Political Prisoners of South Africa Documentation Project
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GAUS SHIKOMBA
Imprisoned for Life
(Original biographical information included with his bracelet in 1985)

            Gaus Shikomba is a member of SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organization).  SWAPO is the primary liberation movement in Namibia.  There are believed to be nearly 50 Namibian prisoners on Robben Island and it has been claimed that almost as many again are in other prisons in South Africa.  There are 17 Namibians serving life sentences in South Africa, and are included in the South African Political Prisoners Bracelet Program.

            Shikomba participated in the Omugulugwombashe battle on 26 August 1966, was shot, captured and taken as a prisoner to Pretoria.  He was later brought back to Namibia for his trial.  He was found guilty in the Windhoek Supreme Court in August 1969 of conspiring to overthrow the South West African administration by force to replace it with a SWAPO-led government.  He was sentenced to life imprisonment which he is serving on Robben Island.

            When he arrived on Robben Island, he found his comrades who had been arrested in 1966 in Namibia and flown secretly to Pretoria, South Africa.  They were held in detention until charged in 1967 under the South African Terrorism Act for conspiring to incite revolution and armed resistance to the administration in Namibia, receiving military training, encouraging others to do so, and entering Namibia armed to create violent revolution.  Of the 37 arrested and put on trial in Pretoria, seventeen were sentenced to life imprisonment and the others were given a 20 year prison sentence.  The United Nations condemned the trial as a violation of Namibia’s international status.

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The source of this biographical information is International Defence and Aid Fund’s book, Prisoners of Apartheid, 1978.  We appreciate their permission to use this material.

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