Free at Last

A guerrilla leader is released

Insurgent Leader Herman Toivo ja Toivo thundered an impassioned defense of his activities in Namibia when he stood in a South African courtroom 17 years ago. Last week, after 16 years in prison, Toivo was released. Two hundred supporters of his organization, the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), lined the streets in a town near Windhoek, Namibia's capital, to give him a joyous homecoming. As he descended from the back of a pickup truck flying blue-red-and-green flags, any notion that he had mellowed in Cape Town's Robben Island prison was soon dispelled. Toivo raised a clenched fist in a black-power salute and shouted the official SWAPO slogan, "One Namibia, one nation!"

A sturdy, balding man, Toivo is considered to be the founding father of SWAPO, the strongest and most important liberation movement in the South African-occupied Toivo ja Toivo territory of Namibia once known as South West Africa. Its goal:

to expel South Africa from the territory and achieve independence. Religious groups and political leaders have long sought the release of Toivo, whose name has become synonymous with their struggle. "Toivo," says Kenneth Abrahams of the Namibian Independence Party, "exists as a legendary figure in the minds of most Namibians."

The release--four years early--stunned SWAPO officials and diplomats in London and the United Nations. Toivo made it clear that he felt he had been freed as a blatant propaganda ploy by South Africa, which has been trying to prove to U.S. diplomats that it is making good-faith efforts to negotiate with the guerrillas. Whatever the motives, Toivo's release is the latest in a series of fast-moving events that promises to alter radically the diplomatic, political and military situation in Southern Africa, long troubled by the hostile relationships between white-ruled South Africa and its black-governed neighbors.

Political analysts have felt that Toivo's release would take place as part of an international package that would lead to Namibian independence. Yet they have also speculated that South Africa might let Toivo out of prison as a means of causing a split in SWAPO leadership. If that is the case, the South African government could not have chosen a better time to weaken the guerrilla organization: negotiations for Namibia's independence could begin at any time.