After five months of continuing school boycotts in Namibia, the authorities stepped up repression in August. Meetings were violently dispersed, scores of students detained and others brought to trial. Harsh legislation was promulgated making it a criminal offence to call for school boycotts or worker stay-aways. It also extended the powers of the police and army to enter and search premises and detain suspects.
On 9 July the Namibia National Students' Organisation (NANSO) convened a National People's Assembly at Dobra High School in Windhoek. The meeting was made up of delegates of parents, workers and students from 17 centres around the country. It discussed tactics following the successful worker stay-away in June, in which one-third of the workforce backed student demands for the removal of military bases from the proximity of schools in the northern war zones.
The Assembly resolved to call off the boycott for four weeks to consolidate. It made the permanent ending of the boycott subject to the authorities meeting several demands. These included the release of all detained parents, students and teachers, the re-admission of all expelled students, the reinstatement of dismissed teachers, the removal of military bases from areas near schools and the withdrawal of Koevoet police and South African Defence Force (SADF) units from schools, towns and villages.
When schools re-opened the return to classes was partial and mainly in the south. Representatives of 11 primary and secondary schools in the north, including the three where the boycotts first started, resolved to stay out until military bases were removed. In the second half of July and August new boycotts and protests broke out at two secondary schools - at Otjikoto near Tsumeb and in Katutura, where riot police broke up gatherings with teargas and rubber bullets on two consecutive days. At the Andreas Shipena school in Katutura there were similar clashes in mid-August. Several students were arrested, including Auguste EMVULA, Lydia TJAVERUA, Priscilla IYAMBO and Eva SEIBES. Several others were reported missing.
Boycotts continued at Rundu in the Kavango bantustan over the participation of teachers in a police assault on students. Elsewhere, the authorities closed four schools in reaction to renewed protests which included demands for the reinstatement of pupils expelled in earlier boycotts.
There were also disturbances at the Kolin Secondary School in Arandis. Three students, Basil HAITILEKO, Makagi ILONGA (NANSO chairperson at the school) and Herbert SHIH-WAAMENI (vice chair) were detained in late August.
In early August boycotts spread to the Academy in Windhoek, the country's principal tertiary educational institution. On 17 August 37 students were detained under Proclamation AG9, which allows for renewable periods of up to 30 days detention, and the following day heavily armed riot police and soldiers entered the campus and sealed it off. Most of the Student Representative Council members were detained and students were not permitted to leave the Academy grounds for several hours.
