African Activist Archive

The press release says that, on October 18, 1984, 74 people remaining in a prison camp near Mariental, Namibia were finally released after being held incommunicado for more than six years. Fifty-four of those released were captured in a 1978 military attack by the South African Defense Forces on the Cassinga refugee camp in Angola. (The other 20 released detainees were apparently captured in other "operations.") During that invasion into Angola by South African bombers and paratroopers, more than 600 Namibian refugees were killed, over half of whom were women and children, and some 120 refugees were forcibly abducted from Angola and taken to the South African military camp near Mariental. This release of all of these detainees is the culmination of an international struggle for their freedom. On March 5, 1984, an application in the nature of a writ of habeas corpus was filed in the Supreme Court of Namibia on their behalf, financed by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and filed by correspondent attorneys at the Namibian law firm of Lorentz and Bone. The named defendants in the action were the South African Minister of Defense, Administrator-General of South West Africa (Namibia), General Officer Commanding the South West Africa (Namibia) Territory Forces, and the commander of the Mariental military camp. The South African Government's reaction to the lawsuit was unprecedented; on April 27, the South African State President ordered the Minister of Justice to rescind the Namibian Supreme Court's jurisdiction to hear the application for release of the Cassinga detainees. The revocation of the court's jurisdiction was pursuant to South Africa's Defense Act, which provides for the indemnity of government officials and members of the South African Defense Forces for any acts committed in any "operational area" "if ... the State President is of the opinion ... that it is in the national interest that the proceedings shall not be continued." In order to head off what seemed to be an impending constitutional quarrel and to placate world opinion over its decision to halt judicial inquiry of the Cassinga detentions, the Administrator-General for Namibia ordered the release of 55 of the detainees on May 25. The press release mentions the American Bar Association and William H. Gray III.

African Activist Archive

REMAINING CASSINGA DETAINEES RELEASED

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