Instances of police and military harassment of black workers are frequently reported in the local press, sometimes in the form of letters from those affected. Much of this activity, which has been a particular feature of conditions at the large municipal hostel and workers' 'single quarters' on Katutura, outside Windhoek, would appear to be intended to crush clandestine support for SWAPO's armed struggle and to root out suspected guerilla fighters and sympathisers.
Conditions at the 'single men's' hostels and compounds for contract workers are spartan in the extreme and have often been criticised by visitors to Namibia and other observers.
Hostel accommodation is provided by the mining companies and other large employers or, in Windhoek and other towns, by the municipal authorities.
In Katutura, a new hostel for 5,200 contract workers was opened in 1978, replacing the notorious old hostel which had been the focus of the 1971-72 general strike. While the quality of the material surroundings and facilities have undergone some improvement the essential features of the old system remain.
Elsewhere the harsh conditions of the hostel system continue to be found. In August 1981, for example, a reporter for the Windhoek Observer who visited the municipal compound for contract workers in Otjiwarongo described the interior thus:
'There can't be a place of residence in the world as filthy, as smelly and as revolting as that hovel.'
Excreta swims on the floors of the choked toilets, blocked and not functioning; from the open cooking places in the courtyard a stench emanates from the half decomposed heads of cows and other offal which seemed to be the staple dish at that place.
In the dormitories the men sleep on cement beds, the mattress is a broad piece of planed wood, the 'wardrobes' are cement-encased narrow structures...
Here you can have a radio but whatever you have can never be shared in privacy. You cannot even find a place to sit down and write your wife or girlfriend a letter. There is a dusty soccerfield nearby. There is an oppressive atmosphere of dust, stench, dilapidated surroundings, choked toilets, rubbish, dirt, litter'.
The newspaper subsequently pointed out that conditions at the compounds in Grootfontein, Walvis Bay, Tsumeb, Keetmanshoop and the rest of Namibia were comparable to those at Otjiwarongo.
