The Botha Regime and an Enlightened Element in the White Community
THE Botha regime remained determined to destroy Swapo and to deceive the world into believing that they had brought about democracy without Swapo. Victory was an impossibility for them as we continued to inflict heavy casualties on their side and attacked their military bases, patrols, shot down their military aircraft as well as causing disruption to electricity supply, water and telecommunication networks.
Morale was at its peak among our Namibian labour force and our students. Trade unionists made great strides, with the Mineworkers Union of Namibia being launched in 1986 as well as the Namibian Food and Allied Workers Union and others. To respond to intense world criticism of the lack of workers’ rights in South Africa itself, tentative steps were taken towards allowing black unions the right to collective bargaining, and leaders of the workers in Namibia were quick to take advantage of this and build up new unions under the umbrella of the National Union of Namibian Workers, which Swapo had created and maintained close contact with inside the country. There were mass students and school boycotts and the country was becoming ungovernable, while South Africa obstinately imposed its Interim Government despite its lack of a single black participant of any creditability at home or internationally.
Amid all the civilian upsurge and the state repression of those closing years of South African colonial rule, I would mention only the killing at a Swapo rally in Katutura on 11 November 1986 of one of our first freedom fighters, who had joined the Swapo military wing in Omugulu-gOmbashe at the beginning: Immanuel Shifidi. He had been released after Toivo ya Toivo, having served 18 years on Robben Island, and obtained employment with the council of Churches in Namibia. He was at a peaceful pro-UN rally that was attacked by men of the 101 Battalion in civilian clothes and was stabbed to death by one of them. A colonel, three white officers and a black sergeant by the name of Eusebius Kashindi ‘Jack ja Jack’ were brought to trial for having planned and carried out the attack, only to have the charges withdrawn on orders from P.W Botha on the grounds that they had acted “in good faith while combating terrorism in an operational area”. The Windhoek Supreme Court cancelled the intervention of Botha, who lodged an appeal. The accused were never brought to trial but the tragic incident made it clear that the South Africans could do as they pleased, despite the existence of a so-called Interim Government.
The more enlightened element in the white community knew by now where their future lay, and we did all we could to give them confidence in the independent Namibia that was soon to come. Gatherings in Lusaka and Sweden in 1986 and in Kambwe, Zambia, 1988, convinced many that a Swapo government would not mean “the Red Flag flying over Windhoek” as many, from Vorster to US Secretary of State General Alexander Haig, had warned.
I particularly remember the occasion at Kambwe when we learned that Advocate Frank, a former Nationalist Party member of the white parliament for the south of Namibia, was celebrating his birthday. We sang “Happy Birthday to you”, and he was noticeably moved. His wife later became a DTA member of the National Assembly in post-independent Namibia, and I appointed his son, a judge, as a commissioner to investigate official corruption.
One particular white Namibian who came over to us in 1984 was Advocate Anton Lubowski. I met him that year when he came to Paris, bringing a sculptured stone dove sent by community members in Lüderitz for presentation to the French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson. The South African government had refused permission for the French Ambassador to collect the gift in Namibia. We wished to honour Monsieur Cheysson for opposing the Western Contact Group’s acceptance of ‘linkage,’ as did the Canadians, as I learned in advance from Prime Minister Trudeau. It was the French government led by President Francois Mitterand, under the Socialist Party, in coalition with the Communist Party of France, which suspended its participation from the Western Contact Group, later followed by the Canadian government of President Trudeau. The French and Canadians realised that the Reagan administration wanted to use the Western Contact Group to impose a Bantustan government that would be controlled by Botha’s government.
Lubowski did a lot for Swapo in the following four years and showed himself worthy of our trust. He was detained with other Swapo leaders in Windhoek in 1987 and before that his car had been badly hit by anther vehicle, which he then chased until he lost it at a police station. He himself was too trusting and had not the experience of so many of us who had been through hell itself in the struggle. He was gunned down on 12 September 1989 by an assassin who was almost certainly acting on police orders. General Magnus Malan slandered this dead patriot in the South African parliament by alleging that he was working for South African army intelligence services, but that was a lie.
The South Africans spent a lot on hiring people to spread such stories, as was later revealed by defectors. We were being strongly criticised for the measures we had taken to catch the spies and agents outside the country. A party of the so-called Parents’ Committee (led by Ms Stella Boois and Mr Philemon Festus Ipumbu, who for reasons known only to himself was disguised as Mr Phil ja Nangolo) unwittingly financed by one of the factions within the South African security system, came to Europe to protest against the detention of our suspected infiltrators. As I arrived with members of parliament and our own security people to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, I was confronted by a group shouting “Where are our children?” No sooner had we passed by the group than one of them issued a ready prepared text, claiming that I had physically assaulted a woman protester. This was complete fabrication, but was well organised and widely publicised, especially by the West Germany newspapers, which financed the committee. Those women and “Phil ja Nangolo” returned to Namibia and continued to be used by the South African apartheid intelligence apparatus.
The detainee issue was the main weapon used against Swapo in the independence election in 1989. It is true that we detained individuals who had been detected to be South African agents, or for whom there were strong grounds for suspicion. Some of them had caused the deaths of many of our people in Shatotwa in the Western Province of Zambia in 1976, and at the Cassinga massacre in May 1978. The discovery of these sites was the work of spies the South Africans had sent to infiltrate Swapo rank and file. They spent millions of rand in their undercover operations, part of the web of secret activities that led to the scandal called ‘Muldergate’.
People accused Swapo of detaining these people unjustly but we had to detain enemy spies. We were at war against a powerful and cruel enemy. In many wars, such people would have been eliminated by their captors. If we are accused of ill-treating detainees, this was very little compared to the killing, cruel torture and brutal treatment the apartheid South African regime inflicted on our people over so many years – from major atrocities such as the Shatotwa and Cassinga massacres, to the murders of innocent individuals and disappearance without trace of many Swapo members, in an effort to further their anti-Swapo propaganda campaigns. We know that some of the torturers are still serving in the Namibian police and army, but we have pledged ourselves to reconciliation. We prefer to leave that sad history behind us and concentrate on national reconciliation, economic reconstruction, nation-building and a better future for all Namibians. Those in the opposition who bring up this matter think they will gain some sympathy, but they forget that people are not easily misled by their deceitful tactics and statements. The people know that there were blacks who were agents of the South African apartheid regime, who were as aggressive as their white masters, beating, torturing and killing people. Others betrayed their comrades for money, as Leonard Phillemon Shuuya (Castro) had done at the beginning of the struggle.