Swapo Captive: A Comrade’s Experience of Betrayal and Torture by Oiva Angula is out now from Penguin Random House.

A young Namibian goes into exile to join Swapo’s military wing, PLAN, in the late 1970s. After dedicating his life to the movement, a series of purges within the organisation lead to him being wrongfully branded an apartheid spy and traitor.

So begins Oiva Angula’s terrifying story of betrayal and torture by his comrades, which culminates in imprisonment in the omalambo – the hidden pits in Lubango, Angola, into which he, along with many others, is cast and left to die.

Swapo Captive threads together personal narrative and national history, including childhood impressions that hint at a racially segregated existence, the rising tensions sparked by the apartheid regime’s rule over South West Africa, his father’s role in early liberation movements, and Angula’s own politicisation and decision to join the struggle.

Swapo Captive reveals little-known narratives from ‘the other side’ of the Border War: life in a PLAN training camp, political education in the Eastern Bloc, and a foot-soldier’s role in the war for independence.

Angula also addresses the ‘wall of silence’ imposed after independence in Namibia with respect to possible war crimes committed by Swapo, condemning the party that claimed to fight for freedom for all.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Namibia New books New releases Oiva Angula Penguin Random House SA Swapo Captive