In late 1979 I was sent to Tobias Hainyeko Training Centre in Lubango to work as a political instructor.
I was happy with my new assignment. As an instructor, I conducted political education among the recruits to instil loyalty to the ideal of freedom and to provide them with a coherent sense of purpose. I spent time with recruits cheering them up with talks about the inevitability of our victory over the occupying forces - we needed those words as much as we needed guns to boost morale.
The 14th anniversary of the start of the armed liberation struggle - on August 26 1980 - was approaching. The anniversary held a lot of significance and we started preparing ourselves to commemorate the event. Our plan was to hold a series of pre-event discussions with the trainees, starting in July, to deepen their understanding of the political and military reality of the struggle for liberation. Nothing personal mattered then, only the political, military and psychological preparation of the trainee combatants.DEATHLY QUIET
On a day in July 1980, just a few weeks before the anniversary celebrations, the sky turned to a lovely orange glow as the sun set. Angolan warplanes were roaring in the sky; otherwise the camp was deathly quiet. I went to rest after another busy day of conducting political work among the trainees. I knew that somewhere other people would be settling down in front of a television, but in the bush there was no such luxury. A few minutes after fellow instructor Titus Kapofi and I had gone to sleep, there was a sudden bang on the door. I was instantly awake. Another night patrol, I thought. I stood up to open the door.
"Commissars, you are needed by the camp commander at the office," said the messenger. It was about 9pm. Kapofi and I put on our boots, grabbed our guns and set off for the office.
We were the first to arrive, soon joined by Gerson Gurirab, Hans Pieters, Daniel Xoagub and Kakune Kandjavera. For an hour we sat there chatting, wondering about the next brief we would receive from the camp commander. It was winter and the moon hung in the eastern sky, round and glowing. We had no sense that something ominous was about to happen.
The commander, Erastus "Mamba" Imene, arrived, greeted us and went into his office. We remained outside until the arrival of Lawrence Alufea Sampofu, one of the camp's security officers. Lawrence ordered us to stand at attention.
"You will be going on a party mission," he said.
"Where to?" we wanted to know.
Lawrence gritted his teeth. "Soldiers never ask questions. You just have to carry out the order."POINTING THEIR AK-47S AT US
All of us were eager to know the details of the mission. Lawrence promised to brief us later. We were then told to hand in our guns, ammunition, belts and knives at the office and ordered to follow the security officer in single file in a northerly direction. After walking some way, we halted. Suddenly, a gang of Swapo security agents emerged from the bush, all pointing their AK-47s at us. I was mystified. They did not explain their actions and we were told to march on. After another 300m, Lawrence shouted: "Let them get in there!" The agents led us to an area dotted with underground pits, known as omalambo. All six of us were lowered into a pit by means of a wooden stick, which was then taken away.
The pit was 5m deep and 5m by 6m across, its mouth covered with wooden logs and sand. A small opening above was then closed with a heavy metal shutter, reinforced with stones. It was very dark. We had no blankets, but it was stiflingly warm inside the pit. All of us kept silent. I felt a distressing sensation that we were being buried alive. I was terrified by this unforeseen predicament.
I tried to sleep, but the throbbing inside my head rose to a crescendo and I swayed like a ship in a storm. In my life I had had great, memorable travels, but this was an unexpected detour, a frightening journey to a frightening destination, where a dramatic precipice drops sheer from the road.
The next morning, Kakune was the first to awake. He sat in one corner, his gaze fixed on the closed mouth of the pit. The temperature in the pit had risen to tropical heights and we were sweating like hell.
"Why did they throw us in this pit? Why are they being so stupid as to treat fellow comrades like dirt?" Kakune asked, staring at Gerson.
"I think they are training us for tough times ahead," said Gerson with a boyish grin.
Kakune rejected the suggestion indignantly. "What training? This is not the way to train comrades."
"They probably want to scare us," said Hans, who had remained calm.
"I do not approve of what these guys are trying to do," put in Daniel, disgruntled. "I do not like it."
Titus sat in the far corner of the pit, looking annoyed and showing signs of uneasiness. "I do not feel happy any more," he said.
I quickly entered the conversation. "Let us wait and see. They will probably tell us today why we are here."
Lawrence arrived a few hours later. He was terse and hostile when he opened the pit. "Hans, come out!" he barked. "Fast, fast!"
"What is up, comrade Lawrence?" Gerson prodded him.
"You do not know?" Lawrence growled, fixing us with a gaze.
"That is right, I do not know."
"Well, you should better start thinking about it. You should better think hard," he said.
Numbness came over me as I realised that something had gone wrong. I tried to think hard as Lawrence had said, but I was flustered. For two days we were given no water or food, and the nagging pangs of hunger and thirst, mingled with frustration, made those days long and desperate. When food was finally lowered into the pit on the afternoon of our third day of imprisonment, we were like starving dogs, falling on the porridge and maggot-infested beans. It took only a few minutes for us to shovel it in.
A week passed and we did not see Hans. We became increasingly worried and desperate. The guards remained tight-lipped when we tried to find out where he was. Meanwhile, we spent day and night in the pit. They did not allow us to go out, so we had to urinate and defecate in the pit.
Our unexplained caging and bewildering isolation from the rest of the comrades became more unendurable with each passing day. It felt as though we were fated to melt in this furnace, the sizzling blood creeping reluctantly through our starving bodies. We all suffered insomnia.Three weeks later, Hans was brought back to the pit. His face was bleak and he had fresh weals on his legs and back - signs of torture.
"There is shit," he said.
"What shit?" asked Gerson.
"Ndlovu says we are all Boer spies," said Hans.
Ludwig Ndlovu had been appointed as a trainee political instructor after finishing his basic military training in 1980. Just a month before, we had taken him to the camp clinic after he had shown signs of mental instability and irrationality.
"They were torturing me to admit that I am a Boer spy," Hans continued. "They have a list of about 46 alleged spies."
It was only then that we realised that we were in real trouble.
Somehow, Gerson knew how to make the best of a bad situation. He never dwelt on the gloomy. When Hans told us about his unpleasant rendezvous, Gerson passed over the worst parts and tried to remember the better times.
"Are you afraid, Titus?" he asked jokingly. "Do not worry, we will be outside soon, eating salted fish at the instructors' kitchen."
With his delightful sense of humour and courage, we felt at ease. This is how Gerson survived life in the Lubango pits until he succumbed to injuries inflicted during torture. He was remarkable.
The Tobias Hainyeko Training Centre security reported their "big fish" haul (the 46 alleged spies) to the headquarters in Lubango, which received the news with apprehension. All those detained were officers, and the security agents failed to provide concrete evidence that linked us to the enemy. The defence secretary sent a team headed by chief commissar Tauno Hatuikulipi to help with the investigation. I had met Hatuikulipi before going into exile. He had been a well-known ecumenical leader in Namibia before settling in Angola. The team also included the Marxist Youth Centre security chief Nico Basson, who would perish in the pits in 1987. After cross-questioning Ludwig Ndlovu, it became clear that the "big fish" drama was a figment of his brutalised imagination.
The security officers interrogated each one of us, without torture. Perhaps they feared censure from their superiors at headquarters. When it was my turn for interrogation, Lawrence (with whom I had always interacted without issue) eyed me mistrustfully, before bursting into a long paroxysm of almost soundless laughter. Then his face grew abruptly serious.
"Tell me this: have you ever had the smallest contact with the Boers in Namibia?"
"Oh, yes! They are so many in Namibia," I replied.
"I mean their army or police force."
"Never!" I said forcefully. How would I have? His question was insulting.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, comrade."
At this point, Lawrence's immediate superior, Johannes Severinus, a blue-dark man with red-shot eyes, joined us. They questioned me for some time, trying to find a reason to link me in some way to the occupying colonial regime. They repeated the same questions several times: "Are you loyal to Swapo?", "Were you trained in Namibia?", "How did you join PLAN [Swapo's military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia]?" and "Have you visited an army camp in Namibia?" I answered their questions truthfully. The two were like lizards performing a complicated dance, twisting and turning in a bid to trap a beetle that was, for the moment, managing to evade each deadly thrust.
"You mean you are not an agent?" Johannes finally asked, his eyes fixed on me.
"I am not!" I declared emphatically.
On August 26, after four weeks of confinement, we were called out in the afternoon.
"What brings you here then?" Commissar Hatuikulipi asked.
"We do not know. Ask Lawrence," Gerson said.
"I also do not know," Lawrence said.CONTEMPT
I looked at him with utter contempt. In the presence of the delegation from headquarters, the centre's security officers produced Ludwig Ndlovu, a loose-bodied young man, tending towards fat. He was in fetters, evidence of torture screaming from his person, escorted by two guards with guns pointed at his back. Ludwig looked terrified and was shaking. His eyes were like those of a child expecting a beating. He could not speak clearly and had trouble moving his limbs. My heart bled at his appearance. He was pale and yellowish, his head dirty, his hair uncombed. His frightened eyes darted nervously at us. The depth of his sorrow was clear and it tore my heart apart.
We later discovered that after we had taken Ludwig to the camp clinic, he had been removed to a secret place, where he was tortured. In the process, he broke down and confessed to being a Pretoria-trained spy, falsely implicating more than 40 others, including myself.
"What did he do, comrade Lawrence?" Titus asked.
"Ask Ludwig himself," he shrugged.
"What is going on, Ludwig?"
"I was forced to implicate you," he murmured, looking at the ground, avoiding eye contact. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"What did you say?" Titus growled.
Ludwig looked up for the first time.
"They say I am trained by the Boers." The words came out muffled through his tears.
"What are you saying?" Lawrence barked, his voice ricocheting off the stark hills. "Tell them exactly what is in your statement," he insisted, like he was speaking to an idiot.
"I am a Boer spy," Ludwig said, dropping his voice.
"Have you ever seen me in Namibia?" I asked.
"No!" replied Ludwig.
"How do I fit into your list of Boer spies?"
"I was forced to name people in Hainyeko and at the front that I know," he said.
This was, of course, one of the strange, egregious tricks used by the interrogators to arrest more innocent PLAN cadres.
"And so?" I prodded.
"I was in great pain and could not do otherwise. I figured if I did not call names, they would kill me."
Ludwig fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to another. The security agents had interrogated, threatened and beat him. It was clear he had told a lie to save his own skin; the people he had named had met him for the first time in exile."Who forced you?" Johannes intervened.
Ludwig, unnerved by the rage in the security officer's voice, did a quick volte-face.
"I just wrote your names," he mumbled through trembling lips.
SERIOUS MATTER
"The secretary of defence ordered us to come and find out what is happening," said Hatuikulipi. "Our DHQ team and the Tobias Hainyeko Training Centre security officers have looked into this serious matter. We found no truth in the claims of Ludwig that you are enemy agents. You are all innocent."
At once, a flicker of hope crept into my sagging heart. Thank God! I could not hide my happiness. Who wants to carry the stigma of a traitor?
"We have sorted out the problems," Hatuikulipi continued. "We deeply regret what has happened to you. For the secretary of defence, comrade Peter Nanyemba, I am here today to apologise for the mistake. However, do not let this incident blight your future. Please continue to serve the movement as you have been doing in the past."
A pale-looking Lawrence then said: "Let us forget everything. Do not go and tell others that you were at this place. It can create a tricky situation."
Each of us expressed thanks to the headquarters team for securing our return to freedom. I was agonised to be linked to an occupying power which thrived on the blood and sweat of my people. More painful was that my integrity, pride and patriotism were stained.
I watched Ludwig, barefoot and wearing a yellow T-shirt and black shorts, being led to a pit. He disappeared into the darkness of the Lubango bush. It was the last time I saw him...