Namibia ~ s 1 Revolution
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l ) ~ PUBLISHED BY : THE PERMANENT SECRETARIAT OF THE AFRO·ASIAN PEOPLES' SOLIDARITY ORGANIZATION 17 i:r. 1975
NAMIBIA REVOLUTION
P ubli shed by : The Permanent Secretariat of THE AFRO-ASIAN PEOPLES' SOLIDARITY ORGANIZATION 89, Abdel Aziz Al Saoud St ., Maniai CAmO - U.A.R. Aeamifda · .9lettetluticm
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AFRO-ASIAN I•UBLICATIONS (38) March 1971 CONTENTS
Page Statement by the representative of SWAPO on the occasion of the Fourth Anniversary of the launching. of armed struggle in Namibia 7
Address of Mr. Youssef El Sebai, Secretary General of the A.A.P.S.O ., on the Day of Solidarity with the People of Namibia marking the anniver- sary of the beginning of the armed struggle . . . . 15 SWAPO'S letter to the United Nations Secretary- .r General U THANT ...... 19 Security Council reference to World Court: a step backward ...... • 29 The South African Government continues to underrate the terrorism and oppression it has let loose in Namibia 0 •• 0 • • •• •• • 0 • •••••• 0 ••••• • 35 The historical background - a long record of struggle ...... 37 South Africa's intentions 43 STATEMENT BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SOUTH
WEST AFRICA PEOPL~'S ORGANIZATION (SWAPO) ON THE OCCASION OF THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LAU~HING OF ARMED STRUGGLE IN NAMIBIA (26 August 1970, Cairo, U.A.R.)
Mr:., Chairman, Allow me to express my sincere gratitude to ali of you for accepting our invitation to joln us in the marking of this very important day in the history of the Namibian people's struggle for their national independance and freedom, in the struggle against South Africa's occupation of our Ncitional Territory. My profound appreciation goes to the Secretary-Ge neral of the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization (AAPSO) and to the U.A.R. Government officiais for assist ing us to organise this meeting in the A.S.U. People's Hall. 1 would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the members of Diplomatie Missions and the Liberation Move ments represented here who have come to join us, and thus express their solidarity with our oppressed people. First of ali Mr. Chairman, 1 would like to thank H.E. the President of the United Arab Republic Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Government, the Party and the entire population of the ' United Arab Republic for the moral support and material as sistance the Government of the United Arab Republic has rendered to our organization in arder to enable us to carry out the struggle more effectively. lt was President Nasser's determination and wise leadership that led his people to complete political freedom and economie independance. Brothers and Sisters, Today we are gathered here, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the launching of the armed struggle in Namibia, waged by the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) . On this day, four years ag o, SWAPO opened a n ew chapter in the history of our struggle against South Africa's illegal occupation of our national ter· ri tory. lt was on this day that SWAPO changed' the tactics of peaceful transition into a violent revolution against the mi· nority white domination and fascist dictatorship in our count ·ry, after ali peaceful approaches and demands had fai led . On that historie day, the whole foundation of the op pressive reg ime the fascist and racist rulers of South Africa have been maintaining for decades was shaken because on that day it came across a determined, well-trained and politi cally organised African liberatory force which could face the white man militarily. On this day four years ago, the first bullets were fired by the Patriotic Forces of the Namibian People under the direction of the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) , at «àngulumbahe>>, in north-west of our country. On that day, the South African Forces lost 15 of thèir men who were killed on the spot. The oppressed peo!)le of Namibia have accepted the move of our guerrillas and supported them whole-heartedly. ·since the outbreak of the war of liberation, there has been several fightings in Okavango, Caprivi, Strip, Ovemboland, Kaokofeld and Grootfontein regions. OP 18th May 1967, unfortu.nately, Tobias Hainyeko the first Commander-in-Chief of the Na mibia Liberation Armed Forces, the military wing of the SWAPO, died in Zambesi Valley while engaged in action . . wi th the enemy forces. He fought heroically before he feil, putting four of the -South African soldiers out of action, including_ Captain Grobbler who was comrnanding a South African army unit then operating in that area. Comrade Hainyeko refused to surrender, instead he accepted the cha llen ge and faced the Boer unit single handed.
With the heroic death of comrade Haienyeko, who was once the No. 1 feared by Vorster and his clique, the racist rulers in Pretoria blindly believed that the guerrilla warfare in Namibia had been destroyed. But on the contrary, that vvas just wishful thinking by Vorster and his fellow murde ~ ers. The oppressed people of our country and the patriotic li beration forces were determined to carry out the struggle ta its final victory. On 28th October 1968 the SWAPO guerrilla forces lau nched a well-coordinated assault on the enemy mi litary base at Mpacha near Katima Mulilo, the administrative centre of the Cap rivi reg ion . in the same month, two South African milita ry trucks were completely destroyed in an ambush. This ti me General Keevy the then Commissioner of the South Afri can Pol ice Force adrnitted publicly that there was a fight bet ween the Po lice and SWAPO freedom fighters and that sorne police men we re killed d~ring the fighting but did not dis close the figure for security reasons. He immediately handed in his resignation because he could not control the situation. The operations by SWAPO patriotic liberation forces in the area, led to the massacre of aged men, women and children by the neo-Nazi South African police who were sent to the
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area for the so-called mopping up operations. As a result, more than 2000 people fied to Zambia as refugees, and about 117 were arrested and flown to Pretoria to join other Namibians there who were arrested previously, and ' im· prisoned without trial since the beginning of the armed struggle. ln January this year, heavy fighting took place between the people's liberation forces and the South African enemy troops in the Okavango area. This time the Deputy Minister of Police Mr. Muller admitted that six of the South African police were killed in action by SWAPO guerrillas while on patrol duties.
ln August 26 last year tierce fighting took place at Shingalabwe in the Caprivi Strip. Three of the enemy soldiers were killed and several others wounded in the battle; fol· lowing this two South African military planes violated Zam bia's air space the next day. They bombed Zambian villages, accusing Zambia for being responsible. for the attack on their police border patrol convoy. The violation of Zambian air space was a direct provocation qy the South African soldiers against the Zambian Government.
Mr. Chairman and Friends, The struggle in Namibia is linked with the enti fe struggle in Southern Africa. Today the , South African troops are fighting in Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique against the revolutionary forces and freedom loving peoples of these countries. Our struggl~ needs united · action against the common enemy. The presence of South African soldiers in Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique is enough evidence that the enemies of our people are one and united. They are united against the progressive forces in Southern Africa. The South African Government supported
10 their puppet Leabuwa Jonathan durihg the èlection cam paign in Lesotho. After he lost the elections, they even helped him to stage a coup d'etat so that they could maintain him in power in order to keep Lesotho as another BANTUS TAN as they did in Ovamboland in Namibia and in . sorne parts of South Africa itself.
The fascist government of Vorster has turned our country into a police state, a state of terrer and intimidation. Vorster and his war mongers violate the fundamental Human , Rights and basic freedpm of the Nambian People. Today more than 500 Namibians, are detained in South African jails without trial including the Vice-President of the SWAPO. Since the beginning of the war of liberation, more than !hirty of our freedom fighters are servin"g lite imprisonment in Rob bin Island in South Africa. These people are detained ille gally in South Africa. They are not South Africans, they are Na mibians. We demand their immediate return to their home country.
Mr. Chairman, We feel honoured that our solidarity day is being commemorated at this time, when our brothers, ·leaders of independent African countries are meeting in Ad dis Ababa to discuss African problems. The colonial problem in Africa is one of the burning issues facing our continent. But in the Organization of African Unity there are countries such as MALAWI which is an agent of the South African fascists and ali imperialists at large. We see no need to go into the records of Kamuzu Banda's work against the unity of Africa as such, his actions have already demon strated that the presence of MALAWI in the O.A.U. is a threat to the security of Africa. Africa is facing the danQer of an imperialist invasion.
11 Already the British Government is considering to resume the sale of arms to South Africa. The French Government is sup· plying South Africa with war planes. Most of the helicopters which are used by the South African police and soldiers against our people are French made. To the South-West Africa People's Organisation, the arms sale to fascist South Africa is not a new thing, and cannet stop the revolution ary struggle from continuing. We shall fight no ·matter how strong the enemy may be. We are ready to meet them an Q we shall win at ali cost. Vorster the South African Prime Mi nister made it very clear that even if the British Governmeni' . stops selling arms to his country, South Africa has enough arms. He went on to say that they have discovered URA NIUM which can enable them to develop nuclear weapons such as Atom Bombs with the help of West German scient ists who are already in South Africa to train the Boers in making such weapons. Since the middle of last year, one Kurt Dahlmann, a West German Nazi criminal who ran away from his country _, because of war crimes he committed during the Secon d World War, has been running a fund-raising campaign under the slogan < 12 South Africa after extensive use in Viet Nam where they are re-assembled by the South African Government ·for use in guerrilla warfare. The SWAPO strongly condemns this dirty manoeuvre of the U.S. imperialists against our people. Finally Mr. Chairman, 1 would like to salute our fellow freedom fighters in Zambabwe, South Africa, Angola, Mo zambique and Guinea-Bissau. The genuine liberation mo vements in these countries have contributed greatly to our .... national cause, for we regard the struggle in Southern Africa and the· Portuguese Colonies as a cpmmon struggle, a strug gle against a common enemy. The revolutionary, forces in Zimbabwe have scored many successful attacks against the enemies of African freedom. Our brothers in Angola, Mo zambique and Guinea-Bissau have successfully gained victory against the Portuguese Colonial Forces. The recent events of bomb explosions in four cities of South Africa is a clear indication that the liberation forces are gaining ground to fight a well-organised guerrilla warfare against the reactionary forces of the aparthied regime in their country. Our militant solidarity goes to the heroic Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian peoples, who are on the front lines to resist the United States imperialist aggression against the lndo-Chinese peoples. We firmly support the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people and ether Arab countries in thier just struggle against the lsraeli-Zionist aggression and occupation of their na tional territories. LONG LIVE THE NAMIBIAN STRUGGLE ! LONG LIVE THE PROGRESSIVE FORCES WHO ARE ENGAGED IN . A ,FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND PEAGE LONG LIVE THE THIRD WORLD ! 13 ADDRESS OF MR. YOUSSEF EL SEBAI SECRETARY· GENERAL OF THE A.A.P.S:O., ON' THE DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF NAMIBIA MARKING THE AN· NIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE- AUGUST 26, 1970. Dear Brothers, The armed struggle which is being waged throughout the entire region of Southern Africa, for no short time now, constitutes a most important element in the interna tional situation and a significant and most telling factor in ' ' the development of peoples' struggles for the realisation of their major objectives, for freedom, the right to self ,determination, complete national liberation and social re·constru ct ion. ln the southern area of the. African continent the valiant African peoples are engaged, arms in hand, in a tierce struggle, since they were compelled by the atrocious imperialist forces and. the brutal colonial systems to pursue the only way left for them, with ali others blocked, that is the war of liberation. The national liberation wars launched by the peoples of the Portuguese colonies side by side with the peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia are close sections of the re volutionary liberation drive , sweeping ali over Southern 15 Atrica with an irresistible torce motivated by the peoples' determination to wrench their liberty, dignity and tunda mental rights, the torce of national aspiration that must be tulfilled and the torce of the logic of history itselt, which is irreversible. The armed struggle of the courageous peoples in Mozambique, Angola, Gu inea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, South Atrica and Namibia is waged in closely linked p~ositions along one and the same war-tront where these peoples stand in sacred alliance against an anti-popular front con sisting of the torees of imperialism, racist settler regimes depending mainly on world imperialism, aggressive military pacts and the interests of international monopoly. Against the torees of oppression and barbarie exploi tation who seek to deprive the. peoples of material and hu man wealths and dignity, these valiantly struggling peoples, including the people of Namibia whose armed revolution anniversary we celebrate today, rose up, dete!mined to unite their ' ranks, restore their basic rights, defend their dignity and socially reconstruct their countries. ln this historicai span of their struggle, the people of Namibia are subjected to double aggression from the im perialist torees on the one hand, and on the ether, from the fascist racist ruling regime in South Africa with ali its ferocity in disregard of the hunian values and arrogant defiance of the total condamnation enuciated by the inter national community and world public opinion. The people of Namibia have mounted their armed struggle to defend their existence as a tree people tully entitled to self-determination and independance, to join 16 the liberated African peoples' march and to catch up with the civilised human society. Expressing our unqualified support of the just struggle of the Namibian people, we pledge them every material, political and moral assistance for the realisation of their legitimate aspirations and rights. lt is the right of the Namibian people to struggle in order to remove from their country the tutelege of . the fascist regime of South Africa ; it is as weil their 'fight to smash the shackles of ali arbitrary racial laws enacted by the ruling minority in South Africa ; likewise, it is their obligation to resist with ali possible means so called rights claimed by the South African government to administer this territory Linder alleged rights of military invasion. lt is the right of the Namibian people to evacuate from their country 1 ali military and police forces ' \ • ' 17 one of the decisive aspects of the common struggle against imperialism, colonialism and racial discrimination, for the termination of imperialist domination and the frustration ot the aggressive war strategy and the manoeuvres of neo- colonialism. ' The Permanent Secretariat calls upon ali national, democratie and progressive forces as weil as ali anti-impe rialist and anti-racist organisations in defence of human right to continue to t edouble their support for the legitimate struggle waged by the people of Namibia and provide them with ali kinds of assistance including positive solidarity in ali domains. Our struggle, we the peoples fighting imperialism, co- 11onialism and racial discrimination is one and the same struggle ; and the victory of this struggle would not be complete without victory being scored in ali fighting posi tions along the world front struggling for freedom, justice and peace. Youssef El Sebai Secretary-General .. 18 SWAPO'S LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL U THANT For som_e time, we have had under study a letter written to the U.N. Secretary General by the Minister of Foreign Af (airs of the Republic of South Africa, on the 26th of Septem ber 1969, in response to the former's telegram on the Se curity Council Resolution No. 269 (1969). During the eight months that have elapsed since the distribution of his report (dated 3 October 1969) containing the text of the Minister's letter, we have waited for news of the action we believed ·must follow upon so grave a challenge to the authority of the Security Council and the legality of its transactions. The Se curity Council pledged to «remain actively seized of the matter», and yet, apart from one uncalled-fc;>r attack upon ~he integrity of N~mibia's «freedom fighfers», Namibia has been forgotten, and even the serious allegations concerning the legality of the Security Council resolutions have been al ' lowed to go unanswered . • While it seems to us to bode ill for the world if the Se \Cllrity Council may so easily be held in contempt, we do not ourselves possess the resources, nor do we consider it our responsibility, to ·investigate the legal aspects of the South African Foreign Affairs Minister's letter. Nevertheless, we are bound to remind the United Nations• from1 . time to time 19 of its interest in th.e future of Namibia, and it is with this purpose in mind that we are sending you this restatement of the plight and the hopes of the people of Namibia, and !his partial rebuttal of the South African argument. Although we do not claim competence to pronounce final j upon the legal aspects of the < 20 under the new authority with ali speed; it m·ust have been taken as self-evident that the Mandates themselves would lapse with the demise of the League, and the paragraph quoted was to prevent the assumption that any territory had reverted to its previous status under a col~nial power, or had become independent, or had become .a colony of the - erstwhile mandatory power, or been subject to any change 'whatsoever during the period of negotiation. lt was ap parently ·not foreseen th at any of the mand,atory powers, being determined to take full possession of its mandate ter ritory, might discover a means of doing so within the very paragraph intended to prevent any such eventuality. For the • cl.ause << Until other arrangements have been agreed, can be interpreted as creating a period of time, of indefinite du- ration, during which any mandatory power might administer its mandate territory without any supervision whatsoever : i.e., the period of negotiation of < 21 ln tact, however, as the Minister points out a number of times, it was never South Africa's intention to concl~de any such agreement i_n regard to << South-West Africa» , for, mind ful of what she called << the unique circumstances which so signally differentiate South-West Africa ... from ali other man dates», it was always her intention to < << At the outset 1. must reaffirm that it is invalid and mis leading to endeavour to rely on South Africa's alleged 'disavowal of the Mandate' in ctaiming for the United Nations a right of cancellation of the Mandate••. and << As early as 11 th May 1945, at the San Francisco Con ference, the South African delegate explained that his statement was made 'so that South Africa may not after wards be held to have acquiesced in the continuance of the Mandate or the inclusion of the Territory in any form of trusteeship under the · new , international Orga nisation». and < 22~ There would appear at first to be sorne confusion and contradiction among these statements ; in particular, the South African delegate would appear to have been opposed to the continuance of the Mandate and to have «disavowed .. it, for practical purposes. Yet the Minister claims that th~ Mandate is still in effect, buf only for the purposes of one particular letter. This kind of agility is South Africa's stock in trade; it is a mistake to suppose that she can be beaten at her own game of legal tiddlywinks simply by painting out contra dictions among various official pronouncements. The con- 1radictions are often carefully contrived, as in this case, to ensure that South Africa shall not find herselt committed to anything that she cannat wiggle out of when it is expedient for her to do so. The major case in point is in fact South Africa's mem bership of the United Nations, the signatures of her ministers on the various United Nations documents to which she is party. South Africa has nothing to fear from the United Na tions, partly because of her increasing (and necessary) abil 'ity to function in relative isolation, partly because of the economie hold she has on the loyalty of her more powerful friends, and partly because of the civilized reluctance of the ·United Nations to resort to extreme measures in punishment of South Africa's increasing Jawlessness. Thus it happened that, Article 80(2) notwithstanding, South Africa got away with her delaying tactics that prolonged the period of nego tiation, to the point where it ceased to be a question of con cluding a trusteeship agreement for South-West Africa. No one seriously proposes now that ali would be forgiven if only South Africa would submit to the supervision of the United 23 Nations in adn:'inistering «South-West Africa,, as a trustee· ship. The question of whether the Mandate survived the League of Nations or not is another irrelevancy; .the concept of the Mandate Territory, like the concept of the Trusteeshi !;J Territory, is outmoded. The United Nations no longer subs cribe to the notion that any territory which is remotely ca pable of .attending to its own affairs should be administered by another nation, no matter how righteous that administra tion may be. Unfortunately, its is precisely here that the delaying tact ics of South Africa pay dividends. For, while she dilly-dallie~ and temporized in the United Nations, South Africa was busy in Namibia doing ali the things of which the Minister boasts in his annexerue : building power plants and airports, setting up banks and medical 'facilities and sending (a few) children to school. This was done not just in arder that the South African delegate should be able to say proudly in the Nations «We have done this and this for the peoples (sic) of South West Africa» . This statement needs only to be translated (as it legitimately must be translated) into «We have deliber,ately prevented the peoples of South-West Africa from learning . how to do this and this for themselves» for the full rationale of these operations to become clear. The ruse with which South Africa first gained time in the United Nations was her declaration of intention to << consult the peoples of South-West Africa as regards their future Government» . ln the meantime, she educated the «peoples, to the point where they might be able to read an'd write and even do a little algebra in some cases, but could never maintain a communications system, a water supply, a power plant or ,a medical service without «trained 24 • and specialized manpower, from South Africa. ln other words, she encouraged a rising economie expectation among thé people, while she made sure that realizati_on of this expectation would remain forever outside the people's reach except insofar as they acquiesced in South Africé;!. 's con tinued administration of their regions. «Must ali this pro gress come to an abrupt end?, the Minister asks, and it is only the Namibian peasant or schoolboy or worker who can hear the atrocious irony in his words. lt is just possible that the Minister himself is not tully aware of the irony. lt is a tact of psychology that the first thing to disappear in a police state. as in a harsh family, is sensibility, the intuitive sense of what a person is worth, what is permissible in dealing with human beings, and what relative value is to be placed on a loaf ot bread or a child's smile. «Emotional,, becomes a pejorative term, an expres· sion of scorn by which an argument or a principle may be shown to be too contemptible to answer or obey. lnto the vacuum created by the pemise of the spirit grows material ism , an economie set of values, a new way of measuring well-being by the thickness of the wallet. 1t is therefore possible that t,he Minister is genuinely bewildered when he contemplates his own figures fo~ the growth of the << South-West African ,, economy, the statistics supplied to him by his advisers. Perhaps he says to himself in genuine puzzlement, < 25 selves has died, and the South African no longer under .stands the words •• freedom >>, •• justice», •• equality», •• dignity», · in . any but the rt:JOSt narrowly materialistic sense. lt is for this reasof1, Your Excellency, that we address ourselves, no~ to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Africa, but to the Members of the United Nations, _through your good offices. To them it is not necessary to define these words ; many of the countries involved have not yet forgotten the blood they shed in defence of just t~ose words. Nor is it necessary to defend the •• emotion, we feel in pres sing our claims, our h.atred of oppression, our passion to be free and our love for our brothers. lt is necessary only, perhaps, to remind them of the nature of the problem which they are being asked to solve,' and of the nation with which they have to deal in the process. We shall annex hereto our detailed response to points raised in the Foreign Affairs Minister's letter. But we must press our opinion that it is a waste of time to argue. We submit these arguments only for information, not because we believe they will cause the slightest ripple in Pretoria. lt is our opinion, which we will support with cases, that even if it could be shown beyond ali shadow of doubt by ali the laws of reason and logic that every statement South Africa ever made .was false and illogical, South Africa would persist in every course of action on which she is currently em barked, without a tremor of conscience or of self-doubt. At this time, when on ali sides gestures of opprobrium are being made against South Africa, excluding her more and more from the society of civilized men, it must be seen that she is retreating into her own private Dark Age of gov ernment by . terror, of education .by mythology, of lif.e by 26 bread alone, from which she can never emerge as a nation of sane human beings, but only as an economy of machines and automata without culture, without community, without humour and without joy. Let it not be recorded in history that the Member States of the United Nations stood idly and allowed South Africa to carry the territory and the people of Namibia into that insane oblivion. • 27 SECURITY COUNCIL REFERENCE TO WORLD COURT A STEP BACKWARD The question of Namibia (South-West Africa ) , has once again become the centre of contention at the United Nations. The world body has shawn reluctance to reach any kind of . a political solution to the Namibian problem. The question is why, after the South African Government's refusai to withdraw in compliance with the resolution terminating South Africa' s mandate over Namibia (Resolution 2145 of October 1966), the Security Council did not invoke Chapter 7 of the Charter of the United Nations. lnstead, the Security Council has sought an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice at the Hague. To support their dilatory move, some Western powars raised doubts about the legal validity of the United Nations General Assembly's d~cision to termi nate South Africa's mandate over Namibia. Previously, how ever, for three years there have been discussions bath in the General Assembly as welt as in the Security Council as to how to make the withdrawal of South Africa effective. The Security Council had explored ways and means to force the Pretoria regime to withdraw from Namibia and it had set the date of 4th October 1969 as the obligatory deadline for the withdrawat. lt therefore becomes necessary to doubt the sincerity and professed go6d intentions of these members of the 1 29 \ , Security Council. The problem of Namibia is a political one. The United Nations as the world political forum should be tully competent to solve the Namibian question with due re gard to ali its political implications. lt is worthwhile to note that for the first time in the history of the United Nations the Security Council has sought an advisory opinion of the World Court on United Nations resolutions. We therefore have good reason to wonden whether this may not be a conspiracy of the imperï"alist powers to employ delaying tactics in the interest of the con tinuance of the rule of the South African Union Government over the Namibian people to the a.brogation of their funda mental rights and to the detriment of their natioflal interests. Court opinion is a naked imperialist manoeuvre to hinder Namibia's progress towards complete independence. There are perhaps deeper reason too. To our under standing, the Security Council as the highest authority of the U.N. has the prerogativ~ of taking the final decision on. any matter. But regarding Namibia which is an urgent poli- . ti cal question demanding immediate soltJtion, the whole frame-work of the Security Council is utilized for creating formai obstruction and causing delay. ln our view, the Se curity Council move counters the General Assembly Resolu tion 2145 of October 1966 terminating the mandate and con tradicts the Resolution of December 1960 on the Granting of lndependence to Colonial C_ountries and Peoples. The lat ter resolution had unequivocally stated that < 30 territories without any condition or reservation, in accordan ce with their freely expressed will and desire, without dis tinction as to race, creed or colour, in arder to enable them ...-. to enjoy complete independence and freedom». The South-West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) , therefore abjects to the Secur,ity Council move for ad vice from the International Court of Justice.-We feel this move is not in the interèst of our people nor is it consistent - with the position already taken by the United Nations on the Namibian question. Suspicions regarding this move can be supported by a long record of past instances and the implication thereby becomes c~earer . ln 1960 tao, Ethiopia. and Liberia had appealed to the International Court on be hait of South-West Afrfca (Namibia). The case remained undecided forgood six years. Then tao the imperialist powers were manoeuvering for a decision which would be favourable to the Union Government. The Court pronouncement was a pathetic one and a tremendous disappointment to our peo ple. No one can now deny that the 1966 Court decision was' a total sell-out and gave the Fascist Government of Vorster and his clique a green signal to continue the policy of suppression of the African peoples. The establishment of the BANTUSTAN in Ovamboland and the removal of the NAMA people were new additional instances of the South African Government's extention of the apartheid policy over the Namibian people. While awaiting the World Court decision the South-West African People's Organisation expresses serious doubts about, any good resuulting out of it. The Court cannet give a fair verdict without going more fully into the history of the Nami bian people and the origins of the problem. lt is doubtful 31 \ \ too, whether the Court decision may be considèred as the «summum bonum, and whether 1t can resolve ali difficulties. The €s;>urt cannot invoke Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter and that, we feel, is the only move which can facili tate a practicar solution of a very urgent problem: The question, however, remains as to why on the ,Namibian ques tiori the Security. Council could not resol\1_~ the matter itself, and for the first time in its history had to appeal to the In ternational Court. Without going into the details ot records of the United Nations we would still like to point out som~ similar situations. When the U.S. imperialists ~ent their troops into Korea in 1949 it .was just done un der the cover of the United Nations. The U.N. had also sent troops into various countrie's as peace-keeping forces . .During the Congo crisis, the United Nations and the Security Council did not require prior per mission of the World Court in order to intervene. How is it that the same Security Council now feels that the Atrican population of Namibia do not need protection from the racist oppression and colonial subJug~Ùion. The _sufferings of the Namibian people have exceeded ali lim1ts and that the mat ter is very urgent. We therefore appeal to the U.N. to act now on behalf of the interest of our oppressed people and that without delay. lt is the imperialist powers who have· economie interests in our country_ who are manoeuvering to delay our indepen dence by referring to the World Court. vye resolutely oppose this move. During his recent visit ·to the United Nations Comrade Sam Nujoma, President of the SWAPO told the 32 Security Council Sub-Committee that the only solution to the Namibian problem is to invoke Chapter 7 of the Charter. He further requested ali MElmber States to sever diplomatie and ali other relations with South Africa, deny South Afri can Airways landing rights as weil as deny ships flying the· South African flag the right to cali at their ports. 1 33 THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO UNDERRATE THE TERRORISM AND OPPRESSION IT HAS LET LOOSE IN NAMIBIA Interview .given to the B.B.C. by Mr Sam Davis. Mr Moses G_aroeb, the Administrative Secretary of • SWAPO, had recently gone to London at the invitation of the newly formed «Friends of Namibia>>. The Committee had been formed in London on 9 July 1970. After the inaugural cere mony, Mr Garoeb was asked to explain the situation pre \tailing today in Namibia. Mr Garoeb related how the South African Government had been responsible for turning Nami bi a into a comolete oolice state. The oeoole were beina ter rorized by tne white police and soldiers of the South Afri can army. The Africans in the rural areas were removed from their original homes and taken to what is ca!!ed «pro tective camps, (an example ta ken from the strmegic ham lets of the Americans in South Vietnam) . The ancestral houses of these people were destroyed. Many lost consider able possessions and belongings-simply became these could not be transferred. Mr Garoeb went further and desclosed the massacre that had taken place in the Caprivi area in 1968. ln this massacre, 64 villagers were killed in cold blood. He also discribed how a m.an (suspected to be a guerrilla) was ta ken high up . in a helicopter and thrown down_ 35 Mr Garoeb was one of the SWAPO officiais to have visited the Çaprivi area in 1968 on a fact-finding mission regarding the incident. The villagers, related to the SWAPO , officiais what had actually taken place. This situation forced about 1000 in habitants of. the Caprivi a rea to seek refugee in the republic of Zambia. Mr Garoeb concluded his report by stating that, although South Africa's intention remained to intimidate. the African population, time will come when South Africans themselves will regret their policy and its ensuing results. · Soon after Mr Garoeb's testimony to the «Friends of Na mibia», Mr Sam Davis sought an interview with the B.B.C. The purpose of the interview was without doubt to counter the pict.ure of the state of affairs ~o forcefully conveyed in Mr Garoeb's speach. During the interview, Mr ·Davis told the B.B.C . that there was no oppression in Namibia. When asked about the Caprivi massacre he replied that he had no know ledge of the same and that the whole thing was new to him. He further shamelessly denied that the SWAPO leaders and members have been rounded up by the South African police and flown to Pretoria in military helicopters and detained in solitary confinements for three to four years without trial. Many of them had died as a result of inhuman treatment. and torture·. lt should be pointed out that, Mr Davis i.s of Jewish origin whose family had been one of the many who had sought refuge in Namibia during Hitler's repression 0f the 1 Jews in 1939. Unfortunately the Jewish community of Nami- bia, · themselves victims of- Nazi oppression, have allowed themselves to become tools in the hands of Western mono polists .and are directly participating in the exploitation and oppression of the African people · of Namibia. 36 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND A LONG .RECORD OF STRUGGLE The people of Namibia have been fighting against foreign invaders since as far back as 1903. The first inva ders were the Germans who sought to occupy Namibia in accordance with the decision of the Berlin Conference on Africa of 1884. They were the first people from Europe ever to héWe come to Namibia. They arrived without any formai documents. They claimed to be lovers of peace and made it known that they had come to South-West Africa in arder to· protect the people of the territory from the British. Saon other groups followed these initial bands of people from Germany. They,_ however,- appeared dif- ferent and were in facf soldiers. ln 1903, the Germans expressed the desire to sign a treaty with Captain Witbooi, the then chief of the Nama people. Captain Witbooi re,alized that their intentions were different from those professed and that the Germans were not there to protect his country from foreign invasion. He heard reports about the white foreigners robbing people of their goats and sheep and slaughtering them without the permission of their owners. He doubted the credibility of the tall stories given out by the Germans that they · were in his country simply- to protect the Africans from other bad 37 foreigners. He saw through their pretence. He was quick to realize that these Germans were merely wolves in sheep's clothing. 'Gathering together his counsellors, he addressed them saying, «What does this protection mean ? From what are we to be protected ?» . The chief ordered his men to take up arms to fight the «thieves••, himself taking comm.and of the forces of resistance. He was able to repulse the in vaders and keep them at bay for sometime. At the end of ·1903, the Germans reorganized them· selves. taking new orders, this time directly from Berlin where militarism had triumphed meanwhile. The Germans were now not only reinforced with more men but also with ali kinds of weapons of modern warfare. They advanced into the interior of Namibia along two routes from the South and accross the Namib desert until they ar rived in the vicinity of Okahandja, the area of the famous Kingdom of Maharero. Forewarned, King Maharero imme diately ordered his men to drive out the foreign bandits, him self taking command of his forces. He gave a cali to drive the enemy back into the sea whence they came. The war between the Hereroes and the Germans lasted for three years. The Portuguese from Angola, also acting in accordance with the Berlin resolution of 1884, attacked the northern region of Namibia (Ovamboland) or the Ukuanyama tribal area of the Kingdom of Mandume. ~ born fighter, King Mandume was quick to perceive the dangers facing his Kingdom and ·the implication of colonial rule. He remem bered the terrible tate of his fellow Africans in areas where the Portuguese were already present - the heavy taxations 38 they were burdened with and the confiscation of their lands and properties. He ordered his men to fight the Portuguese, and was able to repulse the invaders and prevent their intrusion for the next couple of years. ln 1917, the Portu guese were compelled to realize that, they could not defeat Mandume. They approached the British for -aid by way of sending the Boers from South Africa which was thought consistent with the formulations of the Berlin Confèrence and the British were therefore more than willing to render. lt was the Berlin Conference of 1884, which had sanctioned the carving up of Africa as colonial possessi6ns of the Eu ropean powers. SWAPO LEADS THE STRUGGLE The South West Africa People's Organization- (SWAPO) came into being on the 10th April 1960, and has been de manding freedom and independence for Namibia ever since. Unlike the heroes of the old times (Witbooi, Maharero, Man dume, Nehale and Lipumbu) the SWAPO first tried peace ful political ~e.ans through the United Nations to achieve its objectives. lt may be remembered that the United Nations had somewhat recognized its responsibility over Namibia after the dissolution of the League of Nations. Unfortunately, the United ~ations has proved incapable of resolving the problem relating to Namibia. Meanwhile South Africa has made it abundantly clear that she does not care for either reason or world public opinion, and is going to disregard any U.N. decision. Since ali attempts at a peaceful solution of the Nami bian problem has failed and since ••Pretoria has continued to defy whatever the .United Nations have so far agreed 39 ·- upon, an armed· struggle for self-determination seems to be the only way left for the Namibian people. This perhaps will be a good reminder to the .apartheid regime that though battles may h"ave been lost earlier, the struggle for libera tion .would go on. ln 1959, the people of Namibia resumed the struggle begun in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, when the Afri 1 cans fought heroically with the South African police bandits. The white- racist.s had machine guns but their sophisticated weapons proved ineffectual on the face of the determined brave Namibians whose armoury consisted only of stones and botties. At this oattle, 13 Africans were shot and kill ·- ed, but the Boers retreated with many of the~ seriously injured and many cars belonging to the South African po lice bandits destroyed by the angry Namibians. THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES On 26th August 1966, the struggle was resumed again when the boers went to attack the SWAPO guerrilla base at Onkulumbahe. Thinking that the African gurrillas were just having stones and botties, as had been the case in Windhoek in 1959, the boers decided to attack the base during day time. Here they were met with heavy fire from automatic weapons. According to still incomplete figures, 15 Boers were killed on the spot and 22 others wounded of which 7 died later. After the attack on the SWAPO train· ing camp at Onkulumbahe, the tire of the 8.rmed revolu tion in Namibia has thus spread rapidly, and the armed struggle conducted by the SWAPO was immediately acclaim· ed and given support by the entire Namibian population irrespective of sex and age. 40 The war of liberation is thus continuing and sooner or later the enemies of Namibia will be compelled to re cognize the tact that the, time of «Baasskap» is over. R1 000 (about 1500) Offered for the Capture of SWAPO Leader One of the SWAPO guerrilla unit commanders is the most-wanted < Windhoek Advertiser 18/6/70 ln actual tact, the man the Boers say is a notorious << terrorist>>, is one of the well-trained SWAPO guerrilla unit commanders. The police detective they say was wounded died in Windhoek Hospital as a result of a bullet wound he received. Because it is today a policy of South African re gime not to disclose anything related to gurrilla activities in Namibia - ali those who clashed with SWAPO militants, are just wounded - they never die. 41 SOUTH AFRICA'S INTENTION The purpose of the South African _Minister's letter and its annexures. was to justify South Africa's stated intention to continue to administer the territory referred to as South~ West Africa forever. This justification is attémpted by the following means: 1. By disputing the legality, and hence the validity and binding power of the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council in regard to ( South-West Africa. 2. By quoting selected «tacts and figures •• in support of South Africa's claim to have advanced the material well being and political tranquility of the people of the ter ritory; by retelling the history of the area in such a way as to support South African r.acist dogma. 3. By «proving•• with the aid of sophistries that South Africa rules the territory with the consent of the people; that there is no «struggle••; that any trouble that occurs is the result of disruptive activity by foreigners, crimi-. nais, professional revolutionaries and the like, utterly lacking the support of the people. 4. By, implying, most insultingly, that those who voted for the disputed resolutions did ~o in ignora11ce of the. tacts; that they allowed themselves to be fooled by a gang of foreign terrorists; that they irresponsibly and thn•Jght• lessly attempted to sacrifice the well-being of the «peoples» of S_outh.West Africa on the altar of that' much aver-rated commodity, l~dependence. 5. By posing as disinterested benefactors, turning a desert wasteland into a Garden of Eden for the simple pleasure of «doing what is right». 1 lt is the purpose of this annexure to outline the reasons why South Africa's occupation of Namibia cannat be justified by these means. The following table provides, at a glanee, an impressive demonstration of the lawlessness of the Republic of South Africa, for it sets out a number of the articles which South \ Africa has at one time or another pledged to carry out, up- · > hold or defend, and the specifie occasions on which she violated their provisions and dishonoured her own promises. ( 1 ) ln the context of su ch lawlessness, discussion of the legality or otherwise of the resolutions taken by the General Assembly or the Security Council is plainly academie. The~ implication (i.e., that South Africa' would comply -if it could be proved to her satisfaction that the resolutions were indeed valid and binding) is not to be believed. There is , . no way of depriving an individual or a nation of the ability to choose whether or not to obey a given law. No matter how valid the law, no matter how much it is in his interest to obey, no matter how dire the consequences of disobedience may be, the individual (and the nation) can always, of his own free will, choose to defy the law, forego its benefits and risk the punishment. ln view, particularly, 44 '"01 the difficulty the United Nations experiences in enforcing its rulings in regard to such countries as South Africa, it ·must not be expected that South Africa will be much deter red by further resolutions. Table 1 - AGREEMENTS FREELY ENTERED INTO AND SUBSEQUENTLY VIOLATED BY THE GOVERNMENT , OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Agreement Violation United Nations Charter: Violation of Secur_ity Coun Chapter 1, Article 2 (5) cil resolution No. 2145, XX I of 1966 Chapter Xl , Article 73 (e) Discontinuance of trans mission of information (see p.15 of the Minister's letter) Universal Declaration of Nearly ali articles - but Human Rights particularly Articles 3 - Sharpeville,' Windhoek, etc. (For the purposes of this letter, we do not contend that these are legally recognizable violations of the letter of the law; it 'suffi ces for the moment that they are humanly re· cognizable violations of the spirit of the law.) The Minister would have it believed that Africans in Na mibia are living happily where they have ,always lived. This notion is set out in a section notable for its large number of qualifiers: «to a large ex!ent», «to a lesser extent», «relat- 45 ively good», «largely unaffected», «except to a limited extent». lt is not made clear what the underlying tacts ar? that give rise to these qalifiers, or make their use necessary. We will undertake to supply one or two of the omissions · covered by these vague phrases, by way of examples. For instance, the Minister lists the Ovambo, the Oka vango, the Caprivi, and «to a lesser extent» the Kaokoveld areas, as being occupied by people who have always been there. He does not, however, mention the forcible uprooting • of the Nama people of Hoachanas. These people have been forced out of ancestral lands and dumped into a veritable desert. Further, even as the Minister wrote, the Black popu lation of the Okavango River basin areas were being herded into so-called ·strategie or fortified «resettled» villages, to b~ • guarded day and night by the South African army. ln De cember 1959, twelve Africans were killed and dozens of others wounded by sten-gun and machine-gun fire from the South African army and police, because Black people refused to move to places deemed by the racist rulers to be fit for Black habitation. The Minister mentions the Police Zone in passing, say ing only that it was an area where several «population groups» were in contact and in confl)ct, and implying that the Police Zone acts simply as a kind of buffer zone or no man 's land to separate the combatants. ln fact, the Police Zone comprises three-quarters of the total land area of Na mibia; it is a «Whites Only>> area, where Africans (who form , 81.42 per cent of the population) are forbidden to live or ~ven enter,- without the permission that is granted to those who serve the Whites. lt can hardly be claimed that the Whites have been there from time: _immemorial; the time of ;46 their coming is well-remembered by the children and grand _children of the survivors of the massacres they carried our in that «Zone». The Minister is being coy when he pretends not to understand the word «Occupation••. lt is those people who occupy .lands to which they have no right. The Minister speaks of ••bloodshed, resulting in the subjugation; or even virtual extermination, of the weaker by the stronger», but neglects to point out that most of it was accomplished by ~ the White intruders. Lest South Africa try to hide behind the brutalities of the Germans_, which are well-known, let us here recall that the South African and Portuguese colonial armies combined to subjugate the Kuanyama people, whose king, Madume, committed suicide rather than live under foreign colonial rule in 1917. ln 1920, the year South Africa formally took over the administration of the Territory, her soldiers murdered more than 200 men, women and children of the Bonderswartz people by aerial bombardment. The descendants of these exterminators are still living on land whose owners their grandfathers butchered, and they are even being paid old-age, v~terans and disability pensions by the South African Government! (2) The adoption of the Plan of the Odendaal Commis sion, which mapped out the concepts and coined the phrases ••Bantu Homelands>>, ••Bantu Self-Government» and «Bantu Partial lndependence», (i.e., ··Bantustan••) must be seen as a cynical and deliberate misinterpretation of the Covenant and the Mandate of the League of Nations. The Minister points out that ••the emp~asis feil very strongly ... on the advancement of peoples, not people,.. Member' nations of the United Nations, accustomed as they are to the jargon of Apartheid, will not need to have spelled out .for them the ways in which the existence of different tribal 47 groups in the Territory served the South Atricà government. , ln confining each tribe to the land chosen by its forefathers (even supposing this were true in every case) , the rulers were able to claim that this was what the people wanted; at the same time, by converting homes into prisons, they were able to lay claim to the lands between the homes (or prisons) on the grounds th at no body lived there! ( lt would be interesting to know, in view of the Minister's boast that the Herero people have doubled in numbers under SoutH African rule, whether there are any plans to double the amou nt of land the Herero occupy). , South African dogma states that division is natural, union unnatural, and that, therefore, tranquility is a feature of homogeneous groups and turbulence a feature of mixed groups. This vicious myth hardly needs rebuttal in an or· ganization where of the Member States are themselves tha results of various forms of union of «disparate peoples» , and are thus racially highly · lt should not be supposed, either, that the Minister is right in implying that the < 48 suffering under White hegemony would be sufficient tounite them. The Herero know that a government w.hose form and officers were decided and elected by them would not inter· fere in their «unusual social organization», and, further, would not forbid them to move to the South of the Territory if they felt like it. Fin ally, the Minister quotes a figure of 610,000 as an «e stimate» of the population of the territory. This ties in with earlier estimates, and is difficult to dispute in a country where births and deaths of Africans are not officially re corded. We commend the Minister's honesty in refraining from claiming that these figures are anything more reliable than «estimates". But we would like to quote from a Secret Telegram from South African Governor-General Buxton to British Colonial Secretary Long on January 10, 1918, which sa ys: «1 cannot see how the principle of national self-deter mination could be applied to it (South-West Africa) and it will always be more a European than a native terrotiry since, thanks to the Germans, there are com paratively few Native. •• * This will clarify the Minister's intention in quoting the ridi culous figure above; obviously, such a tiny population can nat be considered eligible for nationhood, and certainly shouldn't be allowed to < Throughout most of the annexure of his letter, the Mi· nister follows the advice of Piet Meiring, who, as Director of State Information, wrote the following cynical paragraph in a· 1955 < 49 «Modern techniques have turned selling into a highly specialized science. South Africa could profitably employ th!3se new-fangled methods in her difficult task of selling herselt to the outside market. The real. com modity that wants selling, however, is goodwill and the real story that wants telling is the · unofficial domestic and social story of what individual White South Africans are doing for the Bantu. Let that be a story of real understanding and willingness to uplift and it will be a story to impress and convince the outside world." (Others have pointed out the tragedy inherent in the com mon South African use of th at phrase: «the outside world». ) (3) For a start, the Minister makes exaggerated claims for an economie miracle that came about as a result of ••the close links which South-West Africa enjoyed with th€" ad vanced industrial and technological economy of the Republic of South Africa». Again, this is difficult to dispute, for sin ce 1957, there have been no separate trade statistics for the Terrotory. lt is easy for South• Africa to claim, on the one hand, that Namibia is a profitless desert, while with the other hand she plunders the country's natural resources and products, if there are · no records of trade flow between South-West Africa arid other countries. The United States Department of Commerce Economie Report for 1961 , on the other hand, paints a very different picture of this unproductive desert region, describing the South-West African economy as one which had enjoyed a favourable balance of trade since the end of Worlcj war Il , 1 «exporting the products gained from its natural and ag ri cultural resources and importing manufactured articles, foodstuffs ( other th an meats), fuel and lumber». Further- 50 more, the Report saw no reason for «any radical change in this pattern». The principal commo~ities shipped abroad are diamonds, pelts, ore, livestock, fish and fish products and other agricultural produce. The benefici~ries of this economie potential are not the majority of the population. The Africans live in poverty and misery while South African Whites and foreign monopolies exploit their labour and the natural resources of the country. ln 1963, foreign corporations reported a 26 per cent return on their outlay! But the Africans do not share in this ; the better jobs are reserved for Whites by foreign cartels anxious , to preserve good relations with the South African authorities. The Minister claims that 19,000 non-Whites are in the direct employment of ,governmental departments and agen cies. We know them weil, the police boys carrying out re· pressive racist laws against their own people, the interpreters in the kangaroo courts, who help convict their compatrio~s . the quislings, the informers and the spies. The rest are cal led «tea boys >> by their haughty employers. Further, the claim that South African officiais assist «persans of ali population groups in mining matters, whether they be consulting engineers, managers, geologists >> is pure fantasy. Apart from the White Herrenvolk, there are no con sulting engineers, managers or geologists. The Minister knows perfectly weil that there are no non-White training facilities, and that in any case the Job Reservation Act would bar non-Whites from performing the duties of the professions he mentions! ln connection with the mines, it should be noted that a storm was raised recently when the Windhoek newspaper 51 · «Adverliser» disclosed th at the an nuai report of the Depart ment of Min"es on mineral production, prospecting and con cessions in South-West Africa was being kept secret on ins trüctions from the South African Department of Foreign Af fairs, (whose Minister we are currently taking issue with} . This was announced on 27 April 1970, and was followed, on May 1st , by an editorial, which sa id, inter a!ia : «Officially no reason was given for the -~nprecedented, unannounced decision to prohibit public release of the report. lt was simply said to be Government policy. Unofficially, a hint was dropped that the Government did not want its enemies in the United Nations and else where to get hold of the information. Presumably it was feared that it would be turned to propagandistic use.» At the end of this editorial, which was careful to mix criti~; ism with protestations of support for the Government of South Africa, the writer ruefully observed: «From the outside, elected bodies sometimes look like secret societies». We will forego comment. We have already made- our comments on the Minister's boastful resumé on communications, the blackmail underly ing which is scarcely disguised. lt might be added, however, that the much-vaunted communications system is ideally suited to military purposes; ali the White settler farms, trad ing posts and even church missions are connected directly to the police, army and «administration» centres. This gives vain comfort and security to the Whites, while it subjects the indigenous people to arbitrary fencings-off, quick arrests and imprisonment. Further, the communications system in Namibia gives employment to semi-literate Boers from South Africa. These ignorant types (who claim, ali the same, to 52 be «masters•• by right of their skins) are found practically everywhere on the rai lways, roads and harbours and in post offices, dumped in our country because they cannot be use tully employed in their own. What article of the League of Nations Mandate authorizes the use of the Territory as a· garbage dump for «White trash»? ( 4) The Minister makes sorne of his most extraordinary , claims in the realm of Education. He writes of < lt is weil known that education is the keystone of the Apartheid edifice. Poisonous racial hatred, intolerance an d myth are inculcated along with the three R's, in Wh ite schools, while the African children are taught tribalism , SE! paratism and the mystical superiority of the White people. According to the Odendaal Commission (which was ap pointed by the Minister's own Government) , on ly 0.3 per cent of African children attended school. Now, by sorne mi ra cle, the figure is 68 pe rcent. A case , perhaps, of a for gotten decimal point. He then compares his inexplicable fi gures with UNESCO statistics on Ethiopia and Liberia (an interesting choice : Ethiopia and Liberia were the countries that took the Namibian case to the International Court) . A more interesting set of figures (because more reliable) are those relating to expenditures on education. ln 1963-64, the total expenditure on education was R 4,683,- 880 , of wh ich three-quarters was spent on the education o"f White children, who form ( with their parents and other adult relatives) only 14 per cent of the total population of 53 ( thé Territory. If the Minister's << estimates, are to be trusted, one quarter of the education budget was spent on the edu cation of .three-quarters of the population! The claim that in 1960 there was one teacher for every thirty-seven African pupils can only confirm the Odendaal Commission's finding that 0.3 per cent of the children were attending school, and not 68 per cent, for, up to 1962, Afri can teachers in training totalled 154 per year. Of these, only 44 were at the '' administration >>· run institute, the rest being at missionary-run institutes. Not ali of those 154 teachers in-training complete their courses; many are expelled be- - cause of their attitudes toward Apartheid; they are found in great numbers in exile, those who are lucky enough to evade the South African Gestapo. Many others are languishing in Pretoria jails, many without trial for over two years. The truth of the matter was summed up clearly by the late Senator Dr. Heinrich· Vedder, who << represented >> the interests of the Africans of the Territory in the South African Parliament: ''To expect a White man to provide an African with education >>, he said, 54 ln a period of barely eight years, the educational pro gramme of SWAPO, launched with the aid of friendly Governments and i11ternational institutions, has produced r1ve times as many doctors of medicine as South Africa's education system produced in fifty years! ln the same ~ eriod , hundreds of our youths have qualified as economists, lawyers, architects, etc. lt" will be interesting to see h0w long it takes the Bantustan College, built at Onguediva in the northern part of the Territory at a .claimed cost of «a lmost R 6 million» to produce a genuine educated persan . This museum of Apartheid will be shawn to V.I.P. visitors and photographed for propaganda purposes, but what goes on inside will be nobody's business. The 'south African Minister is at his most disif"'genous in his discussion of " The Alleged 'Struggle' of the Peop:es of South-West Africa». " Neither the peoples of the Territory nor the South African Govèrnment is aware of such a situa tion >>, he writes. Quite apart from any other consideration, it is extraordinary that the Minister should finq himself qual ified to state with authority anything at ali about the state of awareness of people whom he does not know, who do not know him nor ever took part in the election that put him in the post he now occupies. Most people- would not be willing to stake very much in a bet on whether a given tact was known or not by their best friend; yet the Minister claims to know wh at is known and wh at is not known ( by his own count- by 6·10,000 people with whom he has never shaken hands! The Minister challenges: «On what basis of tact can any objective observer allege ihat the peoples of South-West Africa are struggling against the presence of the South Afri- 55 •. can Government». What can one say? The villain in the old-time play twists the girl's arm behind her back and holds a gun against her ribs and says «SMILE, you little slut», in her ear, while to the uneasy visitor he remarks «You can see for yourself h<:>w happy she is,,. The South African equivalent of the twisted arm and the gun in the ribs is the formidable array of legislation against resistance of any kind, such as the ·· Terrorism Act». Our outstanding leader, Mr. Herman Toivo ja Toivo, said: •• Separation is said to be a natural process. But why, then, is it imposed by force, and why 'then is it that Whites have the superiority,,, For this, Mr. ja Toivo and thirty-two of his compatriots were given twenty-year and life prison sentences. ln another section, the Minister notes • 56 in Namibia against our freedom fighters and people. Who will forget the boasts of Mr. Vorster on that memorable day of August 26, 1966 that his forces were only engaged in • mopping up operations against the ccinfiltrators•• , ••terrorists•• ... etc. The Pretoria rulers, in fact, came to realise that what they are up to in Namibia is a truly people's resistance which they surely can not crush! Perhaps Dr. Muller is the only odd man out. ln his remarks on terrorism, the Minister implies that ·treedom fighters are foreigners! ln tact, none of the ima ginary horrors painted by the Minister was proved in any of the terrorism trials. ·' lnstead, it is the Government that uses terrorist techniques for accomplishing its end . Nevertheless, the double standard is applied; the Government may resort to any means to suppress dissent, but any means used by dissenters to express dissent is termed terrorism and punis hed with terrible harshness. We know, even if we are prevented by South African trickery and sophistry ( •• Oh, that! That's just toreign-inspired terrorism! •• ) from citing cases, that our movement has the · su'pport of the people. The struggle takes many forms that. we are aware of, even if the Minister is not. Chief Hosea Kutako and his people have made it clear that they don't want the racist rule of South Africa. The Baster people of Re,hoboth, by the Minister's own admission, are resisting the South African system of slavery. The people of Hoachanas ·are resisting forced removals from their ancestral lands. ln the body of our letter, we suggested the possibility 'that the Minister is genuinely puzzled by the refusai of others, · including those Namibians who can speak (because they are 57 in jail or exile), to recognize the happiness of the ••South• West African peoples», the happiness which .according to his figures, ought to exist. 1 fear that we have done him too much honour, for it is precisely in his plaintive cry of «Must ali this progress come to an abrupt end?•• that the Minister reveals his awareness, and that of his Government, a most profound awareness, of the existence of a struggle, of the true feelings of the people who are struggling, and of the justice, even the logical necessity, of those feelings. The assumption that underlies the Minister's rhetorlcal question is this: if South Africa ceases to administer «South-West: Africa», ali contact between South Africa and Namibia will cease. Why? Why indeed the South African government make any such assumption? Britain made no such assumption when negotiating the lndependence of her Trust Territory, Tan ganyika. Why? Let the Minister find an answer that will not bring down the whole logical and moral house of cards he has so carefully built with 163 pages of ty.pe. One part of the answer belongs here; the other will be noted in a later section. The assumption is that if the Ter ritory of Namibia were independent and the people free to voice their preferences, they and their choseljl governmen~ would repudiate South Africa entirely, expel ali South African administrators, sever ali links, .destroy ali reminders of South African rule. Does this, or does it not, constitute an «awareness» of the struggle and the need for struggle? The Minister condemns, both directly and by implication, the nations which voted for the Security Council Resolution No. 269 ( 1969) and its predecessor, Resolution No. 264 ( 1969) , for acting in ignorance. If this is the case, it must be partly the fault of the Government of the Republic of South Africa, which has imposed a curtain between South Africa and •• the outside world >>. Not an iron curtaï n, to be sure, but a cellophane curtain, darkly coloured, but trans parent, and inflammable. Through it, the rest of the world can see troubled sl:lapes representing the workings of the Apartheid system : racially homogeneous soccer teams, Sharpevilles, mine disaster victims - how many black, how .. many white - and so on . Where the ignorance of those nations ends and the ignorance of the South African Govern ment begins is in the area of human nature. Those nations, many of which still remember vividly their own struggles to wa rds Independance or their battles in defence of their homes against foreign aggression, share ali knowledge of something that is at once the folly and the glory of human beings : that they prize liberty above life and dignity above bread. lt is because of that knowledge that, whenever evid ence of unrest in the South African police state, both within and outside its own borders, is brought to them, they nod and say: •dt must be so >> . The case of the •• foreign ter rorists >> - i.e ., the exiles and freedom fighters - is believed and that of the South African Government is not, for the ·~ simple reason that the •• outside world >> understands people, and knows that Namibia is made up of ••people>> . Finally, making a bow towards the Charter, the Minister reiterates the claim, •• We have never been a colonial power>>, and ••the South African Government had no designs of ag grandisernent or aggression against its neighbours or against any other State in the world». We are given no 59 guidance as to what to make of the following statement, wh ich ·occurs on page 13 of the same document : «Pursuant to its earlier announcements, South Africa in November 1946. submitted to the United Nations, for its endorsement, the proposai to incorporate South~ West Africa into the then Union of South Africa •• . ••We neither present any threat to peace, nor are we a threa~ to any country>>, the Minister writes, but does not tell us in what light to view the deployment of South African troops in Namibia, Angola, Rhodesia, Mozambique, or the reaction of the South African Government to the plans announced by_ Botswana and Zambia to link their neighbouring countries by a highway (be it noted th at South Africa .does not have a common border with Zambia. The Caprivi strip is in Na mibia, and South Africa is not Namibi~.) . No. the Minister protests, ali the South African Govern ment wants is . to be allowed to continue is charitable work of developing the poor peoples of the South-West African desert, to perform îts peace-keeping duties among those peoples who, though they have not the absolute value tha~ Whites have, must nevertheless be prevented from preying upon Qne another like the beasts of the veld. lt is here that the other answer belongs : the answer to the question of why the South African Government makes the assumption that ali contact will cease between South Africa and Namibia once Namibia is independent. That answer is simply that South Africa, in that case, will not be willing to carry on pouring Rand into the Territory, sending in experts, expanding communications, building harbours, because she won't be getting back what she used to get. 60 No longer will she be able to carry off the diamonds, the pelts, the ores, the livestock, the fish and other agricultural produce ; no longer will she be able to exploit cheap labour and imprison resisters . . No. South Africa will not wish to have any contact with a people who can no longer be forced to consent to be robbed. Many years ago, General Jan Smuts wrote : ·,, Yesterday we discuss.ed the Dominion claims to the German colonies. 1 hope 1 made a good case for South West Africa, but 1 don't know. My argument was prin-. cipally that it was a desert, a part of the Kalahari no good to anybody, least of ali to so magnificent a body as the League of Nations! lt was like the poor sinning girl's plea that her baby was only a very little one."* ln defence of his Government's anachronistic racist system of occupation, Dr. Muller cites the «judgment•• of the Inter national Court of Justice that took place in July 1966 at the Hague. The Hague farce was, no doubt, a «great break through» for Apartheid and everything that goes with this ev il system of racial persecution. Hence its, usage by the Pretoria rulers impresses nobody. For this was a clear case of the travesty of justice. lt was roundly condemned by noted international sholars of law and by millions of people everywhere. (5) The Pretoria Minister, in an attempt to give sorne semblance of respectability to his regime's presence in Na mibia, cornes up with the story of U.S. General Marshall. General Marshall did not «visit South-West Africa, as a visitor in that sense. General Marshall was hired by the 61 South African Foundation (which is the main outfit of white washing racism abroad). Ali his air fares, accommodation, etc .. were paid for by this organ of Apartheid on the sole conêtition that the General will travel, after his << visit» to Na mibia, to the Hague once again, ali hïs travel and other ex penses beinÇJ borne by South Africa, to be the Apartheid witness at the International Court of Justice. One cannat expect other sort of < (6) Since the whole letter of the Pretoria Foreign Mi nister is saturated with veiled threats and blaCkmail against ,..... our country and people in the event the illegal South African administration quits Namibia, ·our reply is simple : The Na- mi bian people are not to be intimidated by the possibility of South Africa wrecking facilities such as railroads, har bours, posts and telegraphie services. We won 't be the first to suffer this kind of sabotage at the hands of a retreat ing colonial power. And, as a matter of fact, a due note has already been taken for such eventualities. Whatever claims the Herrenvolk rulers in Pretoria may make, our position is clear: The people of Namibia have never placed faith nor trust in the racist oppressor from South Africa. ~ur struggle, both military and political, continues. South African illegal occupation of our country must , come to an end, now! 62 .1 S.O.P. - PRESS - CAmO AFRO·ASIAN PUBLICATIONS (38) MARCH 1971