Evidence mounted during December 1981 and January 1982 that detainees were being tortured by the South African security forces in both South Africa and Namibia, on a scale even greater than previously. Protests by organisations concerned with the welfare of detainees, and court actions have underlined the seriousness of the situation. They have emphasised the extensive powers which the security forces have to hold people without trial and to withhold information about detainees from their families or the public. The apparent increase in the incidence and the severity of torture occurred in the context of a general increase in repression and an intensification of the war in Namibia.
The torture of detainees in South Africa is being carried out by the Security Police. Details of the evidence of what is happening are given in the section on Detentions in this issue.
Intense security police activity in the form of detentions began at the end of May 1981 and was still continuing in January 1982. The scale of the operation was masked to some extent by the slower pace with which it was carried out compared with earlier large-scale repressive operations. Between the last week of May 1982 and the end of December 1981 at least 500 people were detained under various security laws in South Africa. Details of the pattern of detentions given on p. 7 of this issue: trade unionists, people active in youth organisations, and people active in the propagation of information and ideas, and church workers have been amongst the principal people affected. They include several people in the campaign against the Republican Day celebrations and against the South African Indian Council election as well as opponents of the bantustan authorities.
The operation by the security police began with the ending of the Anti-Republic Day campaign, and followed statements by the regime indicating that a major clamp-down was being considered. Early in January 1981, the Minister of Defence claimed that 'front organisations' were being used by the ANC to promote labour unrest. In May, the Minister of Police said that the regime was threatened not only by the armed actions of the liberation movement, but also by the propagation of ideas through which 'the foundations of the republic were being undermined'.
In the context of such statements it is clear that the security operation involving the detention of so many people, and the apparently extensive use of torture, is a response to the rising level of popular resistance to apartheid and activity by workers during 1980 and 1981.
In Namibia, detention and torture are carried out both by the South African army and police, and by the various tribal military and paramilitary forces created by South Africa. During 1981 there was a marked increase in the number of reports of violent incidents involving police and army actions against civilians. These have included numerous arbitrary arrests and maltreatment of individuals suspected of supporting the liberation movement, SWAPO.
Previous issues of FOCUS have reported evidence of torture suffered by SWAPO leaders and members in detention. The intensification of the war and the increased South African military presence have led to a more widespread use of torture, which seems to be applied as a routine matter on anyone picked up by the security forces. The general pattern that has emerged in recent months is of people being picked up by police or army, taken to a police station or military camp, and tortured while under interrogation. In virtually all reported cases, they are accused of giving food or shelter to SWAPO guerillas. In many instances, as shown in the section on torture in this issue, the security forces have no evidence or base their evidence on the reports of informers or on 'admissions' extracted under torture from other detainees.
The leader of Namibias largest church, Bishop Cleopas Dumeni of the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambo Kavango Church, described the situation in the northern region of the country: 'Reports of violence and violent incidents have become the order of the day. Almost every day we do hear of violence and have even seen it ourselves.' Of the SADF he said: 'The worst part of the bush war is that besides the heavy toll in the loss of lives, mainly civilians, it also goes hand in hand with the destruction of personal property, food included, of the civilian population at the hand of mainly the SADF.'
In this situation, torture has evidently become part of a wider framework of violence and repression used by the illegal regime to entrench itself in the face of popular hostility.
