The 13th of August 1986 was a tragic day in my life, as this was the day when I came across the remains of my dead brother in the detention camp. While we were sitting outside the tent at around 11h00, we were all ordered to follow two white soldiers who had just arrived in a Casspir.
They took us to an open space opposite the office near the camp entrance. There we found five corpses lying on the ground. As we moved closer, I immediately recognised that one of the dead people was my own brother, Canicius M’kwashigwanekulu Ekandjo. He was shot in the chest and one of his legs was broken into two. The other four corpses had bullet wounds either in the head or in various others parts of the body. One of them had his head crushed flat – probably the Casspir had run over his head.
It was a gruesome sight to say the least. Despite recognising my dead brother, I chose never to tell the enemy that one of the corpses was actually that of my own brother. We all kept quiet, pretending not to know any of the dead people.
Canicius was the one who came after me – my younger brother.
He was a PLAN reconnaissance fighter at the North-Eastern Front. The information, which I got when I returned to SWAPO, suggested that he was killed in battle inside Namibia near the border. He, together with a dozen combatants, was on a reconnaissance mission inside Namibia when Koevoet elements followed their footprints.
Since they were followed for a long time, they decided to lay an ambush to engage the Casspirs at an unidentified area.
During the fire exchanges, four of the combatants including Canicius, sacrificed their lives. Seeing my brother dead strengthened my resolve to die fighting. The death of my brother left me with psychological trauma , as I did not expect to see him dead while I was a prisoner of war. The last time I meet Canicius was in July 1983 in a transit camp near the PLAN Commanding Headquarters between Cassinga and Indungu settlement.
That time I was coming from Namibia on my way to the former USSR for further military training, while he was on his way to the battlefront from the Lubango area. On that day, Canicius gave me a leather jacket, which I kept until 1984 when I gave it to another brother, Silverius Thikameni Ekandjo, as I was on my way to Namibia on a clandestine mission.
The same afternoon, we were called again to come and bury our own comrades and brothers at a cemetery at what is now known as Oshoopala location in Oshakati West. There we were made to dig a mass grave and bury the remains of our comrades, whose bodies had been wrapped in black plastics.
I never told any of my imprisoned comrades about the death of my brother, for fear one of them might inform the enemy security agents. I kept the death of my brother a top secret until I rejoined the liberation movement after a miraculous escape from prison on 30 October 1986.
Since then, we were all kept in that tent while some combatants, who we hardly interacted with, were housed in another section of the detention camp. These were combatants captured long before some of us, who had become part of the South African suppressing war machinery. The ‘corrupted’ turncoat fighters used to go on patrols to carry out covert operations against PLAN fighters and people construed as supporters of SWAPO inside Namibia. These were former PLAN fighters, who had been forced or who had turned their backs willingly on SWAPO and what it stood for. Our tent turned into a house of political education. We kept on encouraging each other never to turn against the movement and never to divulge sensitive information related to the ongoing PLAN fighters’ operations elsewhere. Our morale went up when PLAN fighters attacked Oshakati garrison town in June or July 1986.
The attack took place at midnight while we slept in the tent.
PLAN fighters bombarded the town with heavy artillery, a development which brought us some relief, as we felt that with more such attacks, the independence of the country would come closer, resulting in our own liberation from prison.
This detention facility used to be guarded during the night by British and Israeli Special Forces. They arrived in the detention camp every afternoon to take over the security of the camp throughout the night. The soldiers used to interact with us freely, probably trying to get whatever information they could from us.
At night, they used to divide themselves into two groups: one group was responsible for the protection of the interior of the camp and another one posted outside to move around the camp throughout the night. Those guarding the interior of the camp used to spend most of the night playing cards at the far western corner of the camp and some of them would move around the camp regularly checking our movements during the night.
During the last week of September 1986, the chain on my legs was removed, so I was no longer being chained to the bed at night. The detention environment had actually changed from that of being tortured and beaten daily to that of unrestricted movement within the detention camp. The enemy had also stepped up food supplies to the extent of encouraging us to keep fruit and juice in the tent. This new development raised my suspicion over the enemy’s strategy. It was clear in my mind that the feeding scheme had a purpose; probably to brainwash us that the army had everything that we needed, hence, there was no need for us to return to SWAPO once we were released. Despite all these developments, I was still sceptical as to whether the enemy security officers who interrogated me had finally given up or they were still following up some leads.
I did not get answers to my mental query until the defining moment on 30 October 1986.
My mental strength and vow never to become a liability to the revolution was again shown when I chose to cross the barriers of hell in a dramatic escape from enemy jail.
On 30 October 1986 at around 07h30, just after I woke up in the tent, Corporal Smith came running towards us. “VIP, VIP, run, run,” he screamed. Later on before he entered the tent, he started shouting, “Peter, you bloody terrorist, come! The time has come for you to tell us the truth.” Smith, who carried a rifle with a bayonet, immediately started shoving me from behind with the bayonet telling me to run to Major Du Plessis’s office.
He pushed me to run, saying that I would ‘shit’ that day as I apparently thought that I was cleverer than they were. A few metres from the tent on the way to the office, Smith ordered me to remove my underwear, which I refused to do. He took his knife and cut loose my underwear, leaving me completely naked. After cutting loose my underwear, he hit me on the right shoulder with the butt of his rifle.
“We have given you enough time to tell us the truth but you were all along telling us shit,” Smith remarked as he pulled me towards the cell.
As he pulled me, four well-dressed white people were looking on, including the torture master Du Plessis. Since the cell’s door was already open, he just stood a few metres away training his gun on me saying that I must enter immediately.
After he locked the cell, he left towards the office.