Despite criticism by, among others, representatives of the British Council of Churches who visited Namibia in November 1981, it is apparent that the South African forces in Namibia are continuing to mount public displays of the corpses of war casualties, for propaganda and other reasons.
In Kaokoland, north western Namibia, where guerilla incidents are described as having 'sky-rocketed' since the beginning of this year, guerillas killed in engagements are displayed at the police camp outside the regional capital of Opuwo. A police source claimed that this had been done 'because the local population requested it', 'so as to make the war more real'. It was further alleged that, since the guerillas concerned came from a different tribe from that of local people, 'emotions could not be agitated by the practice'. No one was forced to look at the bodies, since the police camp was out of town.
Several guerillas shot in police counter-insurgency operations in the mountains south east of Opuwo at the beginning of April, were displayed at the camp over three consecutive days.
According to the press, the South African army in Opuwo decided some time ago to stop the practice of taking guerilla corpses around the town, as it had proved to be damaging to public relations.
The display of corpses is also found in the Ovambo and Kavango regions further east. The BCC delegation concluded that the security force practice of dragging the bodies of those killed in combat through the villages, tied to their vehicles, was not only deeply offensive to the Ovambo people, but totally counter-productive. The bodies of the young men concerned were exhibited to their parents and to young children in school.
According to a letter published in the Windhoek Observer, a similar incident occurred in Rundu, the capital of Kavango, on 14 December 1981. South African troops went on a drinking and shopping spree around the town, with a corpse tied to the side of their army truck. The Officer Commanding HQ Sector 20 of the South African Army, based in Rundu, subsequently denied in a letter to the newspaper that any army personnel had been involved in the incident. He claimed that the guerilla concerned had been shot and killed on 14 December by 'a non-army organisation which is in no way tied up with the South African Defence Force and the Territorial Force of South West Africa'. The practice had been stopped, he said, after a report had been received at the local army headquarters.
The officer did not reveal the identity of the security force unit involved; it could possibly have been a police unit.
