Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS) is a

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

(NGO) in

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 202 ...

, the capital of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. It is named after Siegfried Groth book ''Namibia. The Wall of Silence'', and was formed at the occasion of the book's release in 1996. Namibia's independence movement SWAPO, its ruling political party, detained, tortured and killed members of its own movement in the Lubango dungeons in southern

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

in the 1980s, the final years of the

Namibian War of Independence The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and An ...

. People that had previously been detained by the South African

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

government, but also those close to suspected spies were accused of having turned against the liberation movement, and of spying on behalf of the oppressors. Victims included prominent people such as Bience Gawanas, later ombudsperson of Namibia, and

Aaron Muchimba According to Abrahamic religions, Aaron ''′aharon'', ar, هارون, Hārūn, Greek (Septuagint): Ἀαρών; often called Aaron the priest ()., group="note" ( or ; ''’Ahărōn'') was a prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of ...

, businessman and brother-in-law of

Sam Nujoma Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma, (; born 12 May 1929) is a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first President of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first ...

Gwen Lister Gwen Lister (born 5 December 1953 in East London, South Africa) is a Namibian journalist, publisher, anti-apartheid and press freedom activist. Early life Growing up under the apartheid system, Lister resolved to fight it as an adult, and c ...

claims that also

Hage Geingob Hage Gottfried Geingob (born 3 August 1941) is a Namibian politician, serving as the third president of Namibia since 21 March 2015. Geingob was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 1990 to 2002, and served as prime minister again from 201 ...

, Namibia's third president, "would have been detained if the Zimbabwean president,

Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...

, had not intervened". The last detainees were released in May 1989. Siegfried Groth, a German pastor in SWAPO's Angolan refugee camps, exposed the atrocities at Lubango, causing the foundation of the BWS, a fierce debate on national reconciliation, and a "furious response from Swapo". BWS advocates for an acknowledgement of the goings-on at Lubango as well as for an official apology by SWAPO.

Kalla Gertze Reinhard "Kalla" Gertze (1960 – 13 March 2008) was a Namibian university lecturer and parliamentarian as a member of the Congress of Democrats (CoD) party. He was in the National Assembly of Namibia, National Assembly from 2005 until his death in ...

was the first president of this organisation. Pauline Dempers became the organisation's coordinator in 1999 and, as of 2008, was still in that position. Both were affected personally by the detentions and served time in the Lubango dungeons.

References

Notes

Literature

* *{{Cite book , title=Namibia. The Wall of Silence: The Dark Days of the Liberation Struggle , last=Groth , first=Siegfried , publisher={{Interlanguage link multi, Peter Hammer Verlag, de , year=1995 , isbn=978-3872947086

External links

Interview with Pauline Dempers, BWS national coordinator
Advocacy Net, 28 July 2009 1996 establishments in Namibia Human rights organisations based in Namibia Windhoek Organizations established in 1996 South African Border War