African Activist Archive

The pamphlet says Bill Anderson is a 21 year-old rifleman first (private) in the South African army who defected in July 1976 after serving a year in Namibia and Angola. On August 30, 1976, the London Guardian newspaper published Anderson's eye witness accounts of torture techniques used by South African army personnel on African youth along the Angola-Namibia border; in September, 1976, Anderson presented further testimony before the United Nations Council on Namibia. The pamphlet says in October, 1976 Anderson appeared at a press conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the American Friends Service Committee headquarters. The result of that press conference and a private interview by the Third World Coalition are contained in the information packet. The pamphlet discusses SWAPO (Southwest African People's Organization), MPLA, Operation Cobra, guerrilla activity, prisoners, Internal Security Act, Vorster, Soweto, Ovamboland, and UNITA. • Statement by Bill Anderson • Water torture • "shocks were applied to their nipples" • every night - "screams of the tortured" • 1,000 tortured • South African police • torture "a form of entertainment" • stage of guilt • Suppression of Communism Act • received warmly by SWAPO • South African soldiers: posed as mercenaries • Israeli weapons advisors • "they shot a hole through his hands" • pistol range "flooded with people" • main supply town in Namibia doubled in size • The black consciousness movement? "I can't condone it" • "Tonight you'll have to bury us" • "Armed struggle is the only answer" • a socialist system • Non-racial theater • "hell of a punishment coming" • hard to work with blacks • Alliance for Radical Change • English versus Afrikaners • progressive whites are detained

African Activist Archive

A White Defector Speaks on Atrocities in Southern Africa

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