punishment we get from this court. If we are sent to Robben Island like the people already there, it does not matter how many years we get'. The three were sentenced to eight years imprisonment each.
Jerry Ekandjo was one of four members included in the SWAPO delegation to the Pre-Implementation Conference in Geneva in January 1981, but who were absent because of their imprisonment on Robben Island. The South African government had refused a demand from SWAPO that they be released to enable them to attend the conference (FOCUS 33 p.8).
Risto NAKANYALA, the fourth SWAPO member to be transferred from Robben Island to Windhoek prison in October, was detained in December 1975 and charged in May 1976 in Windhoek under the Terrorism Act. He was accused of involvement in the murders of four whites and a black police sergeant, and was sentenced to five years imprisonment in October 1976 (FOCUS 5 p.7, 6 p.4, 8 p.15). He is believed to have been released from Windhoek prison.
(A list of names and biographical details of Namibian convicted political prisoners is included in Remember Kassinga – and other papers on political prisoners and detainees in Namibia, IDAF Fact Paper No. 9, 1981).
RESISTANCE TO OFFICIAL CENSUS At least 20 people are reported to have been prosecuted for refusing to fill in census forms. The South African government began a population census — the first to be held in Namibia for eleven years — on 24 August 1981 (FOCUS 35 p.10). The census forms listed Namibia's population as divided into 11 ethnic groups and 69 tribes or sub-divisions. Whites, who come from German, Afrikaans, English and Portuguese-speaking backgrounds, were classified as one group.
There are reported to be some 70,000 Angolan refugees in the Ovambo and Kavango bantustans who will presumably be included in the census. (RDM 25.8.81). More than 73,000 Namibians have fled into exile, the majority of them being in refugee settlements in Angola and Zambia (FOCUS 36 p.4).
Of the 20 people who refused to fill in the census forms, at least 14 were reported to have been imprisoned for six months, after refusing to pay a fine of R300. Resistance to the census has been strong in the rural area of Hochanas in the Mariental district, south of Windhoek. According to newspaper reports, there was said to be widespread sup- port for SWAPO in the area (ST 4.10.81). According to the chief census enumerator, some of those who refused said it was because the government had promised them much but given them nothing (WA 24.9.81).
In its 1970 census, the South African government gave the total population of Namibia as 761,562. This was believed by a number of experts to be a much lower figure than the actual population of Namibia, which they estimated in 1977 at around 1.5 million (see The Workers of Namibia, IDAF, 1979, 9).
DETAINEES DISAPPEAR Families of people detained under laws allowing detention without trial (Proclamations AG9 and AG26) are rarely informed by police that their relative has been taken into custody, and suffer great anguish as a result. Following interviews published in the Windhoek Observer in September 1981 with relatives of detainees, the same newspaper gave further details of how families are left in ignorance when someone is arrested, and as a result often find themselves suddenly destitute.
Referring to a spate of arrests in Windhoek and Tsumeb (FOCUS 37 p.11), the paper noted that none of the families were informed. One woman interviewed said when her husband was detained by the Security Police, she could not find out any details about his place of detention. She contacted several police stations and was told in one case that her husband was dead, and in another case that he was being held, but not in Windhoek. Since she relied on the money provided by her husband to support her children, she suddenly faced an indefinite period without a breadwinner. The article also noted that once people were released from detention they invariably lost their job, particularly if they were associated with SWAPO (WO 26.9.81).
In a number of cases detainees have disappeared without trace and all efforts by relatives to obtain information about them have failed. The cases of such people received wider international attention during 1981. For example, an investigation was conducted by the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, to which IDAF submitted a number of cases (FOCUS 32 p.3).
There have been regular reports by the Angolan government of civilians and soldiers being captured by the South African army during attacks on Angola, and an unknown number have disappeared (see FOCUS Special issue No. 2 April 1981, p.4). During Operation Protea in August 1981, South Africa admitted to having taken 38 prisoners, but the Angolan government believed that many more had been forcibly abducted (FOCUS 37 p.10).
PRISONERS OF WAR In October 1981, South Africa admitted to holding 79 Angolan prisoners who were captured during Operation Protea. Ten of the prisoners were seriously wounded, according to a report issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on 13 October. Representatives of the ICRC visited the ten who were reported to be under medical treatment in the north of the territory. A Red Cross team also visited the 69 other prisoners in the south of Namibia (RDM 14.10.81).
Fifteen Angolans were reported to have been captured in northern Ovamboland by members of the security forces during the first week of October. According to South African radio reports, they were members of FAPLA, the Angolan armed forces. The radio report claimed that they had crossed the border into Namibia in search of food. An SADF officer said that large numbers of civilians were crossing the border into Ovamboland. They would be investigated and depending on the results, they would either be resettled in Ovambo or detained (WA 9.11.81).
A SWAPO member who had tried to escape from the prisoner of war camp in Mariental – where the Kassinga detainees are held – was seen several times by a five person Red Cross mission in Windhoek in early November. The prisoner, whose name was not given, had been shot in the leg during his escape. Nine detainees held in the camp near Hardap Dam had escaped from custody in December 1980. Eight were recaptured, and it is unclear whether the ninth was also apprehended (FOCUS 33 p.9).
