Episode 7 – SWAPO escalates incursions and the SADF eventually takes over from the SA Police

This is episode 7 and the political pressure is building when it comes to the United Nations and South West African independence. At the time that South Africa had started a series of show trials under the Terrorism and Suppression of Communism Act in 1967 for SWAPO members, the UN Council for South West Africa was drawing up a timetable for the territories independence supposedly set for 1968. What really happened on the ground was that SWAPOs armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia or PLAN changed their focus from northern incursions into Ovamboland to the eastern finger of the Caprivi Strip. That was after the South Africans had crushed the first attempts at setting up a base at Ongulumbwashe as we hear last episode. Follow up PLAN insurgency was also defeated and a new strategy was needed. The local population in the Caprivi vascillated however. They did not at least initially, take too kindly to outsiders, mainly Ovambos, pressurising their leaders to support the struggle for independence. As I explained the chief PLAN commander Tobias Nayeko was killed in an intense firefight on a barge on the Zambezi River in 1968, and by March of that year, 160 insurgents were behind bars. After concerted action by the SA Police who were still in command of operations, the Caprivi Strip insurgency quietened down for a few months. But soon violence escalated and the Pretoria government realised it was time for the SA Defence Force to take control.