The Griswold Investigation
Irwin Griswold, long-time dean of the Harvard Law School and more recently the solicitor general of the United States, was engaged by the Lutheran World Federation to investigate the plight of the detainees, visit them if possible, and recommend a course of action.
He arrived in South Africa in mid-November. His first stop was a visit with the then minister of justice and police, James Kruger, an interview which someone of lesser stature would have never obtained. Griswold noted for Kruger the seriousness of the problem: holding so many people incommunicado for so long and without charge, making it impossible to arrange for counsel or to conduct a defense investigation, and prompting rumors about duress and torture. Kruger explained that the police investigation had not yet concluded and that things were more difficult in South Africa than in the United States, but, he agreed, Griswold would be allowed to see “the accused” with a security officer present. After telling Griswold that the trial would begin December 1—a real piece of news—Kruger vigorously asserted that Griswold’s trip to inquire after the detainees had nothing to do with the fixing of a trial date and that he “had records to prove that.” At the close of the interview Kruger summoned the head of the South African Police, General Prinsloo, and the head of the feared Security Police, General Geldenhuys, as well as a Security Police officer, Colonel Schoon. To this gathering of police state worthies Kruger explained the circumstances of Dean Griswold’s visit and arranged for General Geldenhuys and Colonel Schoon to accompany him to Namibia.9In a Windhoek prison Griswold saw four nurses from a Lutheran hospital in the northern area of Ovamboland: Rauna Nambinga, Anna Nghihondjwa, Hendrina Shaketange, and Naimi Nombowa. With an interpreter and his distinguished police escorts Geldenhuys and Schoon present, Griswold saw each woman separately, explaining why he was there, asking if she was treated well, and telling her that the Lutheran bishop sent his love and that everything that could be done to assist the detainees was being done.
He told them that he did not know what they would be charged with, if anything, but if they were they would have excellent counsel. Finally, he asked each of the detained women if she wished to tell him anything. None answered more than a few phrases, although Nambinga said she was worried about certain statements she made to the police, and Nghihondjwa expressed concern for her husband whom she had married only a few days before she was arrested. After the interviews Geldenhuys told Griswold: “I do not think these women should be charged. They were used.… I will recommend that they not be charged.”10 They remained in prison nevertheless, and, in fact, three of the four were charged and stood trial.The next stop for Griswold and the two most dreaded police officers in the country was the Windhoek police station where they called upon three men: Andreas Nangolo, Aaron Mushimba, and Hendrik Shikongo. Like the women, the male prisoners said little. Nangolo, however, said that they were not well treated and that “we have no right to speak what we want to say. If I tell you the truth, I may commit a crime. How much of what I say would put me in trouble? What I want to say is this. If you are really sent by the L.W.F., please do pray for us and for our people here, because we are not well treated. People in detention as well as on the outside. That’s all.” Mushimba told Griswold that he had been beaten and asked why they had nothing like newspapers to read. Shikongo said that they had previously been in solitary confinement but were not now.”11 The brevity of their answers, considering that Griswold was a complete stranger in the company of the highest-ranking Security Police officers in South Africa, is not surprising. What is striking is the bravery they exhibited in saying as much as they did under such strained circumstances.
Later all three men were charged and stood trial. Griswold was not allowed to see those detainees who were being held to be witnesses.
When he protested this, saying it was not in accord with the understanding reached with the minister of justice, he learned that literally it was in accord because he had asked to see the “accused,” not the “detainees.” Geldenhuys assured him that he could “practically guarantee” with a 99.9% certainty that none of the persons Griswold did not see would be charged. When Griswold produced a list of known detainees and inquired about each of them, he learned that all but five had been released and that the five were being held in Ovamboland as witnesses. The police would not volunteer any names of others who might be detained but were not on Griswold’s list.12 Although Griswold avoided contact with the press, news stories giving Minister Kruger as the source appeared, telling how some thirty prisoners were to be flown from distant places to Windhoek in order to be interviewed by the visiting American jurist.13Griswold was the first outsider ever allowed access to any Terrorism Act detainees. Although the Security Police limited and shaped the visit, as well as taking maximum publicity advantage, events moved rapidly following Griswold’s brief visit. The seven prisoners he saw were given reading material and allowed visits from their families. A charge sheet was published two days after Griswold left. Court was set to convene in order to hear pleas on December 1. The church leaders engaged the Windhoek law firm of Lorentz & Bone to represent the seven accused.