Four young Namibians have recently gone into exile to avoid conscription into the South African occupation army, and have declared their support for SWAPO. The four, — Hanno Rumpf, Wilfred Brock, Steve Scholz and Carsten Roelof — all of whom are white — were conscripted into the South West African Territory Force (SWATF), a wing of the South African Defence Force (SADF).
All white Namibian males are eligible for an initial two years' military service from the year they turn 18, followed by twelve years of part-time service involving on average two months a year. Although black Namibian men are in theory conscripted in the same way, this has not been fully implemented.
Conscripts resisting military service in Namibia face up to six years' imprisonment under the South African Defence Act. An amendment to the Act in 1982 provided for pacifist religious objectors to appear before a Board for Religious Objection and apply for a period of six years' 'alternative service' in a government department, in lieu of military service. However, the official SWATF guide makes no mention of this scheme, and a SWATF spokesman admitted that there is no provision for alternative service in Namibia. The spokesman, Major Fanie Krige, justified this on the grounds that 'there was no call for it'.
Faced with such severe penalties, the four resisters made it clear that they felt they had little option but to leave the country. They indicated that they intended to return to an independent Namibia and that they were committed to the struggle for freedom. Rumpf, the son of a prominent member of the right-wing National Party, wrote to his commanding officer stating: 'I refuse to do service in any army which is the instrument used by the apartheid state to suppress the rightful political, social and economic aspirations of the majority of the Namibian people. I, and thousands of others who have been forced into exile, will be back in Namibia as soon as true independence has been won'.
