The trial in Windhoek earlier this year of three captured combatants of PLAN (People's Liberation Army of Namibia) drew public attention inside Namibia to the demand for prisoner-of-war status for guerillas of the liberation movement. Internationally, the IDAF has in recent months raised the issue of the treatment of captured combatants at two United Nations forums, firstly at a seminar organised under the auspices of the United Nations Council for Namibia, and secondly in evidence to the Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
In its evidence, the IDAF drew attention to what appears to be a small but significant shift of attitude on the part of the South African military in Namibia, towards publicising the capture and detention of SWAPO guerillas and others by the SADF. In the past, as has been previously recorded in FOCUS (eg No.37 p.10), the apartheid regime has generally concealed the existence of prisoners taken in the course of its military operations, both inside Namibia, and into neighbouring states.
Since the launch of Operation Protea in August 1981, however, members of the South African and Namibian press corps have reported seeing captured PLAN combatants on a number of occasions. This seems partly to reflect a decision on the part of the regime to exploit the propaganda potential of guerilla captives; in early 1982, for example, two Namibians described by the South African authorities as former PLAN combatants, Dickson Namolo and Emmanuel Hashiko, were taken to Washington to give evidence before the United States Senate Sub-Committee on Security and Terrorism, established on the initiative of Senator Jeremiah Denton.
It would seem highly likely that the South Africans make efforts to persuade or force captured SWAPO combatants, through a combination of physical and psychological pressures, to join or at least co-operate with their own armed forces in various capacities. The immediate reason for capturing combatants alive is undoubtedly to obtain information on the policies, strategy and tactics of PLAN and the liberation movement generally. Speaking in July 1981, Maj-Gen Lloyd, the head of the SWA Territory Force, said that in the past the South African military had 'made use of' captured PLAN combatants, 'but I am not saying how'. General Constand Viljoen, Chief of the SADF, has recently confirmed that captured SWAPO members are not killed but are taken into custody.
Nevertheless, it is still the case that very little information is forthcoming on the treatment of captured combatants or where they are held. In Vienna, the UN Council for Namibia was urged by IDAF and other seminar participants to 'increase its efforts to secure the release of all the combatants of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) held by South Africa's military and other forces in Namibia, insisting on their prisoner-of-war status under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Additional Protocol I'.
