Episode 6 - The Battle of Omugulugwombashe ushers in the formal period of the armed struggle in South West

[Music] Welcome back to the South African Border Wars podcast with me, your host, There's Lathan. This is episode 6 and we're focusing on the period in the mid 1960s. The concerted campaign against South Africa's mandate to run South West Africa began in 1960 with the shock of both the sharpful massacre and the old location massacre and ventric sealing patorias fate. All armed movements have their trigger moment and these two triggered the ANC in the first instance and Swapo in the second. And in both cases, the South African police were involved and protesters were shot in the back in a kind of bloodlust that was very difficult to explain away as the protesters were also unarmed. All sorts of excuses have been trotted out by the usual suspects regarding these two incidents, but the reality is they're radicalized and already angry people. Later, Swapo said the old location shooting did not lead to the overwhelming support for their struggle. They believed would follow diplomatically. Far worse things were going on nearby, such as the Conga Rebellion with its tales of brutality at a time of heart and tension during the Cold War. As Willem Stenkemparatsin has seminal work on this story, the South African Border War 1957 to 1989, the UN simply denounced South Africa and laughed continued as before. The Americans in particular would have stymied further security council action anyway, and it was naive of Swapo leadership to imagine that allies in this war would simply step aside over bad public relations as vicious as these two shootings were. Liberia and Ethiopia were the only black members of the old League of Nations prior to the UN who went to the World Court now to charge South Africa over the breach of mandate. Swapo leader Sam Nijoma then fled abroad and continued mobilizing both military and political support in exile. As I mentioned in episode 4, Swapo had set up provisional headquarters in the Tanzanian capital Darasalam by March 1961. So then he made his way back to South West Africa and was promptly arrested and then made the faithful decision to leave the country once more and set up his HQ closer to the field of battle in the Zambian capital Lusaka. Swapo's armed ring, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia or Plan, was training for incursions into South West based on the concept of an armed struggle, changed through revolution was the call. Meanwhile, back in Ventuk, the internal arm of Swapo continued to function. It was never shut down or banned like the African National Congress in South Africa, even during the terrible war that was to follow. As the movement armed itself and trained up, when I was being kept on the legal action by the Ethiopians and the Liberians, what would the world court decide? Eventually, the court did not make a decision on the merits of their case, instead it decided by a narrow decision settled by the chairman's costing vote that Ethiopia and Liberia had no right or interest in the matter and throughout the case. African countries then took the case back to the United Nations General Assembly, infuriated, expecting the world court to have ruled in their favour. Finally, the General Assembly resolved that South Africa's mandate should be terminated because of the failure to carry out its obligations. That decision was toothless. Who was going to force South Africa out? It was the Cold War. America and Great Britain had sympathy for the country, which had already faced a concerted effort from revolutionary nations like Cuba. On America's doorstep, offering to help all downtrodden people of the world overthrow their oppressors, they were a threat, furthermore they were using Russian arms. The UN became a swear word for their party at government. A group of nations it believed that was doing what the English had tried to do in the Bull War destroyed the Afro-Conor Nation. Of course, by now, that storyline had morphed, as I mentioned, into Hendrick Favut's narrative of working to destroy the White Nation as a whole. But nuance disappears when there's blunt force propaganda going on. Politicians on both sides of this ideological fence were to claim many things over the next few years. Firstly, the UN sent a team to investigate complaints of mistreatment of blacks in the north of South Africa in Novemberland. They toured in 1962 under the leadership of Filipino Victoria Carpio and Dr. Salvador Martínez de Alva of Mexico. After a few weeks touring the region, these two issued a communique in May 1962, saying "All went well and there was no threat to international peace." There was no genocide, nor signs of overt militarization. But by the time these two had returned to New York, that communique was torn up, and both men issued a final report to the UN Special Committee for South Africa. In that, the two excoriated Victoria, which must have come as a shock, after all the schmoozing the Nationalists had done. It was clear, at the time, there was some confusion, and South Africa as a part aid government continuously brought up the fact that the UN could not be trusted because it had changed its communique. It hadn't, and it was jaw-droppingly naive of the Nationalists to continue arguing for their position as a white minority at the United Nations with a large number of black post-colonial nations clamoring for change. So this UN communique focused on one specific part of the entire Mandate question, but Victoria was intent on reading everything desperate almost into one initial report. The entire UN process up to this moment ran counter to their view, South Africa was not welcome to run South West anymore, and yet Victoria continued to grasp at anything that appeared to give them the right to continue. Yes, history is 2020, isn't it? But at that time voices inside both South West and South Africa were warning that the population was not passive. The intellectuals in South West Africa had taken note of the independence warning and go to, and the decision to grant independence to Zambia and Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Congo and the host of other countries after World War II. So I suppose arm-during plan was now recruiting like crazy, and almost a thousand countries were gathered in different ways, from the promise of education to the promise of adventure. There are some now who say that many in So I put retrict into believing in the armed struggle. Again, those people generally spent very little time as equals listening to the people of South West. There were very few who joined thinking that they were going to get a degree in biology from some Soviet university. It's a laughable claim that there would be future freedom fighters or terrorists, whatever you want to label these men and women were tricked into signing up, and you exactly what they were going to do. So the basic training began in Tanzania, and others were sent for specialized training in Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, China, the USSR, and North Korea. So I wanted to work more closely with Unita. That was the Angolan Independence movement led by Jonas Savimbi, which he formed in 1965 after losing faith in the FNLA. The main reason was that Unita was very active in the South and could be useful as an ally. Avambos and the people of Southern Angola are the same broad ethnic group, their language is similar. This relationship though would not last the coming Angolan civil war as you will hear. Swapu also began talking to the Previan African National Union or Karnu as a form of insurance. If Savimbi was supporting Swapu in the North, Karnu would support Swapu in the North East. Karnu enjoyed the advantage of operating for neighboring Zambia and was supported fully by Lusaka. Don't forget the Portuguese still controlled most of Angola at this point, so it was very difficult for Swapu to operate across the Canadian other rivers from Southern Angola. At this stage, borders were still sacrosanct, so Swapu could build up its presence to the North and then infiltrate at a good time. Of course, as Angola collapsed internally when the civil war began in the mid-70s, that would change, but this was almost a decade away. Swapu's plan was to use the geographical weakness that South Africa faced. Swapu would work with Karnu insurgents as they moved westward in South Zambia, then cross from Zambia into Angola. Meanwhile, Karnu would continue south across the Rukana River into the Caprivi strip and lay minds as well as politicize local people. Swapu though continued tracking westwards, then would swing south into a Vambland, which is precisely what happened in September 1965. Trying to stop them were a handful of members of the South West Africa's police force, considering there were only 600 police officers across the territory, 20% bigger than Texas, that was a pretty hopeless task. Pitoria had good wind of these movements, but they still refused to mobilize the South African defence force. The Swapu insurgents began a series of political activations in Vambland, providing a few dozen youngsters with basic military training before sending them back home. To await further orders. Now that was not strategically very clever. Thousands of teenage boys suddenly appearing after a period of disappearing is a highly suspicious event, and Vambland elders began tipping off the security forces that something was going on. By the way, a similar process was unfolding in nearby Ridesha, where Zainu and Zapu gorillas were embarking on pretty much the same strategy. So, in South West, Swapu's idea was to set up a base or two inside the territory of operations. They began developing a series of bunkers and hidden trenches in Ungulumbash and feeding groups of insurgents across the border to bolster numbers for planned attacks on civilians and military targets. The September 1965 group was joined by another in February 1966 which planned to infiltrate further south. But on the way, their appear to have lost their bearings in the bush somewhere in Angoda and murdered two Angolan shopkeepers as well as a wandering of Umbaland man, thinking they were now inside South Africa. The group then broke up and headed home, having committed their acts of revolution or be it in the wrong country. Three were nabbed in the tribal territory of Kavango because they were not local and people living there were suspicious and tipped off police. The rest melted away. In July 1966, a third and larger group managed to cross the border but were a mishmash of cadres trained by half a dozen different communist nations and then formed up to conduct cross-border operations. They were not cohesive nor were they well armed with a handful carrying AK-47s while the rest travelled with assigers and bows and arrows. This group began a campaign of targeting and killing of Umbaland chiefs. They also shut up a white farmer's house in the Kruit-Fantane District where the south which unnerved the South Africans. The armed struggle proper had begun. The unit also attacked and shut up the south-west African border post that Oshikango but did not seize the building. They were conducting classic guerrilla warfare. The brewers had done the same thing so well against the British nearly 70 years before in the Anglo-Gurl-Wall so it was going to be an ironic war for the essay defense force. In a move that was to be copied over and over in the coming 23 year war, the South Africans responded in the late winter a month later in August 1966. It's the best time to conduct operations if you using vehicles because the roads are passable and more importantly the bush is thinner as winter is the drier season. Easier to spot the insurgents moving in the dusty dry landscape than mid-summer with its thick bush and impassable rivers that suddenly flow. Because of the distinct lack of air transport, the South Africans would be stuck with a land-based logistics support operation where their troops moved by road instead of being able to be airlifted in their thousands in and out of operations. This was to skew the war in the coming decades as we'll see. Although the first mission actually was carried out using helicopters. It was not going to be possible later as the South African soldiers' numbers went up to a few thousand at a time. In 1966 the South Africans knew where the insurgents base was located and it was now August winter. The vegetation was thinner, there were no thunderstorms. Perfect for a limited air-based operation. Swap was based at Ungulumbai Shun the northwest of Bombayland, was targeted by 100 seplis with some one perished regiment troops providing specialised support. There were a few vehicles deployed particularly civilian forts but this one saw helicopters used to great effect. Ungulumbai was set up by Swap was John Nankuru and he was planning to train around 90 insurgents there. There is more thickly forested than other parts of Vambaland and picked precisely because of this fact although the dry winter had thinned out their forest hard out. Nankuru had dug fairly deep bunkers as well as covered trenches which made the base extremely difficult to spot from the air. But early on the 26th of August 1966 eight helicopters landed the SAP and parachute detachments which swept through the bunkers in minutes. There were only 17 insurgents at the camp. This has become known as the first engagement of the South African border war. Two insurgents died in the attack. Nine others were captured the rest managed to escape the initial raid although the police checked most done. Some who escaped were captured years later including Lamek Etetti. He was arrested in 1969. Swap and plan blamed local spies who passed on intelligence to the South Africans. Nga Jommer held a council meeting shortly after it's where he promised they would not make that mistake again. They had trusted locals but had been let down. Because many of the swampo members were not locals they were seen as a threat by local tribal leaders. The SAP police made a note and part of future defence force Hartz and Martin campaigns would include the use of traditional leaders in remote areas. The locals passed on more information and within a few months 45 insurgents were in jail. Prime Minister John Foster had decided to go public on the same day that Angulambash was overrun by the South Africans and he told Parliament that "I want to make it clear that we have to deal here with an advanced guard and that cannot be excluded that more of such groups will try to cross our borders." A month later two homes belonging to South Africans were set alert at the Ushakongra border post. Then the spade of incidents were reported in December as the summer rains arrived to thicken the vegetation. The insurgents launched an intensive recruiting programme in Le Vombaland and the Caprivi then carried out armed attacks on local tribal headmen. A white farmer with a name of PJ Briet was shot and wounded in an attack on his farm in the Crute Vantaine district. The SAP police were ready and moved immediately. By Christmas 1966 their actions had led to the death of eight insurgents, 59 others were captured. A year later in September 1967, 37 planned members were put on trial in Pretoria. They were charged under the Terrorism Act and suppression of Communism Act. Many others would follow as we'll hear. Meanwhile, Swapua was escalating just as Foster had forecast. Every January 1968, plan began infiltrating the Caprivi strip, realizing that a Vombaland was going to be a harder nut to crack. They switched their tactics. I've spent time in the Caprivi and it's a beautiful but really remote part of South Africa. Back in 1968, it was even more remote, so much so that it had never really been colonized. Local people did not immediately support Swapua or Karnu with any vigor. There were no white farms and very few South African officials, so Swapua decided to kill traditional leaders instead regarding them as puppets of the system. By now, the SAP police had moved a large number of men into the region and they immediately responded. This led to a series of ferocious firefights between the insurgents and the SAP police. One of Swapua's top field commanders Tobias Hanyeca was killed in a firefight on a barge on the Zambezi River and eventually, by March 1968, 160 insurgents had been captured. South Africa conducted a number of show trials. The first featured a military leader called Herman Toivo Jatoivo, who appeared in Pretoria in June 1967 and was accused number 21. His speech at that trial galvanized many and had echoes of Nelson Mandela's speech at the Revenue Trees and Trials in 1963 and 4. He said, "We are Namibians, not South Africans. We do not now and will not in the future recognize your right to govern us, to make laws for us in which we had no say to treat our country as if it was your property and us as a view of our masters." He was sentenced to 20 years on Robin Island, spending most of that time in Section B with ANC leaders like Nelson Mandela, Walsh-Sussulu and others. After 16 years, he was released in 1984 and after Namibian independence and what surely must have been the ultimate irony, Toivo Jatoivo ended up as Minister of Prisons and Correctional Services. With that small, ironic aside, we'll halt and secure the perimeter. Please rate the podcast on iTunes if you have the inclination you can also send me a note on Twitter @desilathan or email me through the website abwarpodcast.com. Until next, goodbye.