The Commissioner of Police in Namibia confirmed in November that two men arrested in the Kavango region had died within hours of being detained for questioning about the activities of SWAPO guerillas. It appears that the men were being held and interrogated by the special police counter-insurgency unit, Koevoet.
The news of these latest deaths in detention was received within hours of the announcement by the South African Minister of Law and Order of a new code of conduct for the police, ostensibly to protect detainees from torture and assault. The two men who died were Jonah HAMUKWAYA (32), a teacher at Namuntuntu primary school in the village of Mbambi in Kavango who had been arrested 'in connection with information received', and Kadumu KATANGA, from Kakoro village who had allegedly confessed to being a SWAPO guerilla. They were picked up as part of a spate of detentions of alleged SWAPO sympathisers in the border region, in which Koevoet was reported to have played a prominent role, coinciding with a drive against guerillas by the army.
According to the Chief of Police, General Gouws, Hamukwaya died immediately after he was picked up and taken to a cell at Nkurenkuru, a village near Mbambi. There was no explanation, however, why his body was taken, without permission of his family and apparently in a great hurry, to Rundu, a town several hundred kilometres away.
A relative who saw Hamukwaya's body at the mortuary in Rundu state hospital said there were scratchmarks on his neck, and his shirt was stained with mud. Press reports cited 'strong rumours' that Hamukwaya was strangled and then killed by his interrogators.
The first arrests were reported from western Kavango at the beginning of November 1982. A spokesman for the SWA Territory Force said that a number of people had been 'picked up at random' in the villages of Nkurenkuru and Rupara, and Rundu itself, along the Angolan border. They included prominent businessmen, teachers and clerks. All were being held in terms of security proclamation AG9 and would be released 'depending on the outcome of the interrogations'. The SWATF spokesman added that the detentions were 'a routine investigation and not a mass arrest'.
One of those arrested was Cosmos Kalat MAKANGA, a Rundu businessman and a member of the Namibia Christian Democratic Party (NCDP) and of the Kavango Legislative Assembly. According to the leader of the NCDP, Hans Rohr, Makanga's wife was told by the soldiers who came to arrest him to 'say goodbye' to her husband as 'she would not see him again'.
Rohr told a press conference that Makanga had been arrested at his home at Mashare, 45 km east of Rundu, by 10 soldiers who arrived in a Buffel armoured vehicle to search the premises. He was taken away with a sack over his head after being questioned about his political leanings, and his wife was told by one soldier that 'he is a SWAPO man'.
It was ironic, Rohr said, that earlier that week Makanga had praised the army for the improvement of affairs in Kavango. He went on to allege that the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) had a list of people in Kavango, whom they wished to 'eliminate', which included Makanga's name.
Makanga was in fact a member of the joint security committee in Rundu, comprised of security force commanders and members of the Kavango Legislative Assembly. Members of the ruling DTA serving on the committee had earlier in the year called for 'the summary shooting of all SWAPO sympathisers and members in Kavango, and the detention of their families'. As a member of the NCDP, Makanga had been associated with an NCDP initiative to launch an official army commission of inquiry into alleged atrocities against local inhabitants of Kavango.
Others detained under AG9 on 4 November included Thomas TJEKANA (THEJKENE), arrested from his house on the grounds that he had no identity document; Immanuel SILAS (45), a businessman of Nkurenkuru; Pastor Asser LIHONGO (50), of Rupara; Remigius SIYAVE (30), a paymaster at the offices of the Government of Kavango (second-tier authority) in Rundu; Malakia MUREMI (30), a driver at the Department of Works in Rundu; Jesaya MBANZE (27), of Nzinzegoro village; Simon KANDERE (65), a former constable and now a labourer at the Kavango Government offices in Rundu; Abel SIMUKETHA (59), a businessman of Insu village; Jaakko KANGAJI (30); a teacher of Nkurenkuru; and Johannes MUSONGO (30), a storeman at the Rundu State Hospital.
Cosmos Makanga was reported to have been released after two weeks in detention, together with two others held under AG9 from the 4 November arrests. Twelve others were believed to be still in detention in Rundu.
Further arrests were reported in the middle of the month, including the two who subsequently died in detention. Other known names include Frans MAYIRA, a teacher from Shamatjira, who is believed to have been seriously beaten following his arrest; Rufus MPASI (38), a driver for the Department of Forestry at Rundu; Josef KAMBURU, a teacher at Sambiu; Michael MUHOYA (40), also a teacher at Sambiu; Alex SIREMO (38), a teacher of Karo village, Pastor Hesron NGHIHINDIRUA (29) of the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambokavango Church at Mpungu, and Kleopas SYAMBA, a teacher from Nkutu village.
The Chief of Police denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of another man reported arrested. Gerhard KASAMA (20), a student at the Academy for Tertiary Education in Windhoek, was reportedly assaulted and taken away by members of Koevoet after his return to his home village, Simanja, in Kavango, on 18 November 1982.
