Lighting the Candles of Remembrance, Breaking the Silence

Situated Sinuously in southwestern Angola’s Huila province, Lubango is rich in history and culture, with a steep-sided plateau that gives rise to spectacular landscapes not very far from the majestic Serra da Leba mountains.

Its scenic beauty though, was defiled by dozens of dungeons dug in its bowels by Swapo during Namibia’s war of independence, where hundreds of Namibian freedom fighters were cynically caged, tortured and many killed and disappeared.

Each year, 30 August marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, a day established by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 65/209 of 2010 to raise awareness about the global issue of enforced disappearances, highlighting the plight of those who have vanished without a trace, often at the hands of a state or with its acquiescence. Others were also disappeared by resistance movements like Swapo, and have left families and communities in a state of perpetual uncertainty and anguish.

Many Namibians mysteriously disappeared when apartheid South Africa exported violence and war to Namibia, just at the time when Swapo was engaged in bloody purges against its own members in exile.

The relatives of the victims of Swapo’s cruel purges abroad, like those documented among others in Samson Ndeikwila’s autobiography, ‘The Agony of Truth’, refuse to give up or forget through the power of persistence, focusing their energies on finding cracks in the official Swapo record titled, ‘Their Blood Waters our Freedom’.

After 43 years of his disappearance at Lubango, families, friends, community members, and survivors of Swapo’s Lubango dungeons came together for a candlelight event at farm Kransneus, about 40 kilometres south of Windhoek, on 16 August. They gathered to reflect about, remember and honour the life of Salmon Goliath, a People’s Liberation Army of Namibia cadre who disappeared at Lubango.

Goliath left Namibia for exile at the age of 20.

“We are sad his life was taken far too early, we mourn the beautiful spirit that is no longer with us, and we celebrate the joy and love he brought to our family,” said a family member at the candlelight event. “His story is one of courage, sacrifice, and tragedy.”

As they said his name and released six balloons into the air, each guest lit a candle, symbolising hope, remembrance, and a sign of solidarity with the family that continues to live with the pain, loss, and trauma from Namibia’s dark past.

Goliath is one of the victims of the crime of enforced disappearance by Swapo, which left loved ones to live with the agony of his unsolved absence and the added pain of not knowing his whereabouts or fate. This is an inspirational example of a family that draws energy from such an event, and in preserving memory.

Without his body or information about his fate, the family and friends are unable to perform the usual rituals associated with death and mourning – such as holding a funeral or having a grave.

“The candlelight event offers a space for all of us as a community and Lubango survivors to connect, honour the lives of our loved ones who died at the hands of their own, and find strength in community, shining a light of hope and resilience against injustices of our recent past,” said Stephanus Swartbooi, a survivor of the Lubango dungeons.

“The tatekulus [Sam Nujoma and Solomon ‘Jesus’ Hawala] are gone. Their absence still haunts us, the living,” he added.

Swartbooi pointed out that this is the basis of most horror stories: the dead returning because of what happened to them when they were alive, or because of the manner of their deaths. “They [the disappeared] demand to be buried properly. And until they are, the living are unlikely to get any rest themselves,” he said. “It becomes a problem for all of communities, not just an individual family.”

“This occasion is a time of sadness, mourning, healing, celebration and hope,” said a family member. “We waited for years, now it seems forever, with no word, no body, no closure.” She said the only written message received by the family was from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies saying: “He died somewhere near Lubango.”

In Swapo’s “Book of the Dead”, he is listed as having died due to a lack of thiamine (vitamin B1) on 26 December 1987 in a dungeon, where detainees were punished by starvation to death.

Goliath, or ‘Kapwepwe’ as he was known by his nom de guerre, is one of the thousands of Namibians who were criminally arrested, tortured, killed and disappeared in the name of defending the struggle against so-called “dissidents” in Zambia and “enemy agents” in Angola.

“Though he is gone, his legacy lives in the hearts of his family and all who cherished his memory,” reads a statement issued by the family at the candlelight event.

Hawala, who died on 11 August and was dubbed “The Butcher of Lubango”, was the military henchman who, more than any other, enforced the brutal atrocities that characterised Swapo in exile under the leadership of Nujoma.

Thsithigona Tsuutheni from Okaku ka Angula in the Uukwambi tribal area in the Oshana region, confided to a few in the dungeons in early 1989 before his disappearance that: “Nujoma is devious in thoughts and actions, and has no sense of logical thinking.”

It was after the Swapo leader’s visit in 1986 to the dungeons during which he scolded the detained as “reactionaries” without any proof.

As veteran journalist Wonder Guchu rightly remarked, “Swapo, just like South Africa’s African National Congress, Zanu and Zapu of Zimbabwe, Frelimo in Mozambique and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola all have ugly hidden secrets of unexplained deaths, disappearances, unjustified imprisonment, accusations and implosions caused by tribalism.”

– Oiva Angula is the chairperson of Breaking the Wall of Silence, a movement created by survivors, former detainees and relatives of the victims of the Lubango dungeons. He is also the author of ‘Swapo Captive’.

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