SWAPO has revealed that the South African regime is engaged in a wide-ranging campaign aimed at 'breaking down the integrity and international reputation of the Namibian freedom movement', making use of propaganda disseminated by spies and apartheid agents.
At a press conference in London in February, SWAPO leaders, including Secretary for Information Hidipo Hamutenya, and Secretary for International Relations, Theo-Ben Gurirab, disclosed that after a two year investigation the liberation movement had uncovered a South African spy network of at least 100 people, reaching right up to the SWAPO Central Committee. Some of these agents had been apprehended, and videos were shown in which two men confessed to working for the South African regime and supplying it with information on SWAPO activities. They had also been instructed to assassinate SWAPO leaders, including SWAPO President Sam Nujoma.
While some of the spies had been recruited through promises of large amounts of money, many of them had been blackmailed or threatened with violence against their families. Some were forced into the service of the South African regime while in detention.
SWAPO leaders explained that the apartheid regime had infiltrated SWAPO as a result of its failure to destroy the organisation through military means, and was now engaged in a campaign to 'deglamourise' the liberation movement and destroy its respected international reputation. It was using the agents to spread disinformation about conditions in SWAPO refugee camps, to spread rumours about political splits in the organisation and to make accusations about human rights violations in the movement.
The current efforts to undermine SWAPO involve a concerted campaign utilising supporters of the apartheid regime both in Southern Africa and abroad. Families of those detained by SWAPO as a result of its investigations into the spy network have been encouraged to accuse the liberation movement of human rights violations and of misappropriating aid money. SWAPO has also been accused of running the refugee settlements in Angola and Zambia as 'concentration camps' or 'breeding camps' and abducting children to fight in its guerilla army. These accusations have been given wide publicity through professional lobbying organisations established in London, Bonn, Paris and Washington to promote the interests of the MPC administration. Subsequently, they have been actively promoted by the International Society for Human Rights which has previously distributed false information on other countries.
The allegations have been refuted by representatives from the United Nations, a television team from the Federal Republic of Germany and a representative of the Greens Party who visited the SWAPO refugee settlements at various times last year and found no evidence to support the accusations. SWAPO has made it clear that while some of the agents are 'real traitors' who 'provided information that was used for killing our people', the movement will 'not victimise those who had been misled and coerced into working as enemy agents through threats and blackmail'. A statement issued by the London office of the liberation movement declared: 'We recognise all those people as fellow Namibians and wish to rehabilitate them wherever possible. They will not to be unjustly dealt with'. On previous occasions, South African agents have been successfully rehabilitated into SWAPO.
The release by SWAPO of the details of the South African 'deglamourisation' campaign, and of the spy ring, was followed almost immediately by further accusations of 'mass incarceration, torture, killings and general terror' by a Committee of Parents established in Windhoek. Fronted by two officials of the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN), the Committee used the address of the CCN. However, the CCN General Secretary, Abisai Shejavali, repudiated the grouping, and made it clear that it did not have the sanction of the Namibian churches. One of the officials was subsequently dismissed, and the other suspended, while the Executive Committee of the CCN investigated their actions. The Parent's Committee was strongly attacked by the SWAPO Women's Council in Namibia which stated that the group was 'collaborating with South Africa because of material gains'.
On 20 February the CCN was included in a list of 'anti-government' organisations which it was proposed should be investigated in order to 'counter' them. The proposal, which was tabled by the 'Deputy Minister of Local Authorities', Lukas de Vries, also listed the Namibia Educational Forum, the Namibian National Students Organisation (NANSO), as well as SWAPO and its Youth League. De Vries accused the CCN of being a 'financial front' for SWAPO and a 'depot for inflammatory literature from South Africa as part of an attempt to import the Republic's unrest'.
The CCN reacted strongly to the threat of investigation, saying that it was 'totally and irrevocably opposed to motions introduced in the 'National Assembly' that call for 'investigations of' and 'measures to be applied to counter the Council of Churches'. It saw the proposed investigation as 'an attempt to silence the church and prevent peace-loving people from speaking the truth'.
At the end of January the CCN offices in Windhoek were largely destroyed in an arson attack. Church workers reported that petrol had been used to set the offices alight following a break-in. Files had also been disturbed. The CCN labelled the attack 'an act of sabotage', but the police suggested it could have been the result of 'spontaneous combustion'. The attack was condemned by the World Council of Churches and the South African Council of Churches (SACC). The General Secretary of the SACC, Beyers Naude, stated: 'Namibia has become notorious for similar actions in the past to destroy property and equipment of church bodies who were supporting the people in the struggle for liberation'. A month after the attack, the Windhoek city engineer notified the CCN that it was prohibited from re-opening the offices as they were situated in a residential area. A number of companies and other agencies have offices in the same area, but have not been told to close down.
In another attack on church property, the generator room of the Oshigambo Lutheran High School was destroyed by a bomb blast on the night of 18 January. The South African authorities blamed SWAPO guerillas, but the head of the church, Bishop Kleopas Dumeni, dismissed this claim, saying that he suspected members of the South African Defence Force (SADF) from the nearby Oshigambo army base of being responsible.
In the week before the explosion, an SADF soldier had entered the school premises at night and asked builders at what time the generators were switched off. The day before the sabotage, two other soldiers arrived and asked the same question of the engineer. Two SADF mortar bombs were found near the generating room after the blast.
