Govt appeals for info on mass graves

The Namibian government has called for information on two apartheid-era mass graves discovered at a former military base in the northern town of Eenhana near the Angolan border.

"We are appealing to the conscience of those who served in the former South African Defence Forces (SADF), who are probably living in South Africa, to come forward with any information they might have [to help identify the bodies]," said Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia's minister of information and broadcasting.

The uniforms found in the graves suggest that the dead were members of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the armed wing of the ruling SWAPO party. "We also found cloth used by the former apartheid regime to suffocate people, so we can assume that the SADF were responsible for these deaths," Nandi-Ndaitwah told IRIN.

"It is really a sad story for us. We do not want to keep on discovering mass graves [by accident], so we are asking for information on the existence of any other mass graves across the country," she said, adding that those who came forward with information would not be prosecuted.

The minister noted that SWAPO, which won a landslide in the elections at independence in 1990, had signed an agreement with the then apartheid government not to take legal action against individuals for their role in atrocities during the liberation war.

While the government stands by the agreement, a Namibian NGO, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), has called for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) akin to the South African model to account for several thousand people who went missing during the liberation struggle.

"As we have persistently done during the last 15 years, we reiterate our call for the establishment of a TRC to investigate all human rights violations committed in opposition to Namibian independence and in the name of achieving such independence. Both the SADF and PLAN have committed untold atrocities in the context of the liberation war", said NSHR executive director Phil ya Nangoloh.

Nandi-Ndaitwah ruled out the possibility because of SWAPO's commitment to a policy of reconciliation. "But the discovery does prove what we had been saying all along about the cruelty of the former South African regime. Unfortunately, international human rights organisations were unable to prove it then," she added.

Constand Viljoen, chief of the SADF from 1977 to 1985, reportedly denied the possibility that "well disciplined South African troops ... [could] have buried guerrillas in mass graves, as dealing with any bodies had been a police function".

The graves, which possibly contain the remains of several hundred people, may date to a nine-day battle between PLAN and South African security forces in 1989, in which more than 300 people were reported killed, added ya Nangoloh. "We all remember the bodies of SWAPO soldiers were often displayed on SADF vehicles which drove through our villages."

The battle followed a major SWAPO incursion from Angola ahead of a ceasefire that was to lead to the elections.

Ya Nangoloh pointed out that besides the deaths at the hands of the SADF that remain unaccounted for, the number of those killed in SWAPO's custody was also unknown.