KATIMA MULILO – For liberation struggle veteran Charles Lutokwa Sampati, Namibia’s independence came at a heavy price.
More than three decades after independence, Sampati still bears the physical and emotional scars of what he describes as years of harassment, imprisonment, torture and threats to his life at the hands of South African colonial security forces. Sampati, who began his political activism with the Caprivi African National Union (CANU) before its eventual alignment with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), says his involvement in the liberation struggle made him a frequent target of the colonial authorities.
“I suffered really. I was in the hands of the Boers,” he recalled.
He said he was repeatedly arrested and detained at the police station in the then Caprivi, sometimes almost every week.
“Nearly every week, nearly every week, I’m in and out, in and out,” Sampati said.
Arrested and tortured
Sampati recalled one of the most frightening episodes of his life when colonial security forces allegedly took him deep into the bush after accusing him of planting a bomb at an office in Katima Mulilo.
He said he was chained and interrogated, with his captors apparently under instructions to kill him if he refused to confess.
“They told them that if I refused, saying I didn’t plant that bomb at the Katima office, they must leave me there in the bush. They said, ‘Don’t bring him’,” he recalled.
Sampati understood the instruction to mean he was to be executed in the bush. “I knew they were now planning to shoot me,” he said. Facing what he believed would be his final moments, Sampati said he asked his captors to let him pray.
“I said, ‘God, Jesus, I put my soul into your hands’.”
He said he then told them they could shoot him. “I said, ‘I have finished praying. You can shoot me now. You can kill me’.”
According to Sampati, his captors ultimately failed to execute him and returned with him.
A life lived underground
Sampati, who hails from the Kasika area, said his resistance began in the 1960s, when he became involved with CANU under the leadership of the late Brendan Kangongolo Simbwaye, before the movement became part of the broader Swapo liberation struggle.
He later worked underground in the Zambezi region, helping to mobilise communities and distribute information and materials related to the liberation movement.
“I was a chairperson underground here in the location,” he said.
His work, he recalled, involved travelling between villages on foot, carrying books, cards and information to people sympathetic to the liberation struggle.
“There were no phones back in the day, but I don’t know how God was helping us to share information,” he said. He said the danger was constant because colonial authorities were actively trying to identify and suppress those involved in the liberation movement.
“I was left behind to speak to the people, to tell the people not to surrender, and this country is not for the Boers. It’s for us Africans,” he said.
Sentenced in Pretoria
Sampati also recalled being among Namibians prosecuted for high treason in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1963.
He said about 100 people were prosecuted together and spent approximately a year and six months in Pretoria Central Prison.
“We were 100 people, if not a lot,” he said. He recalled that authorities threatened to send them to Robben Island. According to Sampati, the authorities accused the group of involvement in shootings at Tsumkaro. He maintained that although they supported those challenging colonial rule, they were not responsible for the shootings attributed to them.
“They were saying we shot at Tsumkaro,” he said. “We said, ‘Yes, they were here, but not us’.”
He said the absence of evidence linking them directly to the alleged shootings ultimately prevented the authorities from sending them to Robben Island.
‘The torture was a machine’
For Sampati, however, imprisonment was only one aspect of the brutality he experienced.
He described being subjected to torture that he believes has had lasting consequences for his health.
“That torture was a machine,” he said, explaining that electrical equipment was connected to his body. “It’s not like the torture of beating you,” he said.
Sampati believes the abuse contributed to his current physical difficulties, including weakness on one side of his body and problems with his eyesight.
He has since lost his eyesight and is now blind. “I think it comes from the torture,” he said of his blindness.
His account illustrates the enduring physical scars carried by some survivors of Namibia’s liberation struggle decades after the country gained independence.
‘It was not easy. It was not straight’
Despite the suffering, Sampati says he never surrendered his political convictions. He recalled walking long distances between communities, sleeping wherever he could find shelter and relying on sympathetic residents to survive while continuing his underground activities.
“It was not easy. It was not straight,” he said.
For him, the freedom Namibians enjoy today is therefore inseparable from the suffering endured by those who resisted colonial rule.
He points to the freedom of movement as one of the clearest changes brought by independence.
During colonial rule, he said, Namibians required passes to travel between areas.
“Even from Kavango coming here, or from here you go to Kavango, you must have a [border] pass,” he said. “But now, if I want, or if I have money, I can go to Oshakati or Oshivelo. The whole Namibia, without being asked, ‘Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going?’ Nobody can ask anything. We are free now.”
A call to remember those who died
Sampati says remembering the liberation struggle must also include accounting for those who died far from home.
He appealed to the government to accelerate efforts to identify and repatriate the remains of Namibians who died or were buried in South Africa, Zambia and Angola during the struggle. “They must bring all the remains that are outside Namibia back at home,” he said. He questioned why some Namibians who sacrificed their lives for independence remain buried outside the country more than 30 years after independence.
“Why are the remains still there?” he asked. Sampati also recalled alleged killings of liberation activists and three ANC fighters, who, according to his account, were betrayed while travelling through the Zambezi region.
He said efforts are underway to locate the graves of the three South African fighters and that, despite his failing eyesight, he hopes to help identify the area.
‘The youth are lucky’
Sampati’s message to today’s youth is shaped by the suffering he endured.
“They are lucky.”
He believes young Namibians should understand that the freedoms they enjoy were secured through sacrifices made by previous generations.
“They are lucky because their grandfathers and grandmothers and others sacrificed their life to get the independence of this country,” he said. He urged young people not to squander the opportunities created by independence, particularly access to education. “They must not spoil this independence,” he said.
“They must be leaders of tomorrow.” For Sampati, the story of independence is therefore not simply one of political liberation. It is also a story of imprisonment, torture, fear and resilience — and a reminder that the freedoms enjoyed by today’s generation were paid for by people who, like him, endured extraordinary suffering without surrendering their belief in a free Namibia.
-anakale@nepc.com.na
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