NAMIBIA: TWO DOZEN SWAPO PRISONERS ARE RELEASED/ SWAPO ALLEGES SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE DUMPED 27 BODIES OF ITS MEMBERS IN A MASS GRAVE.

Record ID: 645755

  • Title: NAMIBIA: TWO DOZEN SWAPO PRISONERS ARE RELEASED/ SWAPO ALLEGES SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE DUMPED 27 BODIES OF ITS MEMBERS IN A MASS GRAVE.
  • Date: 20th July 1989
  • Summary: WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA (JULY 20, 1989) REUTERS - STANFORD) SVS GROUPS OF RELEASED PRISONERS CHANTING, RELATIVES AND FRIENDS HUGGING THEM, PRISONERS WITH SUPPORTERS OUTSIDE GATES, SECURITY. (5 SHOTS) 0.25 GV COACH WITH PRISONERS, CROWD WITH FLAGS IN FRONT OF BUS. (3 SHOTS) 0.41 SV ZOOMOUT PEOPLE CHEERING. 0.52 SV HAMUTENYA SPEAKING AS NOTED. (ENGLISH SOT) 1.02 NORTHERN NAMIBIA (JULY 20, 1989) (REUTERS - QUEBEKA) PEREZ DE CUELLAR'S COACH. 1.05 SV PEREZ DE CUELLAR SHAKING HANDS WITH PEOPLE. 1.15 SV SECTION OF CROWD WITH SWAPO BANNERS CHANTING. 1.20 TRANSCRIPT: SEQUENCE 4: HAMUTENYA: "Last week, SWAPO discovered a fresh mass grave of more than 27 people who were buried secretly last week."
  • Embargoed: 4th August 1989 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Namibia, Namibia
  • Country: Namibia
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8JPNCSOPAXCKPD0V1RCNOGUC4
  • Story Text: WINDHOEK, AND NORTHERN NAMIBIA

    Two dozen political prisoners marched out of Namibia's main jail singing freedom songs and waving a black nationalist flag on Thursday under an amnesty from the territory's South African rulers.
    Prison warders watched as the 24, all members of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), were greeted at Windhoek's prison gates by hundreds of jubilant supporters.
    The amnesty was announced on Wednesday by the territory's south African governor, Louis Pienaar, as part of a United Nations (U.N.) independence plan for the territory.
    Afterwards, SWAPO Information Secretary Hidipo Hamutenya said his organization on Saturday had dug up 27 fresh bodies that, he said, had been dumped in a mass grave last week by territorial police in Ovamboland, northern Namibia, where the majority of the population live.
    Hamutenya said United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping forces were present during the unearthing. He gave no further details.
    Senior U.N. officials were not available for comment because they flew to the north early on Thursday with U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
    The South-West African Police (SWAPOL) said that last Friday police had buried in the bush 11 bodies of SWAPO guerrillas who had been killed during an incursion in April, when the U.N. independence process was nearly derailed. The SWAPOL representative said the bodies had been kept in a refrigerator at the Oshakati morgue but had been unclaimed. He called the figure of 27 bodies "blatant propaganda."
    The route from Ondangwa airport, where Perez de Cuellar landed on Thursday, was lined with demonstrators calling for the removal of Koevoet, a counter-insurgency unit whose 1,500 members have been incorporated into the regular police force. They are accused of harassing and intimidating SWAPO supporters as they did during the 23-year guerrilla war against South African rule.
    <strong>Source: REUTERS - SIMON STANFORD AND WILLIE QUEBEKA</strong>
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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