PRISON LABOUR MURDER CASE
The partly decomposed body of Kasere Thomas, aged 20, was found on a white farm in the Tsumeb region in April. Thomas, a prisoner on parole, had been handed over to a white farmer to work on the farm as a labourer. According to reports, he was tied to a tree for two days and attacked with a steel crowbar and other weapons which were later recovered by the police. The farmer, another white man and a black man who was also doing forced prison labour on the farm, were arrested. The two white men were subsequently released on bail.
RAIDS ON KATUTURA
Tension in Katutura mounted during June and July as a result of a number of incidents involving Police Special Constables. Several people were reported to have been killed. This follows incidents during May, when Special Constables attacked Katutura residents.
In a pre-dawn raid on the Ovambo workers compound in June, armed policemen stationed at the compound, assisted by municipal officials and Ovambo home guards, surrounded the area and forced thousands of workers to leave their beds and pass through the entry gates for identification checks. Residents were ordered to leave their doors unlocked and searches were carried out for 'illegal residents'. Two police vans loaded with workers left the compound; according to a police spokesman, 25 people had been arrested and would be charged with trespassing. According to one of the compound residents, the police were 'more abusive than usual' during the raid.
Three people were reported to have been killed, and twelve seriously injured, during an incident at the Ovambo single quarters in Katutura on 6 June. According to a spokesman for the residents at the single quarters, the killings and assaults had been carried out by Special Police Constables. No further details were made available.
Tension between the police and residents at the Katutura single quarters flared up again in July, causing panic among hundreds of men, women and children in the section. The immediate cause of the disturbances remained unclear, but was reported to involve home guards housed in a section of the single quarters complex and civilian residents. The presence of home guards and special constables in Katutura has caused bitter resentment among the workers and their families living there. The home guards complex is a fenced off area in the single quarters, with a South African flag flying on a tall pole. It has the appearance of a police station.
According to a police report, the incident was sparked off by a clash between a home guard and a group of male residents. The home guard fetched a rifle and returned with other home guards to confront the civilians. Police fired shots in the air as a deterrent, but no-one was hurt. Residents gave other reasons for the clash. According to one report, the home guards were trying deliberately to create discord between the different ethnic groups living in the complex.
TSUMEB MINERS DETAINED
Six employees of the Tsumeb copper mine, who were amongst 46 detained by the South African police on 2 February, have died in detention, according to one of the detainees who escaped. Theophagus Johannes described the arrest and subsequent events in an interview with The Combatant.
The miners were arrested on returning from work by police asking for their identity documents, which they had left at the mine. They were taken to Tsumeb police station for interrogation, and forced to agree that they were 'SWAPO terrorists' since they were not carrying identity documents. They were given no food and, after four days, no water either. They were forced to work daily in the prison garden. Six of the detainees died as a result of being deprived of nourishment. Johannes managed to escape through a small window accidentally left open, and reached Angola with the help of local inhabitants. There has been no news of the remaining detainees.
ROSSING'S PRIVATE ARMY
The chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc, which manages and jointly owns the Rossing uranium mine, admitted in a letter that the company maintains a private army in its Namibian subsidiary. Presented by the Namibia Support Committee, a London-based solidarity organisation, with a leaked secret internal Rossing memorandum, Sir Anthony Tuke confirmed its validity. The document contains details of the arms stored at the mine, and of arrangements made for the deployment of the mine's military personnel in the instance of any attack.
According to the document, the mine management maintains three separate security units: Rossing Security Department, consisting of 15 men; the Security Department Auxiliary unit, consisting of 30 men; and the Swakopmunch Commando with 24 men. Armaments held at the mine include automatic rifles, 9 mm pistols, semi-automatic shotguns and tear gas.
While the RTZ chairman claimed that these arrangements were for the protection of employees, such provisions could no doubt also be used in the case of any organised labour activities by the workers at the mine. While two of the units recruit from among Rossing employees, the third is, according to Sir Anthony, a 'local citizens' vigilante group'.
