The War against Apartheid (PT, MT; CLOSED)

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Apartheid is dead.
Apartheid is dead.

The lonely mansion on the hillside was bare and crumbling. Indeed, some of it's rooms had fallen into such disrepair that stagnant pools of water had collected on the uneven floor. It's spectral towers lashed out against the sky, as lightning flashes illuminated its many boarded windows.

Johannes Barnard sat in the study, writing. The cracked, battered, antique desk was the only piece of furniture in one room he actually used, besides a few stacked wooden crates, a crackling radio set, and the plastic chair he sat on as he penned these words obsessively. His grey locks had grown out, and his face was collecting a beard. A bathrobe was hung like a coat on a hanger over his limp frame, rumpled shirt, and snarled jacket. He had fallen on such hard times since his political activities, as many had tried to make life hell for him.

Being a member of the fashionable Liberal Party, Barnard had been always the most hardline demander of change. His more moderate colleagues cautioned him about politics in Suidwes-Afrika, but he remembered the lump in his heart the day he was walking down the street and saw them, and turned a deaf ear.

There was a poor family seated underneath the shade of an oak tree near the rubbish outside a hotel. The two girls wore but old rags wrapped around their skeletal bodies, and their cheekbones were sunken pitifully into their faces. The father, looking no better himself, had obviously given what little food he could scavenge to his daughters, and it had taken an obvious toll on his own health. Here, he sat, repairing wristwatches for a living, and earning just barely enough from sympathetic passerby to dodge starvation each month.

Just because of their heritage and race. He thought slowly as he surveyed the ragged band, thought about himself for the first time as being born into this, this absolute poverty, cursed forever as a peasant underneath the bottom rung of society. It was then Johannes Barnard knew he would never sleep well again.

He noticed it slowly at first, noticed it in the city, particularly at the expensive cafe on third street. Two white men, seated at the table. Served the finest steak and wine. A little business they had to speak over lunch of. They were dressed in expensive suits, the kind that even Barnard himself would wince at once he saw the price tag.

A single black staggered up to them, long white beard flowing from his gentle features, his old and filthy cotton shirt and trousers patched in at least a dozen places. The kind of traditional beggar straight out of the pictures. He held a handful of handmade tribal trinkets, made from sticks, bones, and scarce flint. Obviously a skillful negotiator, the African pestered the businessmen enough that one thrust a note into his hand, pushed him away, and took a keychain from his wares to abandon on the checkered tablecloth next to the remains of their very fine meal.

Barnard had watched the scene with interested eyes. He had gotten a good education abroad, but the general criticism and tilt against Suidwes-Afrika for the nation's racial policies seemed to him at this time to be empty, pointless, speech, made by foreign observers who had no coherent idea of how things were in the real nation. Now his eyes were opened to the gross injustice he had ignored all of his life.

Many of them didn't even speak German or English; natives were not afforded any schools beyond what sympathetic missionaries had provided. But when he watched them labor in the fields of the great commercial farms he recalled growing up around in his youth, he could see their eyes. Their eyes spoke wonders.

Perhaps it was natural human instinct to realize something was wrong, something was wrong with the system in which his confidence had been so unshaken just a few years earlier. Why was he the owner of mansions, swimming pools, businesses? He had been born into a caste to which these privileges were afforded. But what about the other masses? The other people who were supposed to be proud to call Suidwes-Afrika their home. They had been born into a class of surfs, forever destined to be slaves of their European masters. They were property of their employers, denied citizenship, voting rights, human dignitaries, sources of income, educations, and medical attention. Barnard thought long and hard, wondering just why it had taken him so long to come to this conclusion, that the modern day republic was no better than the traditional feudal system which was doomed to failure. Other people saw it as well, but apparently their impressions were indifferent ones. But Barnard knew he had to make a difference. If slavery and actions of gross inequality, indeed, persecution of your own population, was destined to ultimate ruin, then it was his calling to stop his country from sliding too far down that slippery path, before it was too late.

Such a man, no matter how quiet he kept about his personal beliefs, was bound to be isolated as a target for retaliation. Those who went against the established order faced the wrath of their friends, family, and the government. And so was he silenced. When Barnard had openly attacked Suidwes-Afrika's racial policies for three days on the floor of parliament meetings, he was applauded for his foolhardy boldness and immediately expelled, having committed political suicide. And since then they had refused to let him crumble apart in peace, seizing his property assets, exposing scandals which ruined his businesses, and arresting him as often as possible on trivial charges to give him a record as a sort of a villain.

Finally, Barnard had simply vanished into obscurity. One voice alone would do little to make an impression on the government. Many voices would have to rise to bring about political change in a nation. Sometimes, he dwelt bitterly on his days as a statesman and wondered if he should've simply kept his tongue. The natives themselves had more or less accepted their current hardships; those who opposed it with tongue or sword were simply driven underground. Why was he so badly persecuted simply because he had taken the courage to speak out? It had been seven years since his old life had ended, and the destructive racial superstructure of his homeland still lived on in the form of apartheid’s degrading prejudice.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Central Square, Bernein, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

In Central Square, another strike was taking shape, like a menacing ghost which had always haunted the eastern regions of Suidwes-Afrika, with its massive white-owned commercial farms.

At the urging of mysterious radio propaganda broadcasted by the Suidwes-Afrikan Liberation League, a black nationalist organization, thousands of native laborers had boycotted work and had instead congregated inside the city of Bernein to demand better working conditions and real wages. Since they had each taken oaths when they first began the job agreeing never to strike against the government or the farm which employed them, many considered this a very serious offense. The government spokesmen and negotiators had given it their best shot, even recruiting local agents to speak to their people and convince them to go back to work. But the crowd refused to budge. The majority of the thousands worked for a businessman, Aldabert Scheer, whom they claimed had paid them only in peanuts and moldy bread, yet expected everyone, even the youngest children, to "work like elephants". It was a common enough complaint against commercial farmers, as the Fair Wages Law of 1916 had dictated that natives did not have to paid anything, but under authority of the government they could be conscripted into work for private businesses or the public sector.

Probably close to a million, if not more, had already died due to the combination of overworking and malnutrition; living quarters were especially unsanitary due to their crowded conditions and lack of proper utilities such as running water or electricity. These were genuine concerns, the strikers had insisted, and they would not break up unless promised an appointment with Suidwes-Afrikan Prime Minister Walbert Braun himself.

The huge commercial farms had complained, demanding that Braun break up the strike and force the workers to return to their duties. Many had lost their entire workforce to the strike, and others had completely ground to a halt. The Prime Minister took the side of the white farmers, remaining true to form in his response to the protest. On live television and radio, he condemned the natives outright. Go back to work, he warned, or there will be trouble. He also went on to defend the government by claiming that it was none of their concern what happened in the private industry and what farmers chose to due to their workforce. The crowd refused to budge, and the police were called in to restore order.

Now, a line of heavily armed and armored riot policemen in faceless black helmets stood facing the mob of Africans; many of the strikers seemed relaxed and friendly, but there were no signs they were planning to disperse.

A police officer raised the bullhorn to his lips.

"This is an illegal gathering. We implore you, disperse! Disperse, blex! Disperse and go home!"

The officer's voice was filled with the common combination of scorn and arrogance that all white settlers often used when referring to the scum of their country.

Now the mob was becoming more agitated. "Police, you go home!" shouted several, smiling mirthless grins of defiance. Now that it was clear that their demands weren't going to be met, an angry murmur of dissent filled the air like poison. Voices chattered excitedly in Nyanja. The police were soon being pelted with stones and gravel. In response, they calmly tightened gas masks over their faces. The shower of projectiles being hurled grew.

Suddenly, Central Square exploded in a cloud of gas. The disorderly blacks began to cough and double over, rubbing their faces. The police charged in with their nightsticks, beating many to stains on the floor and handcuffing them. A few youths who had brought their tools with them joined the fray, retaliating with hoes, pickaxes, and shovels. Someone gave the order to open fire.

A terrible hail of bullets scythed down the fleeing protestors like grass. Huge, diesel-powered armored trucks bearing more riot police drove down the strikers as they ran, while policemen in the back of the vehicles took pot-shots at the running backs of their targets. A pool of blood was already collecting in the square.

The smell of tear gas continued to cling to everything long after the disturbance had at last faded away, although the screams of terror and pain in the distance, the shouts of the police, and the sporadic gunfire still indicated some clashes here and there.

A few white vigilantes had arrived too late with shotguns and hunting rifles fresh from the gun store to take part in the action; they contented themselves with shooting anything else that still moved in the square. Suspected leaders of the strike were strung up by their ankles from the nearby trees.

And far, far, above, the Suidwes-Afrikan sun glared down and smiled cruelly upon the madness.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

"Prime Minister, sir."

Hans Maxfield was not happy at all to be having this meeting with the leader of his nation. If something was so serious it demanded the Prime Minister's attention, it was usually something extremely serious, at least for himself to deliver. He twitched in the plush chair within the extravagantly decorated office suite, nervously awaiting a sign of interest or life, whichever came first.

"And how have the general strikes proceeded?"

Walbert Braun wheeled in his seat, a haggard-faced man with sallow cheeks and a prominent forehead. His shoulders stooped, the physical evidence of burdens he had been carrying as leader of a troubled nation.

"All have been crushed, sir. The police deployed and urged strikers to disperse. When they refused tear gas and alas, in serious cases live ammunition was used."

"As long as the industry returns to normal. We cannot afford to lose money by being held back by such antics."

"Yes, sir."

"And the rest of the orders?"

"Sir...if I may. We have carried out the operation as you planned. Numerous agitators, believed to be Communists, have been arrested and charged with treason. The very same group that signed a civil rights petition last week. Crackdowns have been made on subversive groups like the South West African People's Organization and the Liberation League. However, surely you have noticed the growing levels of unrest have reached never before seen levels. It is mounting every year. This is only the first year that such protests have been broken up with....use of lethal force."

"Whatever is necessary, Herr Maxfield."

"The Internal Security Agency has reason to believe that there is a subversive conspiracy in progress among various black political groups to overthrow the government through violent means."

Braun leaned back in his chair and sighed. He thumbed the cigarette from his mouth and blew a ring of smoke into the air, watching as it spiraled upwards.

"And if it finally happened, it would be no different from yesterday. Such plans are always in progress against every legitimate regime on the face of humankind. You are dismissed, Maxfield."

"This time, sir, we have reason to suspect that it may be more serious than normal. If additional security legislation is passed--"

"I shall deal with it personally if anything crops up. We have nothing to fear from illiterate savages who think that they belong at the top of social ladder with the superior white races. I believe I dismissed you, Maxfield."

"Very good, Prime Minister."

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Enclave of the Chiwembe Strip, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

"Unrest, as you've no doubt heard, has been growing in Suidwes-Afrika."

Nyudwa Kakonje shook his head as the trusted aide presented him with a newspaper, English edition, fresh from the local presses. The front page was plastered with the mutilated figures of several African men, stripped naked and clearly showing marks of torture, hanging up by ropes strung through their ankles from street posts as white policemen prepared to cut them down.

"The amount of racial hatred coming out of that nation is completely atrocious."

Kakonje held out his arms, helplessly. "Are you forgetting we are more or less part of Suidwes-Afrika, Tuzembo? We are an autonomous protectorate held on rather shaky terms as a self-governing dependency which is allowed to make its own laws and elect its own leaders. The Suidwes-Afrikans control our postal system, electricity, and handle all matters of external defence. By the way, which newspaper printed the article, anyway? We must close them down before the whites come down on us like a sack of maize."

"This isn't right, Kakonje. You are the leader of Chiwembe, a sovereign state, and you let these sort of massacres take place right next to our door?"

"What can I do? As I said, we are a dependency of Suidwes-Afrika. They can cut our power off if we complain about their domestic policies. Rather, we should keep our mouths shut and pray they don't see this paper."

The President of Chiwembe waved the article carelessly. "What is the name of the editor, by the way?"

"Badat, sir. He is a Suidwes-Afrikan exile. But you are missing the point. Shouldn't we at least make strong protests to the treatment of our brothers?"

"Brothers?"

"Do not forget, Kakonje, that most of the Chiwembe tribe actually live in Suidwes-Afrika, not here. Certain...sources inside that nation have identified two of the bloodied corpses in this very picture--" Tuzembo snatched up the newspaper. "As Chiwembeans. Can we stand by and let this happen?"

"What do you propose, Tuzembo?" Kakonje was clearly getting impatient. "Would you like for them to terminate our protectorate status and take away what little independence the white man has already let us have?"

"Nothing quite so drastic, I'm sure."

At Tuzembo's nod, a youth with soft features and a sealed pair of lips strode into the office. Kakonje noted the odd blend of bush jacket and dress shirt he was wearing. Definitely a well-to-do fellow, for an African.

"This is Andrew Rugambwa."

"How do you do, Mister Rugambwa?" The president did not offer his hand. "Be frank with me, Tuzemobo. Who is he and what is he doing in my office?"

"He is a member of the Suidwes-Afrikan Liberation League."

Kakonje got a hold of himself instead of exploding in an angry outburst. "You're fortunate I don't expel you to your homeland, Rugambwa."

Andrew stepped forward. He had keen eyes that were hard for any honest man to find eye contact with.

"Mister President, sah. I have no homeland. Not anymore."

"You have a passport."

He shook his head sadly. "When the Koevoet moved me to a detention camp, they took all my belongings, even my identification."

"Koevoet? What is that? Suidwes-Afrikan counter-terrorism squad, is it? My God, what have I gotten myself into?"

"Koevoet," continued Andrew softly, as if the president of Chiwembe had never spoken. "They are rounding up blacks in the eastern provinces you know, moving them to the camps. Here, people have no food. No water. The security police torture and beat them for information they do not have."

"And do you know why, Andrew?" Kokenje subtly dropped the formalities.

"Because of our activities. Last month, the Koevoet stumbled upon a cache of books we were printing, calling for a general strike during the next elections. They promptly burned down the entire village. It was torched. Not even the dogs or cats were left alive. Since then, they have cracked down hard. Many of the innocent civilians being herded into these camps are being driven from their homes at gunpoint. Those who resist are shot with automatic weapons. Their relatives will be told that they perished in a "motor accident", even for those who do not have money to own cattle, much less cars. Koevoet is incredibly sloppy but, I'm sorry to say, chillingly efficient in their work."

The president of Chiwembe turned away.

"I have nothing to say, Andrew. Tuzemobo, it was a mistake bringing him here."

Tuzembo said nothing, and Ragambwa went on, "Mistah president, you must see this."

He left a thick envelope on the desk in front of him, then withdrew from the room silently. Tuzembo followed, gently closing the door. It was ten minutes before Kakonje turned in his chair and stared at the scratched table, dread increasing in his heart.

The envelope....what did it mean? He recognized a familiar symbol printed on its side, and blanched immediately, as if struck from behind.

With trembling hands, he slit it open and allowed three photographs to empty out onto the desktop, where they sat staring him in the face. The president of Chiwembe shook, then stared for ten minutes, his eyes drinking every detail, before he began weeping loudly with rage and anguish.

The first showed a large family smiling in front of several cheerless stone buildings with adobe fronts. Kakonje had no children, only nephews and nieces, and that day they were dining at his brother's house just across the border. They were poor, but the president had always ensured he sent them money now and then to secure their living.

The second photograph was blurry, and it had a murky quality, as if someone had taken it while sprinting towards the scene. A black man was standing in the photograph, face turned away from the camera, while an strange shape stood outlined next to him. It proved to be a big, heavy, white man, a giant with legs like tree trunks. He stood with one brawny arm extending a cocked revolver towards the black. Although both subjects had obscured features, it was clear that the former had just received the bullet, for his knees were buckling as he swayed unsteadily. The latter was wearing a ballistic vest over a rumpled khaki uniform and peaked cap which clearly marked him out as a member of the Suidwes-Afrikan security police.

It was the African's tattered cotton shirt and the profile of his handsome face that had given away his identity; the president would recognize his brother Paul anywhere.

The last polaroid was much clearer. It depicted a town in ruins, stinking of crushed dreams, a bloody slaughter, and utter despair. Wisps of smoke were rising from the charred remains of each building, and although there certainly was much destruction in the background, the main focus of the shot was obviously the stack of grisly cadavers lying crumpled in the grass. Women, all of them, many young girls that Kakonje knew by name, from his home village. From the picture it was clear that they had been raped with bayonets.

Now, with his heart rapidly breaking apart in his chest, the shattered leader gazed out his window at the brush landscape of the Chiwembe Strip. He then called in the young man known to him as Andrew Ragambwa, prepared to take him up on whatever offer he was proposing.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Unmapped Village, Lazard Province

Numerous black nationalist groups already controlled most of the furthest eastern reaches of Suidwes-Afrika, although skillful retaliation and raids by counterinsurgency commandos and the security forces kept them constantly on the run. The urban black population here, near their nation's very frontiers, seemed constantly on the verge of revolt, and a reflection of the way a tiny class of whites were ruling a black country. Less than a dozen large commercial farms dominated the region, and the African youth were afraid to even go to cinemas on Sundays should the police take them away for forced labour.

Of course, it was out in the rural brush where the resistance against white power was most active.

"They're coming!"

"No, they cannot be!"

"I have just seen the giant horsefly in which the pale people ride in, the soldiers."

"We must warn Papa immediately!"

The three naked black children congregated at the peaceful brook, their faces filled with alarm and disbelief. Above, far in the sky, they could already hear the whup-whup-whup of helicopter blades, a noise everyone had learned to fear.

Throwing down their water buckets at the brook, the children fled, screaming, running as if for their lives. Two large military choppers could now clearly be seen approaching from the southwest, fast. Their metal armored bodies were marked with the yellow and green colors of the Suidwes-Afrikan Air Force, a symbol that was enough to remind any villager in the rural districts of commando raids and counterinsurgency forces sent by the government to seek out and hunt down the guerilla fighters who often operated nearby.

As the aircraft drew so close that the tops of the trees shifted gently in the unnatural breeze, the first boy, Manny, was already in the doorway of the chief's hut in the village. The other two were not far behind.

Chief Hasuna, a withered old man bent and hunched over with age, was holding a pot of porridge in his ancient, gnarled, hands and chatting in a friendly tone with the two strangers, men in T-shirts, desert trousers, and peaked field caps. Their holstered pistols and rifles were at their side, and they seemed, strangely enough, to enjoy eating the porridge with their bare hands, rather than use the wooden spoons offered, something Manny had previously dismissed as impossible for anyone.

These were members of the Liberation League, he knew, one of the most active anti-apartheid organizations in the country. They often stopped by to pick up food for their supporters and have a friendly chat with the village heads.

"Papa, we have seen the white man," He gasped, panting and out of breath. "We have seen them!"

The two strangers leaped to their feet, glancing around in a panic.

"They have found us," said one. "We have brought nothing but trouble upon you and your tribe by coming here. We must go."

"You must go," chorused the other men in the hut. "But do not worry."

"The whites are coming in their giant horsefly."

The chief stirred only slightly. "Very well. I shall go and meet them."

"Oh, father!" His younger daughter clutched the old man's arm, desperately. "Would it not be wiser to go and hide?"

"And let them burn our homes while we cower in the bush?" The chief watched as the two strangers ran out of the hut and disappeared into the growing twilight. "We have nothing more to hide, now."

"Will they know we have been in contact with the League, father?"

"Do not worry, my child. The white soldiers have come before, and they did not hurt us. They searched our homes and asked many, many, strange questions, but they did not steal or hurt anything. I will take care of this."

With some effort, the chief made his way to the doorway of the hut, followed by a procession of the village men.

The helicopter hovered over the ground, and the soldiers leaped out from the landing struts, hitting the ground with solid thuds and scattering off into the bush.

"Company, fall in."

As the radio in the chopper crackled with orders, the commandos moved cautiously through the brush, surrounding the village from all sides. It was not hard at all, given their numbers. Soon, each man had a target locked into the sights of his rifle scope.

"We have had confirmed sightings of suspect activity in this area," the voice on the radio reported. "This is a strict destroy mission. Secure the village and take no prisoners. We must show the Liberation League we are on to them. Be on the lookout for weapons caches to seize."

The initial scouting party of a few men headed into the little settlement little by little, careful not to fall easy prey to ambush and watching their step for fear of mines. Sand-colored bush hats, shirts, and shorts, with knee-length stockings and combat boots. It was not hard to recognize the distinct uniform of the feared Koevoet.

The chief and his delegation walked boldly towards them, bowing slightly in greeting.

Unmapped Village, Next Morning

"We should have never left them."

"Mazomba, we did not know...."

The two guerillas stood in the burned-out remains of the village. All that remained of the flimsy grass huts they had spent the previous day in were black piles of ash and charred wood poking out of the razed ground. Blackened skeletons of animal enclosures could also be distinguished, along with incinerated crops and gardens. Giant flies gathered around piles of brushwood which marked the demise of an unfortunate villager.

"We could have protected them."

"There were only two of us. What could we have done? If we had stayed with the chief and the people, the counterinsurgency forces would've killed us, too."

"Why, in God's name, did they do this to innocent civilians?"

"They were in contact with us, that's why. The soldiers cannot find us to retaliate for our raids. So instead they indiscriminately massacre these people."

"What happened to the chief?"

"He was probably interrogated for information, but I think we are probably looking at him somewhere in the ashes right now."

The first man was obviously far more troubled about the scene than the second. He turned away, feeling ill at ease, and his companion followed him. "One of these days, my friend, apartheid will go too far. And that day, I swear, is coming."

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Secret Koevoet Interrogation Center, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

The dozens of detainees who had been arrested during the general strike sat on the floor in silence. Many were workers and peasants, like the other ninety-four per cent of Suidwes-Afrika's black African population. They had come from impoverished backgrounds, some formerly miners while others were farm labourers. One was a shop assistant. They had seen for themselves how the white farmers took away their land, how the white government was now slaughtering their fellows. Filled with hatred and thirsty for revenge, these uneducated young men, always witnessing how people, simply because of the colour of their skin, were always at the end of unequal treatment.

This in particular put the youths in an angry and defiant mood and caused them to incline to the liberal teachings of the Liberation League. They were the chief organizers of the general strike, although they had not expected the rightist apartheid regime to retaliate with such utter brutality.

The cell the police had placed them in was only ten by twelve feet large. There were well over twenty people crammed into it like sardines to spend an uncomfortable night. The heat and stench of sweat, human waste, and stagnant water was unbearable and suffocating.

Malimba had been one of the chief "agitators". Surprisingly, he was not only arrested and charged with "inciting natives to revolt" but when a 'questionable' pack of playing cards was discovered among his belongings he was charged with 'possession of pornography'. Malimba half-jokingly suspected that because he shared a room with his cousin he would probably be arrested for homosexuality crimes and charged with being "gay" next. Suidwes-Afrika's stringent anti-sodomy laws were infamous far and wide.

"Someone here to speak with you, pig boy."

The iron barred window of the cell swung open, revealing the glacier-cold blue eyes of a Koevoet officer.

"I'll not speak to anyone."

"Very well."

Just a fraction before the window swung shut again, Malimba heard a woman's shriek of terror. His eyes bulged and he hurled himself at the door, clawing desperately.

"Stop, stop, please!"

"NO!!!"

"Let me go!"

"No, please--"

The grinning Koevoet guard appeared again. "Ah, your lovely little lover girl. Such a delicate little flower. She was detained only last night. You do realize that punishments for offences such as interracial relationships are unusually....severe."

"You cannot do that! You are worse than gestapos!"

"Is that so, you kaffir baboon?! Then consider yourself lucky we haven't had our way with Maria and then had her tortured remains shot at sunrise while you were forced to watch!"

"Look....I will do anything. Just let her go. She is but a child."

"So are you. But she is a white girl and you are her black...lover. Now you will cooperate, or I swear--"

"I will do anything."

"Then kneel, dog."

"What? I--?"

"Kneel!"

Since this did not seem like the time to argue, Malimba fell to his knees. His mind was wracking furiously with concern for Maria. She had been expecting their first child when he became involved in the protests, and though they were poor, they had been happy. The poor girl had shunned her race and her caste to be with him, and now he was about to see her at the mercy of the notoriously ruthless Koevoet.

His eyes drifted upwards, and he noticed an open flap at the bottom of the door. It was now he realized he would be expected to crawl through it to reach the next room, another demoralizing humiliation that some sadistic master of psychological intimidation had no doubt devised, just like the "interrogation" chambers he had seen so far.

As Malimba crawled through the flap, he found himself facing the booted feet of the guard outside the door. He was in a bare, windowless, room. There was a table and two plastic chairs in front of him. Cockroaches and rats scuttled about overtly across the filthy floor.

A light suddenly snapped on, blinding the junior Liberation League supporter. CRACK!

A blow struck him across the face. Then another.

Disoriented and dazed, Malimba found himself being dragged to a chair and seated at the table. A rugged-looking Koevoet trooper in a khaki uniform still stained with reddish dirt and dried perspiration sat in front of him. Two burly constables stood on either side, restraining his arms to the chair with leather straps.

"W-Where is Maria?"

"Maria is safe. She is being held in a cell three doors down." The Koevoet officer was speaking. He bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. "Don't worry. She is safe, and will continue to be until you tell us everything you know."

"Eh? But....I know nothing."

"Look," the Koevoet trooper was starting to sound irritable. "I am on short fuse today, you get the nostream? I have had a long, tiring, afternoon, and I am in no mood to negotiate. Here is what I propose. You will accept. We will let Maria and the child--"

"The child?!" Malimba's blood boiled. He lunged forward with a roar of fury, which brought a clout from the constable nearest him. As his head was knocked sharply to the left, the constable on that side struck him across the face. He continued to be batted back and forth between the two until the room turned upside down. Blood trickled into his eyes, blurring his vision.

"The child," said the Koevoet man calmly, as if nothing had ever happened. "Now. We can be spared a lot of pain and much precious time if you will simply give me a few facts."

"What are you talking about, white man?"

"Facts. For example, we would like to know the identity of the leaders in the Liberation League, their backgrounds, the locations of any known League hideouts or fronts, the strength of their supporters, the background of prominent members, and how they obtain monetary aid and food supplies. That will do for a start. Later on, I will ask you about the number of foreigners or subversive whites involved with this group, if any, the number of informants the League has in the cities, every strike they are planning that you know of, the whereabouts of the informants, and the precise identity of who exactly put you up to the protests that you staged a week ago."

"I'm telling you, I know nothing."

Malimba spread his hands miserably on the table. Each constable at his side put on a pair of clean white gloves, and the Koevoet trooper leaned forward until he was nose-to-nose with the prisoner.

"Wrong.....answer."

Liberation League Headquarters, Swakopmund, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

"What is this?"

Tuzembo was in attendance, speaking with Andrew Rugambwa in low tones, almost as if they expected the secret location to be bugged. The apartheid regime had ways of finding out things, and just to be sure security wasn't compromised, LL moved its HQ every six months to another location.

The two men were just beginning to speak about allowing Chiwembe to become a possible base out of which the increasingly underground Liberation League could operate in and out of when a woman interrupted them.

"Very sorry to break in, Mister Ragambwa. But I think you should see this."

"What is it, Idelia?"

"Unmarked package. Addressed here."

"Careful, Idelia. No certain what it could be."

Ragambwa accepted the thin packet carefully. He shook it several times, then went to his desk drawer and removed a pair of rubber gloves. Then he pulled it apart, looking anxiously.

A single sheet of printed paper fell out. The three people in the room gasped as if thunderstruck. A photograph had been copied onto the paper, and it was now clear what it was: A color shot of a young black man, who couldn't have been more than twenty years old. He was lying on his back atop a metal table, naked, and facing forward. The muscles of his neck was standing out like stretched piano cords. But what was most harrowing was his facial expression. The dark eyes were wide open and the edges of the mouth were pulled back in a gruesome contraction of agony. It was a depiction of someone in unthinkable pain.

In black ink, written with a shaky hand directly underneath, several sentences scratched out a chilling message: "Was e-mailed by the Internal Security Department to Malimba's mother in Windhoek. My mother then e-mailed it to the main office. From there it was e-mailed to me. She claims he has told all to the Koevoet under torture. Two of our comrades have already been arrested by the security police. They are coming for you."

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Two blocks down the Kaiserstrasse in Windhoek, capital of Suidwes-Afrika, traffic was hopelessly snarled. While morning drivers hurled a string of obscenities in a colorful variety of languages at the offenders, a line of policemen had already arrived to deal with the latest situation.

A long column of blacks who worked largely as assistant clerks, road sweepers, and waiters in the city were holding hands and singing some defiant song cursing the day they were born "under the flag of apartheid". Marchers were waving placards, holding banners aloft, and chanting slogans. Police Chief Heinz Graz had never seen such a demonstration, much less in the heart of Windhoek itself.

Several of the protestors were holding up pictures demanding that the Prime Minister be jailed and the freedom fighters be released. It was clear from their attitude they were referring to the forty or so political detainees which had been arrested the previous week for calling a general strike which caused Suidwes-Afrikan industry to grind to a halt. Now, here the black man was at it again, holding up business and discouraging much-needed foreign capital. Graz had received his orders. He knew what had to be done. The resilience of these people in displaying their antigovernment feelings was truly beginning to get irritating. His men had not had to wear riot uniforms in nearly a decade.

"We appeal to you! Disperse, disperse and go home!" A policeman warned through a microphone.

The crowd cheered, apparently in no mood to fight but in mood to budge, either.

With a loud BANG! a tear gas canister exploded. Protestors began to cough and choke, stumbling over each other in the attempt to retreat. They knew what came next.

The line of riot police followed closely behind the mob as it surged, caught between traffic and the law. Panicked drivers abandoned their cars and fled, fearing for their safety. A row of officers in faceless black helmets dashed back and forth, belting men and women alike to the ground with their nightsticks and striking others with long whips. Vicious dogs were released into the crowd. A child began screaming hysterically, silenced suddenly by the snarl of an attacking canine.

When it became clear that the avenue was not getting cleared quickly enough, Graz shouted a command in German into his radio. More policemen stepped forward and raised their carbine rifles not into the air as a warning, but tragically straight at the live shooting gallery which presented itself.

Gunfire rang out and several of the black workers collapsed immediately, covered in blood. One was only a twelve-year old boy. Two of his comrades dragged him to safety as more shots sounded. Realizing that they were quickly getting picked off like ducks in a barrel, the protestors now became terrified and completely desperate in their attempts to escape the street. A few sought cover in nearby stores, but the shooting continued.

"It looks bad!"

One of the youths stared at the fallen child, gurgling out moist babblings as he faded slowly. "Cold water running down my face..."

"We need to get him to a hospital!"

"He's gone, Miguel."

"But--"

"He's gone! Come, we must take him and go, before they kill us too!"

And so, before the rolling news camera, with gunfire echoing off the nearby buildings and the horrified screams of those trying to escape the jaws of fate, two solemn boys emerged from the cloud of gas and smoke, tearing at their clothes while they stumbled to safety, the limp, bullet-riddled, corpse clutched gently in their blood-soaked hands.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

The television screen flickered briefly as the Suidwes-Afrikan officials watched the violence unfold on camera. It was a foreign news media, reporting no doubt from some pesky journalists who had managed to slip past the police phalanx which kept the entire nation shielded effectively from the outside world:

"Day after day, the number of detainees grew--first 500, then 800, finally 1,000. Police jeeps and trucks rumbled through the dusty, despair-ridden black townships that surround Suidwes-Afrika's towns and cities, stopping at this house and that. A man was pulled out here, a woman there. The security forces arrested political activists, church workers, students, labor organizers, youthful militants--anyone, it seemed, who might conceivably lead a protest against the white minority government of Prime Minister Walbert Braun. At times the detentions seemed carefully planned, at others indiscriminate: near Windhoek, 22 bus passengers were taken into custody as they returned from a funeral. Virtually all those arrested in police actions were black.

Thus last week the most densely populated areas of stricken and divided Suidwes-Afrika fell under an iron-like state of emergency. The crackdown by the Braun government came after two weeks of black protest against the country's rigidly enforced structure of racial apartheid, and followed earlier, ineffective repressions by the government. Almost 200 people, practically all of them black, perished during the bloody period of confrontation, the majority as the result of lethal police action to put down the unrest.

As of this year, Suidwes-Afrika's largely German-speaking white settlers, which make up roughly twenty per cent of the country's population, still regarded themselves as threatened with extinction. The danger, many claim, lies in the large "Native Majority". Many see apartheid, which rests in the eternal memory of mankind as the infamous system of racial segregation popularized by South Africa decades ago, as being the only solution to the growing 'problem'. In mid-April far right candidate Walbert Ingeburg Braun was elected as Prime Minister of the torn state, defeating the more moderate DB party. He promised even stricter segregation. Braun hoped to develop separate living areas for native Africans and greatly reduce the number of nonwhites living in cities. Industrialists have predicted that the mass removal of blacks, who make up over seventy per cent of the labour force, from urban areas would cripple the economy."

The room was silent for a few moments as one of the ministers present solemnly switched off the television set.

"As media attention grows on our nation, so does the number of disturbances," reported the man, Johan Geisler, Minister of Internal Security. "I do believe that we need to consider this a serious issue. For example, the number of violent strikes by black workers in Suidwes-Afrika has nearly doubled since we crushed the first strikers fifteen days ago. Even now a mob of working natives are marching on the police station in Rehoboth to demand the release of agitators we arrested for causing that strike. I have ordered armed police to break it up, but I warn all of you right now that police brutality has not solved our problem in the least. Instead, we have only made our black population more and more angry and impatient. You might as well try and sweep back the ocean with a broom."

"Don't forget," added another voice soberly. "Our political support is eroding. If nothing is done to at least make a credible stab at solving our current problem, we can kiss goodbye to our positions at the next elections."

Perhaps the most silent one of all in that room was the Prime Minister himself, who simply sat quietly with his back to his advisers and officials. It was only now that he spoke.

And he told them his plan.

Rehoboth, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

An armored truck stood with the barrel of its cannon pointed menacingly at the large gathering of black workers, many of them textile employees from the local plant in Rehoboth. Several policemen sat on the turret, nervously fingering rifles and double-barreled shotguns. The blacks appeared relaxed, but showed no signs of dispersing. Many were chanting and holding up large placards with words in English: "LET OUR COMRADES GO". Several were also raising their fists in black power salutes.

"They demand that we release all thirteen of the miners we detained six months ago for agitation to riot," observed a police negotiator. "And that we open up a direct line of communication between the black miners and the white mineowners to set things right."

"More agitators!" insisted the police chief. "I was told what happened the last time these fools went on strike. A policeman was pushed over and trampled; two more were stoned to death. Violence, I'm afraid, is the only language we have with such defiance."

An officer dashed forward, throwing tear gas canisters. Many of the crowd donned masks or wrapped cloths over their faces. They had come prepared. The gas forced them to shuffle back several feet but then they refused to give another inch. The police charged in, belting everyone left and right with their nightsticks. Live bullets were fired into the air over the protestors' heads; rubber ones were used directly on the crowd. When order had at last been restored, the police had injured seven blacks; the others had been forced to flee. Dozens were now arrested, to be placed into Koevoet Detention Centers where they would be shown no mercy.

If the mood before of the majority population was glowering, now it was seething, boiling, rage, just ready to explode.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Restifuo, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Every city in Suidwes-Afrika has its own black neighborhoods. This was where the native Africans first going to work for European settlers in the cities had originally congregated, where they had lived for over hundred years, where the paved roads end and the dirt begins.

Asphalt highways cut through "Djanti", Restifuo's own notorious black slum, but the side streets disappeared quickly into dust or mud. In Djanti, children and old women gathered at public wells to fill plastic bottles and cans with the precious substance before trudging to their cardboard homes. Such communities had only a few electric lights, and none in individual homes. The place was characterized by slum living, lack of amenities, overcrowding, crime and the breakdown of family. The despair of slum life, the prospect of no breakout from such confinement, was felt most keenly by the black youth. They utterly hated the white policemen who kicked down their doors with heavy riot boots, dragging people into the night to be shot and beaten for not having the proper registration papers or not paying their rent on time.

Kaya Degama was the one whose face was to become a symbol of the antiapartheid movement here.

Ashaki, Kaya's mother, was born in a one-room shack in the far northern reaches of Suidwes-Afrika, in a place where electricity and indoor plumbing were unheard of. She finally decided to escape an abusive husband and her work on a white-owned farm.

Moving to Restifuo with her six small children, Ashaki hoped to find a better living. But life in the city imposed cruelties of its own. For several years she tried to find a decent life for her family, serving as a domestic servant. However, an accident that left her permanently injured forced her to approach a Native Affairs Commission for public assistance. Kaya, being the eldest child, quickly assumed responsibility for the household. With what little time she had for herself, she attended the local school, managed by missionaries. But at age 15 Kaya discovered she was pregnant. After her sister died the following year, she began a relationship with a man who promised he would not get her pregnant. Regrettably, within another year, Kaya had had her second child. She asked a mission doctor to sterilize her, but he refused. Eventually, the girl went on to have four more children.

After her latest boyfriend died suddenly, the household fell apart. Kaya's oldest daughter, Myeisha, became pregnant with her first child at age 14. Kaya began to suffer from chronic depression and contemplated suicide. She was a 35-year old grandmother living in a two-room apartment with five of her six children, her daughter's newest boyfriend, two grandchildren, and two teenage runaways. In 20 years, no one in the family held a regular job. With the public assistance money they could only afford the dilapidated rooms they shared. They stopped bathing after it became too much trouble to walk to the nearest river and plumbing was almost nonexistent. An electrical wire attached to a bare bulb doubled as a clothesline. Everyone took turns sleeping on one canvas cot on the floor. Meals were irregular affairs, because cash was scarce and no one understood how to properly cook.

Finally, the Native Affairs Commission deemed them unfit to receive any more kalahars. The local white constable and three armed companions evicted them at gunpoint for not paying their rent. When it was discovered that Kaya's daughter had never been married, she was promptly placed in jail for violating premarital sex laws.

The past year had been rough, though they had managed to survive in the local garbage dump. Now, the dreaded police had come to evict them again, evict them from their home.

The shantytown, Djanti, was about to be bulldozed. Long ago it had been deemed a public health menace, now an order had been given out from the Suidwes-Afrikan government and the local municipal authorities: It had to go. Nonwhites residing there would be moved to a "Relocation Camp" by law enforcement until a better place could be found for them. All blacks would be forcibly removed and their homes destroyed to make way for another white suburb.

News media crews and a crowd of well-dressed citizens were currently crowded around the condemned district, with the regional Housing Minister himself, Johannes Decker, also present to cut the ribbon at the grand opening.

"This gives me great pleasure to declare stage one of this ambitious project--"

As several more white people began to arrive by cab, notice was taken of a large crowd of blacks, dressed in tattered rags, striding along the highway towards the street of the condemned slum. They all had enormous smiles on their faces.

The line of police which had assembled to deal with such a situation formed a human roadblock, preventing them from reaching Decker and his speech.

"Go away, white parasite!" shouted a middle-aged woman in faded floral print, who was leading the crowd as they advanced slowly but surely. "Go back to your pleasant hotel. We do not want your mansions here. We need some home to live!"

Decker looked up in disgust as every head in his audience swiveled.

"That was our city, people! It was nothing, compared to the big homes you live in, but it was all we had. You not have right to take it away and build more gardens and hotels for yourselves."

"Go home, old woman!" jeered one of the policemen. "Do not make us try anything we will both regret!"

Kaya's eye's flashed with anger. "We do not let them take our homes! We go and take them back! Go! Go!"

"Keep back," ordered a constable evenly. "We have had quite enough out of you. Go home!"

"Stupid, bad, police," snarled one black man, hefting a tin bucket as though he intended to use it as a weapon. "We have no home, now!"

The mob began to chorus, "No home! No home!"

As they pushed forward threateningly, the police captain growled in a voice heavy with menace, "Last chance. Turn back or we'll fire."

As if on cue, all of his men stepped forward, pointing their semi-automatic rifles directly towards the approaching blacks. No warning shots were discharged.

In that instant, the barrels of the police weapons were blazing lead. Some of the people scattered, others picked up rocks and hurled them. Incredulous, her young granddaughter leaned over Kaya; she was dead. Both mother and her eldest daughter Myeisha, the child's mother, had been slain by the same bullet. As she sat wailing in the corpses, a 7.62 mm round aimed for another fleeing woman penetrated her skull. Six-year old Ilisa would never know what killed her.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Theater of Performing Arts Auditorium, Bukhaneli, Chiwembe

It was ironic, yes. The Theater of Performing Arts, in reality a pitifully small but at least adequate structure, had been paid for in full by the Suidwes-Afrikan government, a reflection of how much the semi-autonomous protectorate of Chiwembe depended on its white-ruled neighbor.

Clearly, the man who was currently occupying the small stage with a motley array of chairs decked out before it, was not for whom this tiny but magnificent building, with its bell tower and ornate pillars was built bearing in mind!

For this was Lawrence Nguni, Suidwes-Afrikan exile and former schoolteacher, who was making the day's presentation, speaking out against the "evils of apartheid". It was no secret that Nguni had developed strong ties with the outlawed Liberation League, but he had also received a first-class education overseas, and a black intellectual was a rarity in such a country. Curious throngs of people had thusly flocked to see him, and there were so many now crowding the room that the doors had to be shut and barred to prevent further guests from entering.

Nguni stood smiling at his audience, obviously pleasantly surprised at his own popularity. He was a slightly built man with thick wire-rimmed glasses, who had a habit of pacing forward and backwards as he spoke and scribbling notes to no one other than himself on an improvised blackboard. It was almost as if he were still a schoolteacher, addressing a class.

It didn't take much, however, before Nguni was in full flow, and soon people realized there was no way this powerful little man could be stopped.

"I can see many of you fail to grasp exactly what apartheid means. You are so lucky to live here in Chiwembe, all the job opportunities and equal rights. But your brothers, sisters, your families, living just across the border are trapped in a harsh reality: Apartheid. This monstrous term, conceived by South Africa's brutally infamous regime etched in recent memory, is literally translated from Afrikaans as meaning 'apart-ness', ultimate racial segregation designed to keep a small minority of white settlers in control of a country that was not their own. It, and the Suidwes-Afrikan policy it inspired, was based on domination of the black majority by a blatantly racist nation. It is expressed in my own poor, tortured, country, which has one of the highest income inequality rates and the highest percentage of violent racial issues in the entire region. Apartheid allows a handful of three million people to deny basic human rights to an entire nation of 'racially inferior subhumans'. The only form of relationship which exists between the races is that of master and servant."

"The apartheid regime, I had to live under it. They do not allow blacks to get higher education. The fear is that if blacks can start filling higher-paying jobs, then the white people will be out of work. Consequently, the only schools we have are those provided by sympathetic missionaries. We cannot vote. We cannot move to the cities. We cannot even spend more than twenty-four hours in a city without a policeman arresting us simply for being black. The police and the domestic security forces have unlimited powers. Many times, they will go to the cinema and simply take away children to do hard labour. That's the law in Suidwes-Afrika. Forced labour by private sector or public sector is legal, even protected. We cannot marry outside of our race, that is the law, too. We cannot vote. Democracy is a great thing, friends, and it is good that you have it here in Chiwembe. Please, I beg you to treasure this while you can and remember that many of your people do not have such privileges just across the border. No black man ever became a minister of the government, even if this is our country. Our movements are severely restricted, and any 'nonwhite persons' can be detained without trial on little to no evidence. In these times, there are black nationalists trying to encourage us, all of our people, to protest the way we are being treated. To say to the white man, How can you bully us, your fellow countrymen, this way? Suidwes-Afrika belongs to every person, no matter what the colour of their skin."

Nguni sighed, as if admitting a deep regret. He took a sip of water and when he continued, members of the audience could clearly see tears in his eyes.

"And what does our government do? To exact revenge, they massacre villages of innocents. One night just three months ago, white soldiers came to a village north of Windhoek, where it was common knowledge that the residents supported the efforts of the nationalists in their fight for freedom. They lined up all the men, in presence of their wives and children, then mowed them down like grass with automatic weapons and a machine-gun. They promptly ordered all the families back to their homes, warning them to leave the bodies where they were until they were devoured by wild animals!"

The schoolteacher's gentle hands raised towards the roof of the building, as though imploring for people to step forward and reassure him.

"But how can we resist? The white man controls the police, armed forces, and civil service. Colour bar laws and exclusive privileges are for the whites only. Worse discrimination laws than even in the American South, and on a par with the vicious racialism of South Africa under apartheid--for example, we are fined for walking on the sidewalks of cities and not standing in the gutters. Many of us who work in the cities cannot live in them, so we build our own houses out of scavenged materials outside. Incidentally the whites in Windhoek and other towns have enormous swimming pools, cheap native servants to do the housework and look after the children, expensive cars, electricity, running water, cable television, computers, and other amenities."

He went on for quite a while, talking for hours about his homeland's artificial privileged society and his confidence that in the end, human dignity would prevail. This society of privilege based on a white skin, designed only to increase the exploitation of the black Africans, would collapse. With the minority seriously outnumbered, with the blacks already stirring and beginning to demand their rights, with the support of the peoples of the free world, the battle against apartheid would soon be won. All Suidwes-Afrikans, no matter what their race, would recognize the hopelessness and insanity of their current course, coming to their senses that equality must be maintained and true democracy prevail.

When he was done it was late in the day, and there was not a dry eye in the entire gathering. The black and even the odd white attendee rose and applauded, and Nguni humbly accepted the standing ovation.

It was another hour of answering questions, mingling, and packing up that he finally turned himself towards home. The aged schoolteacher sighed deeply as he was again reminded of what was happening in Suidwes-Afrika, and hoped truly, within his heart, that a great cause for justice would one day be won in that country, just as he had said in his lecture.

With that thought on his mind, he never even noticed the dark shapes slinking away from his parked car as he approached, nor did he detect the glint of night-vision binoculars in the moonlight-bathed rooftop nearby.

As soon as Lawrence Nguni turned the key in the ignition, the last second of his life whittled down and his flaming car was hurled upwards in a massive fireball explosion.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Koevoet Detention Center, Unknown Location, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

The prisoners held in the tiny cell were pressed against each other, hardly able to move. They were not allowed to speak and only communicated through vague sign language when the white warders weren't looking. Getting a shower was wishful thinking; the black people kept here were lucky to have any water to wash their faces in the mornings. Many had gone hungry for so many days that they frantically attempted to eat vermin and the stuffing from the room's only bed to prolong their lives.

Outside each cell was the hallway, where every day, brutally tortured detainees were left lying and howling in pain. The cries of the dying pierced the ears of the living each day, creating a most distressing atmosphere. This hour it was no different.

Andrew Rugambwa moved his head from side to side, his sweat and blood collecting in a large pool around his skull. He dug his fingernails so deep into the leather restraints that they left permanent marks on the straps.

"AARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH--"

This shriek of absolute pain, terror, and hopelessness joined the desperate keeling coming from the next room. For days on end, he had been kneeling in his cell, awaiting death. Serious sores had already begun to develop on his knees, and within two days they were infested with disgusting maggots and ugly biting flies. One Koevoet officer or another made it a habit of taking out personal frustrations on the prisoners, and within a week the starved man was covered with swollen injuries, purple and reddish welts. Denied medical treatment, it was unknown how many innocents had perished in this hellish place. But even that was nothing compared to the forty-eight hours ago he had first been dragged into this room and strapped onto the sterile operating table.

Andrew felt as though his body was filled with broken glass. He could only see the expressionless faces in surgical masks as they faded in and out above his head, like doctors, only they asked questions and did things specifically designed to cause as much pain as it was possible. The hard white light of an overhead bulb hurt his eyes, blinded him.

"You will not answer the questions."

He had heard that voice at least a dozen times so far within the last hour. It asked him without deviation each day.

"I will never--"

The sound of his pain began to echo across the walls, slamming back into his sensitive ears.

"You will answer questions now, yes?"

"Never--"

Then he gasped, tore himself with such force that he could feel something break inside him, one by one, and the sad grey eyes which hovered over him did nothing but mock.

"NO--"

Then he was lying naked in an ocean of his own bodily fluids, wishing to die, but alas, that was not an option. Before the interrogation had begun, the Koevoet guard had injected something into his veins with a needle--a drug which he learned, kept the heart beating no matter what the strain placed on it. They could torture him to the very point of death, but the worst affliction of all they had done to him was refusing to let him die.

Under such circumstances, even the bravest of the brave shattered like glass; they were forced to reveal under direction each and every thing that they knew.

Eight Cells Away

Idelia, Rugambwa's secretary, had been arrested the same day as he had, just as they were about to escape the Liberation League's headquarters. Almost immediately she had been taken here, to the detention center, and although the woman had assured herself that whatever it was rumored to be couldn't be quite as bad as imagined, it was far, far, worse.

She knew little to nothing about the specifics that were demanded of her, but the Koevoet wanted to know names. Names of people she had not even heard. They wanted to know what the League was planning and who the collaborators were. Though she protested that she was but a secretary, she was held on charges of treason and plotting with a conspiracy to overthrow the state by violent means, or so the police had informed her.

Now they were demanding, with increasing impatience, to know how this was to come about. Her attempts to defend the Liberation League as she knew it as a peaceful civil rights organization fell on deaf ears.

Furious at their inability to gain any useful information from Idelia, the guards had dragged her into an interrogation room, where they stripped all of her clothing from her body and trussed her to a post. She could hardly bear the pain of the rough ropes biting into her bare skin, but she bore it, not realizing that still more was to come. To her shock, they dragged in her husband, retrieved all the way from his hometown in the south, his chest covered in blood. He was saddled with a solid wooden post and tied next to his trembling wife while bare metal clamps coated with a rubber handle were attached to her breasts, neck, and stomach. When a signal was given, a switch was thrown, and the electric currents were applied.

The shocks increased in intensity as the leading interrogation official slowly clicked a dial forward towards maximum current; Idelia realized that what she was going through was surely a thousand times worse for her husband, whose eyes had grown so large it appeared they would pop out of his head at any moment. He began to scream hysterically, and this only brought a clout from the nearest Koevoet man.

As the dial continued its steady advance, Idelia felt her entire body go into spasms; tears and mucus flowed uncontrollably. The pain was indescribable. A policeman who was present calmly asked and repeated the same list of questions over and over. Who were her collaborators? What were they planning? Were they in possession of any known arms? If so, how much of it? Where was the next general strike organized by the League intended to be?

Each one cut like a knife, but Idelia could not answer. She ground her teeth together so hard they began to break off. As the colored dial with the little wedge continued to control the electricity, it was suddenly shut off. The interrogators, clearly annoyed that they had failed to get what they wanted, untied her and dragged her through the filthy corridor outside, her knees scraping along the rough concrete.

Idelia's ordeal was far from over.

When she saw what ghastly scene they had prepared for her, she began to scream like one gone mad, screamed until her voice went hoarse. Even when this brought nothing but kicks from the nearest guards, the stock of a rifle across her neck, she could not hold back her cry of vengeance, a cry of utter despair that threatened lunatic wrath and complete terror all in one.

Her infant daughter, Pamela, had been brought to the field outside the detention center, where a massive tree sat and watched over the building in its shadow. Now, the little one was chained up by her tiny hands to a branch in the tree, which was infested with giant biting ants. Just below her feet was a stack of chopped firewood. A bucket of kerosene sat nearby.

Idelia went hoarse and her screams only died with a fresh beating from the nearest Koevoet officer, who forced open her eyes and steered her chin towards that of her own daughter.

Someone had doused the woodpile with the kerosene and two of the attendants proceeded to light it. The man demanded to know the location of the Liberation League's hideouts, and the roles well-known members of the organization played. He threatened to lower Pamela inch by inch into the burning wood if he did not get any answers.

Even one of the young white workers who stood nearby could take it no longer and walked away with tears streaming down his face. Idelia watched him go and felt her heart heaving back and forth in her chest. She shrieked for mercy, calling upon anyone with a Christian heart to save her daughter. Pamela started crying. The ants bit her mercilessly and the flames consumed the wood hungrily, drawing closer and closer. Police officers mingling with Koevoet personnel stood nearby chuckling.

Idelia did the only thing she could do as she lay on the ground, bleeding, completely helpless. She lifted her eyes to the sky in a silent prayer.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

The voice seemed dangerously out-of-touch with the world, inflected in all the wrong places. The signal was bad.

Every eye was fixated, however, and every ear tuned for the shock they knew would come. This was the only television set in the entire neighborhood; no one here was wealthy enough to afford one although of course a man with enough inventive genius and experience from the city had been able to repair this TV he had discovered on the junk heap.

Again, the news channel flickered on, bringing with it the startling reality: "Says Walbert Braun: 'Apartheid does not necessarily represent oppression. As a nation with complicated racial issues, Suidwes-Afrika will take whatever measures are necessary to promote equal development of each respective ethnic group. Apartheid will offer full opportunities for all, designed as a system not only to quell racialism, but as a system which will provide....security and stability for all no matter what the cost incurred.' Thus yesterday Suidwes-Afrika's Prime Minister explained his draconian edict: some 50,000 black Africans who live and work in the capital city must be expelled to meet increasing demand for more white-owned housing."

"The expulsion order came as no great surprise to the nation's majority population, long the target of harsh government repression as they sought to win support by stirring up antagonism among the country's 2.4 million white minority. Now, the Prime Minister has charged that the blacks were "urban saboteurs," corrupting and polluting Western civilization with their alarming levels of poor sanitation, abject poverty, and crime which they had brought to Windhoek. Braun has also decreed that businesses belonging to the expelled blacks will be turned over to white citizens. Any who stay beyond the appointed deadline, the PM said ominously, would be subject to extreme measures. Many of the local white settlers have expressed relief at the mass expulsion, claiming that the black neighborhoods in the capital city were notorious slums which posed a menace to public health and safety."

The dozen or so people gathered in the room stared at each other, faces rapidly paling. Their homes, to be taken without so much as a warning? The Prime Minister had promised removal of urban black citizens from the cities in his earlier speeches, so why were they so shocked now? Perhaps it was the state of their country, when they finally realized how so much would happen to impact them in so little time.

Windhoek Slums

Even if news had not spread so quickly about the great eviction which was about to take place, the cloud of dust raised on the horizon by the approaching police convoys told enough. The alarm went out, bells were ringing and people shouting warnings. Alas, it was but too late.

Expecting resistance from stubborn homeowners, the officers had called in the Koevoet to assist in serving eviction orders. These heavily-armed troopers alighted from armored cars and trucks, high-powered rifles in their hands. Policemen in faceless black helmets and bulletproof vests battered down door after door to each home, dragging the occupants out of bed and hurling them into the street, where the Koevoet men beat them mercilessly with whips and batons. Many of the bewildered people, half-naked and unable to comprehend what had just happened to do them, milled around in an ever-increasing line surrounded by armed police with loaded carbines pointed their way.

A red flag was planted outside each dwelling which had been cleared; if it was a flimsy hut of thatched material and scrap metal, as most of these slum dwellings were, it was bulldozed away within half an hour of the eviction. The ones which were too large to demolish so easily were razed by teams of work crews, clearing more prime urban property for the city of Windhoek. As smoke rose from the burning, flaming, structures, police threw personal belongings and bedding into the fires to feed them. Screams and wails of terror and disbelief filled the dusk as the Koevoet, their work done, proceeded with some local constables and demolition crews to the next street, where the efficiently-managed brutality continued to take its course.

In the ashes of their former homes, tearful black women and children picked their way through the wreckage, looking hopefully for anything which might have survived the fire or the hasty demolition. Most of their remaining possessions were diligently collected by the police officers, however, who threw them onto the back of garbage trucks to be dumped into wastelands outside Windhoek. Although several of the kinder authorities had promised more prominent black people that they would be given two hours to collect any portable property they could take with them, eventually these were seized by those who were processing them. Even pillows and watches were snatched away from the elderly and disposed of. It was not uncommon for one to find particularly sadistic men among the police and Koevoet; many engaged in theft as well as physical and sexual violence against the black families with impunity.

Apartheid's ugly character had just taken a new spin, but the worst was still to come.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

It was a dying day, one that would live forever in the Liberation League's history. The city seemed quiet enough, but in reality something was simmering deep beneath the surface. Something seemed wrong.

The League had recently resorted to more aggressive tactics to combat Prime Minister's Braun's direct acts of oppression. Large groups of black volunteers, clustered around the outskirts of the capital, had been growing in number for several hours now. White tenants watched them nervously. The police hurriedly moved to block any action which disturbed the peace.

But it was a new type of warfare, something which would be waged peacefully. Something which the apartheid regime would find harder to break than by brute force or firepower. Or so they thought.

At the Buchner Place Railway Station, things were about to change. There were crowds of people standing in line for tickets. A train had just rolled in, and many citizens were preparing to board. Others sat on the benches reading newspapers as they waited for their respective ride. Suddenly, a harsh silence fell over everyone. A dark quiet blanketed the entire structure from end to end, and even the children stopped to stare in disbelief.

Six African youths entered, brandishing their fists in the air and breaking the mood only when they shouted in a chorus, "Let Africa return!" They couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen.

"We are the nation of Africans.
We are proud.
We will give our lives and those of others for Africa.
Praise be to Africa!"

As the pathetic figures stood singing softly in the doorway, the "Whites Only" sign hanging just above their heads became that much more polarized.

The station constables were quick to arrive. They approached cautiously, batons in hand, as though unsure of what to do. The singing continued.

"Do not worry about us," said the leader of the group, unzipping the most dazzling grin anyone there had ever seen. "We are Suidwes-Afrikans, just as you are. We come to take the coach to Zlop and--"

"Lads, move in and arrest these subversives," said one of the constables nervously. "Let's not let them break anything, eh?"

"Stay back!" another shouted to the shocked families milling nearby. "Everybody stay back!"

"Come on, don't give us any trouble!" Three more policemen materialized out of nowhere, appearing just behind the boys.

"Ought to shipped to the zoo with the rest of the apes," muttered an officer, reaching for the first boy. He drew away reflexively.

"Do not touch me!"

"Resisting arrest! Now you fools are going to get it!"

The three policemen lunged forward and tackled the first three blacks. Station constables joined in.

"Now don't try and resist!"

"Get that kaffir!"

One who fought back grabbed his slipper and struck a policeman across the forehead. Instantly, the others converged on him. His terrified compatriots fled straight out of the station, where they crashed headlong into a row of more police, armed with riot shields and barred helmets. They were lucky.

A woman screamed in horror when the poor teenager inside was finally dragged to his feet. His shirt had been torn off and livid bruises were already forming across his chest from where he had been belted repeatedly with a baton. The policemen had beaten him to a lump on the floor, before kicking him mercilessly in the head. He cried out in pain and fear as they slammed him into the floor. Once. Twice. The third time he was finally silent. And the fourth.

A spreading puddle of blood indicated where he had been laying, before he was dragged out of the station and thrown into the back of an armored van with the others.

Children began to cry. Wives clutched their husbands in terror.

For Anwar Tuki's face had been so savagely crushed he was nearly unrecognizable, a bloody mass of gore and tissue that struck great dread into the hearts of all who saw him that day before he was carted off to the Koevoet Detention Center.

All but six were charged with civil disobedience and given lengthy sentences in detention and labor camps. The others, including Tuki, were never seen or heard from again. Such attempts by the Liberation League at passive resistance to the government were rebuffed in a similar fashion. At least a hundred blacks were arrested for breaking segregation laws in beaches, hotels, and clubs.

So ended the era of peaceful protest, thusly condemning Windhoek to live only in the shadow of violence and revolution from that time forth.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

In the wake of recent unrest and more government suppression, restlessness began to stir into open defiance at Windhoek's segregated college campuses. No one really understood. No one suspected. But this latest act of political rebellion was not at all launched by the Liberation League or other such banned organizations. It turned out to be, much to the shock of the regime and its white electorate, to be organized and planned by their very children, the ones who could be expected to serve in the military in subsequent years, those who could be counted on to do their country proud service.

Instead, what that day witnessed was much the opposite.

A large crowd had gathered chanting slogans in the morning--by afternoon it had attracted many passing students. On more than one campus students assembled--some black, mostly white males of conscription age, who were gathering by the hundreds. No one suspected, of course. The dominant racial group never had any reason to rebel against an apartheid policy which left it comfortably in power.

It was for this reason that the Suidwes-Afrikan government was caught so off guard by the sudden violence.

Everyone had ignored the few education officials who had been complaining of rebellious youth in schools, there were always a few troublemakers, of course, who dressed in denim jeans and openly flouted cigarettes. They dressed poorly, lacked ambition, and were irresponsible and sexually promiscuous. These were merely the minority, a few insisted. The stupid ones. White people in Suidwes-Afrika were given a standard of education comparable to those afforded in many highly developed Western countries. They were groomed to be doctors, lawyers, administrators, professionals. They were to be the next generation of policemen, civil servants, and soldiers. What reason did they have to be unhappy? All the needs were being catered to.

More than a few, for one, had become disillusioned with a slow pace of reform in Suidwes-Afrika. Their country, supposedly one of the wealthiest and most successful in the region, was adhering to an outmoded racial policy, crushing opposition with blunt force, and suppressing what many had learned were basic civil rights for all people in many other nations, black or white. Political activists rose from among the latest generation. They argued in loud speeches to which hundreds of students on both the white and black campuses flocked to see that action was the direct route to change. Sit-ins, protest marches, and direct confrontation were necessary. Many were detained by the Koevoet. One well-known radio announcer who praised this latest movement and claimed that a group of narrow-minded racists only holding on to power by tight suppression would be harmful to the white citizenry as a whole was placed under house arrest and promptly expelled from the nation.

However, definite strains on the young people of urban origin were beginning to show. They filed into small classrooms to hear lectures by anti-apartheid activists. One such white representative of the Liberation League was subsequently arrested on the grounds of the USWA (University of Suidwes-Afrika) at Windhoek; however this was not before two hundred black and over eighty white students defied campus segregation rules to attend his occasion. As he began to speak his closing remarks, the police arrived and announced treason was suspected. White students were escorted out of the auditorium while many black ones were arrested on vague charges.

But the worst was still yet to come.

On October 3, militant students at the all-European Boisset College of Education on the outskirts of Windhoek, without warning, took control of the administration building by beating out many of their supervisors with sticks. They stopped classes by wreaking havoc on the campus, convincing many of their family members to join them. The actual group of agitators numbered no more than ten, at the most. However, what was truly disturbing was the hundreds of youths who came to Boisset from campuses across the capital, assembling there to unite under one banner. Most of them were boys, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old. They deserved much better.

That was in the morning. Now, it was afternoon and no comment had been released by the regime regarding the student rally which was taking shape at Boisset. There were men no older than children shouting at passerby and policemen that they were willing to serve their country and fight for her defence; they were not willing to join a military whose sole purpose was to oppress poor natives.

It was nearly evening before the police arrived.

"Come now, we must talk things over, we must talk things over," a hoarse captain pleaded through a megaphone. "Disperse and return to class. No one must get hurt."

"End Conscription! We will not fight for apartheid!" One of the student leaders stepped forward boldly, standing nose to nose with the hapless captain. "And what are you going to do about it, eh?"

"What do you want?" He was giving it his best shot. A row of police stood behind him in pith helmets and khaki dress jackets. Although they were not wearing anti-riot equipment, the loaded Magal carbines in their hands were clearly visible.

"You go and tell the Prime Minister that we will not tolerate such corruption in our own nation any more. We believe in democracy, the right of every young Suidwes-Afrikan, regardless of race or colour, to meaningful participation in political processes; pluralism, equality, and empowerment of the marginalized. We believe in equity, the right of every Suidwes-Afrikan to accessible, quality and relevant education, decent employment and adequate health services. We express our belief on the strength of the people to end all forms of outmoded apartheid, which is nothing more than racial exploitation, and achieve social change. We believe that the fullest dignity should be afforded to all men and women across and within generations, families, clans, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, attendant cultures, and spirituality!"

He allowed the cheers behind him to subside before shouting, "And most of all we want the government to know that Suidwes-Afrika is headed for a violent conflict, one that cannot be avoided except by interracial cooperation towards peace, development and justice, and solidarity among all citizens. We must take steps to partake in broad actions to end all forms of colonial and imperialist ventures here in this great country, we must take steps to combat the unilateral actions of Prime Minister Braun's filthy apartheid dictatorship."

The captain swallowed hard as this mere teenager shoved him back several paces, face hardening. "We, the future of Suidwes-Afrika, are tired of living in a police state."

A rally went as planned that night, while the police stood quietly by and Prime Minister Walbert Braun was left to shake with fury at an impending "children's revolt". People celebrated in front of their television screens. They could see the banners flouted by those brave students. They could see the busloads more arriving by the hour. These people, their sons and daughters, did not burn Suidwes-Afrikan flags, but held them up proudly for the world to see. They were simply arguing for a better future for all. A better future for their homeland.

And because of their race, the day white youths finally rose to speak out against injustice, the troubled regime could do nothing but rage on its haunches. For once--even the apartheid security machine, with its formidable Koeveot and special police troops, was at a loss as to what could be done, if anything.

There was a unusual calm over Windhoek as the city slept that night.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

"Well, what?"

Glenn and Sonia were generally surprised to see the way their disheveled friend turned up at their door. They assumed he had been at one of the student rallies, the likes of which were coming up all over every single institute of learning in the entire city, it seemed. But there he was, in the ragged sweater and all, staggering up to their doorstep and coughing furiously, his clothes stinking with an odd scent, an acrid one. Still, he had managed a weak smile and even sounded cheerful when they asked him what was wrong.

They quickly dragged him inside the house.

It initially looked as if that Martin had gotten a black eye, but now they looked closer it appeared to be where something awful had smashed him on the cheekbone, leaving an ugly bruise trailing off in a deep, tear-shaped, cut stretching towards his ear.

"Well, Martin has finally been beaten up by the flics," He said in a good-natured manner. "After all that time at the forefront of the student demonstrations, he was finally called a casualty."

Glenn glanced him over. "Looks like he knocked his head, probably delirious or something. It will pass." Sonia noticed he was clutching at his stomach and wheezing for breath occasionally. "He's hurt somewhere else! Get that sweater off!"

"It's....it's nothing," said Martin calmly. "Deep bruises. Those sticks with the iron rods in them really sting. And they bite deep. They hurt deep."

When the clothing was finally off, not without some resistance, the two stood wincing at the young man's chest. There were at least eleven or twelve blue-black stripes about the width of a thumb and a foot long, crisscrossing his shoulders, gut, and lower back. A light dawned on Glenn. "Were you at the University of Suidwes-Afrika? They were broadcasting reports of a scuffle there. It sounded like the Liberal student groups were getting assaulted by some narrow-minded reactionaries who were calling them Communists and black-loving sons of kaffir whores. The fight, it seems, had forced the police to intervene--"

"No, no, no," exclaimed Martin. "It's nothing but lies! Lies from Prime Minister Braun and the rest of his stooges! They--" For a few minutes he was talking so fast it was hardly comprehensible, angrily raving and raising his hands in the air. It was several more minutes before something solid could be extracted. Apparently, what had happened at the USWA was this: Leaders of the student demonstrations the previous day had been making their first speeches on the campus, hoping to attract more converts to their cause. They wanted to boycott the years' exams until the government agreed to their proposed reforms. So many whites had been demonstrating their support that the police had been unwilling to intervene previously. They would be beating up their sons, their daughters, their nieces and nephews. But that was before the Koevoet had arrived.

Rumors that could never be traced were being spread at the speech, claiming that some hardcore reactionaries among some of the other students were planning to attack the meeting. What appeared however, were not other students but a line of Koevoet special police who filed in and lined up along the walls in their paramilitary uniforms, carrying long hardwood nightsticks. Then, and only then, were the students informed that the university administrators, appalled at the unwillingness of the local law enforcement to break up the demonstrations, had appealed to the government to take harder action. The youths were ordered to leave quietly, with an implication that if they did, they would not be bothered. So the student leaders agreed to go peacefully. But when they did, they found all the entrances to the campus cordoned off by heavily-armed Koevoet officers in armored vans.

They had just walked into a trap where they could be arrested singly or in twos/threes.

"When we found out what was happening," explained Martin, "How their false promises and dishonesty were proven as our fellows were being carted off by the truckloads by the Koevoet men, we drifted back and began to jeer them. They charged us and started throwing tear gas. We retreated and made a break for it, but they already had every side street occupied well in advance. The Koevoet closed in from all sides. That is how they captured so many of us. We'll know better next time."

"I've got some medicine for that if you need it," Sonia interjected, reaching for the wound under his eye. Martin jerked away. "No thank you, I'll get much worse than that before we are through."

"What's going to happen to your movement?" Glenn inquired.

"Well, this thing is far from over. If the government thinks they can handle us by sending out gutter stormtroopers like the Koevoet to fight for them, they are wrong. Much depends on what the judges decide to do with our innocent friends they have arrested. We're certain that they will never release all of them. In some cases, the Koevoet may hold them in detention centers and refuse to admit they are there. But even if they do, we will not let it drop. They've called security troops into the USWA, the university officials have announced they will close until further notice; they've beaten up and arrested hundreds of us. It is they who have made the mistake, and we must exploit it. We are going to have every student all over Suidwes-Afrika out on the streets on strike!"

"But..." Glenn was puzzled. "What about your family, when they see you like this? Will they not disapprove?"

"Oh..." Martin's smile disappeared. "What with all our meetings and all, I do anticipate going home for much time. You know my father. You can tell him that he shouldn't expect me. Don't tell him about the eye."

"Where will you be staying?"

"There are a few lofts where we've been holding our meetings, many of us in this movement. We can sleep there."

Sonia's eyes were troubled. "Now that the government has reverted to type, they are treating you just the same way they are treating the natives, the black people. Why must you continue to put yourself at risk this way? What are you trying to achieve?"

"We want to see equality and freedom for all in this country," Martin responded fiercely. "The older generations see no problem with it, but we've learned just how backwards and oppressed we are compared to so many other countries of a free world that we are supposedly a part of. And today, if nothing else, we have shown the Prime Minister's regime that we, all of us, black or white Suidwes-Afrikans, will unite for our cause. They will have no choice but to capitulate. Change will come soon."

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

In the wake of the Koevoet actions, Prime Minister Walbert Braun had put out some rather threatening messages on every news network that small groups of dissidents causing the trouble would be summarily dealt with by the college authorities. He appeared to be in a harsh and impatient mood, insisting that the forced removal of black citizens of Windhoek would not be halted. This attitude was only reflected by Braun's blunt manner in addressing questions hurled at him by reporters.

"What does that mean? We are kicking them out, that's what it means. No longer will the black man and the white man dwell side by side in Windhoek. Until the natives have been brought up to an acceptable level of social maturity, they must go. Look at those eyesores of shantytowns on our modern suburbs! They are a disgrace to all that Suidwes-Afrika has stood for. These people are poor. They cannot read or write. They do not bathe. They take up space and do not pay their rent. They are smelly, filthy, beasts who drink themselves into stupor, set up illegal brothels, and make loud noise at night. It is never any good to have a black family as neighbors. But we shall eliminate the problem, we must."

"Mister Prime Minister, in recent years we have seen a rise in government-funded programs which have been criticized by the foreign press as alarmingly racialist in nature. First, the sterilization campaign aimed at poor blacks, promising welfare money from the Native Affairs Board in return to participants. Then the proposed and hotly-debated euthanasia setup which would be made only available to elderly blacks in the cities. Are these not merely signs that the ruling, ultra-wealthy, white oligarchs who control Suidwes-Afrika no longer need their black counterparts at the bottom of the social ladder?"

Already, armed guards were moving in to have the reporter in question extracted while Braun muttered a barely audible, "Keine Bemerkung."

Meanwhile, the judges on duty had been initially lenient towards the nearly two hundred students arrested by the Koevoet. Only six of those arrested actually came before the court, all blacks, and they were let off with suspended sentences and light fines. But two days later, the government cracked down. Nine students, two of them white, were sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Already there was a public outcry against the sentence, and larger demonstrations were being planned by the still-active student groups.

In the protests which followed, three basic demands were announced: The Suidwes-Afrikan government would need to release the nine convicted students, the Koevoet's riot squads must be withdrawn from action, and the USWA at Windhoek was to be reopened for classes to be resumed.

"Only a few agitators are causing this unrest," Prime Minister Braun promised before the nation. "Possibly radical leftists or anarchist subversives. But surely you do not expect me to believe the vast majority of our student body, our white student body, is causing such things."

He refused outright all three of the demands issued by the "children's revolt".

"We cannot agree to the terms of the subversives," Braun cried as he read from his papers. "This is absolute madness. They want classes to be reopened, but have simultaneously announced their intentions to boycott classes until the year's end. They say they want to sit down with me and discuss the program for the reforms they want. But these are children. I am not inclined to listen to those who try and fill the shoes which are too big for them. They are making fools of themselves and consequently, the nation, by their play..."

The result was outrage among the student body. Many rioted in the streets and began to build barricades across the university campuses, where they had closed themselves in. All throughout Windhoek the youth had become roving gangs, moving swiftly to retaliate were platoons and companies of riot police and the Koevoet, really a military force, armed with rubber bullets. Had it not been for the Prime Minister's explicit directions that no deadly force was to be used against the white students, the "revolt" would have surely been crushed, stamped out, with much brutality much sooner.

Fallen trees and rubble were beginning to block traffic, with the police moving as fast as possible to breach them with a wave of public-service workers who diligently performed the hard work of tearing each down. Carloads of commuters heading for work become hopelessly snarled. A long line of Koevoet guarded the steps of public and government buildings. Even from his office, Walbert Braun could hear the occasional chant or shout or the muffled thud of a tear gas canister as it landed. Looking over the rooftops, he could make out the high, rising, clouds of gas as they enveloped anti-apartheid demonstrations across his city.

He had already received word that similar unrest was happening elsewhere, in other cities such as Katima Mulilo and even Oshakati. Something needed to be done. Drastic measures had to be taken.

And it had to be taken soon, before those stupid fools who had been duped so badly by the subversives allowed themselves to give up their country, their Western country, to be lost in the black pool of nonwhite Africa.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Windhoek, nostalgic German frontier settlement, with all the air of the charming colonial town it had always been, now capital of Suidwes-Afrika, was a city where abuse of power was extending into indefinite martial law. Hundreds of its poor black exiles, still forced to return to work within its districts, stood quietly in long lines outside every road into the city, restless and uneasy.

Two jeeps and a row of armed troops in khaki uniforms stood blocking the way, checking papers and identification. Several policemen in full riot gear lounged to the side, brandishing long-handled whips or heavy truncheons, cradling shotguns with their free hands. Helmeted crewmen in a six-wheeled armoured personnel carrier parked just behind the police stood ready behind the massive, snouted, barrel of a 76mm cannon leveled directly at the crowd jamming the narrow street beyond.

Everyone was late for work now, having missed their morning buses as IDs and work permits were painstakingly examined one at a time. No doubt impatient white employers would be irate, cutting meager pay or dismissing a few permanently from his employment. But perhaps most maddening was the anger, which had to be suppressed. Apartheid's formidable security machine still dealt out harsh chastisement to those suspected of being troublemakers.

Meanwhile, massive yellow, green, red, and blue national flags flanked a series of buildings not too far from this curious scene, the place from which this country's ruthless masters governed their republic with iron fists.

In light of recent unrest in Windhoek and elsewhere, the most important item on the agenda, it seemed, was what to do to get Suidwes-Afrika on its feet and running smoothly again. Hubertus Rautenbach, the nation's new minister of law and order, regarded this, apparently, as an excellent chance to prove his worth. He now placed a huge map in front of Walbert Braun, indicating here and there were markings and notations had been made in prim red ink.

Circled were the most troublesome spots, where anti-government political activity ran rife and support for the so-called Liberation League remained the strongest. Smaller circles indicated areas where past LL sympathies had been identified, or the locations of violent riots and strikes. Abstract symbols, meanwhile, indicated the thousands of active-duty security and police units awaiting the order to close for the kill.

"Are you quite certain is workable, Rautenbach?"

"Certainly. Show our dustbin rabble rousers who is the boss from the start, eh? Flush out the Liberation League supporters and of course, clear a black area for more useful purposes. Once everyone has been carted off to the Internment Camps, there will be a much easier time keeping the peace. Teams of police and Koevoet will descend on every black neighborhood in every major city--as well as the most radical areas, no matter where they may be. House to house searches would be conducted for contraband political materials and suspected agitators or supporters of the anti-apartheid cause. Anyone who obstructs the searches will be shot. Anyone who attempts to flee a police perimeter will be shot. And any captured member of the subversive Liberation League or some similar organization will be shot."

Walbert Braun leaned back in his chair. What he was facing was a proposal which could work two ways. It called for the application of brute force and white firepower to obliterate any internal resistance to his regime. This, in turn, would ensure that the nonwhite races would be too busy counting their own dead to bother apartheid's structure for another generation. Or, it could very possibly drag Suidwes-Afrika into another wave of unrest, far more calamitous than even those past, and only worsen the problem at hand for years to come.

The Prime Minister sighed. Power of the whip and the gun. It was how civilized people had managed to stay in power for so long in this territory. It was how he had always dealt with things, especially in his younger days. Did it provide a permanent solution, or not one at all? Hopefully, it would be over soon enough, and the racially inferior would be the only ones to suffer.

"Your plan as it stands now is approved, Rautenbach. I expect immediate action."

It was now the plan was set in motion--a plan that could effortlessly throw Suidwes-Afrika into a hole of destruction forever, or save it from itself. And until it became clear which, the streets would run red with the blood of the innocent.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Jamesfield, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

The rattle of automatic weapons fire and shrill screams of Jamesfield's black residents seemed to echo indefinitely, over the roar of powerful engines and police bullhorns barking out commands. Greasy black smoke rose in the distance, where the white government's paramilitary security units had moved in to conduct a "suppression of minor disturbances".

Foreign news correspondents and journalists of every description had turned out for the occasion--Jamesfield was the economic capital of Suidwes-Afrika, and its largest metropolis, a wealthy center of finance and commerce. Even Windhoek paled in comparison to its towering spires and granite skyscrapers, but no one could escape apartheid's tentacles, which now reached far and wide.

A solid phalanx of hard-faced policemen, glaring out from under peaked caps and flanked by growling attack dogs, cordoned off the road leading towards the city's native townships; a place which Jamesfield's white population had exploited in its forced labour policies for decades. Soon, all that would remain were the thick columns of smoke, which lingered long after the fires burned out. The place had been condemned to be cleared by Koevoet action just twenty four hours earlier by the Ministry of Law and Order. A few concerned white residents spoke out against removal of what they needed as an unlimited supply of cheap manpower, but most applauded the action. After all, such neighborhoods were nothing more than townships of ramshackle huts, contaminated with the stench of raw sewage and rotting garbage. It would be good to see them, and their filthy residents, gone at last.

To the south, hundreds of men, women, and children fled their burning dwellings in abject terror, many bleeding from the eyes or nose, several clutching on to what little belongings they'd had time to seize, still others completely naked, their clothes torn or abandoned in their haste to escape the closing police net. All were weeping uncontrollably. Weeping for their homes, for the razing of everything they had ever owned in the world, weeping for family members. Oh, my money, my savings, they were all under the bedding! Oh, my work passes, oh, mercy please sir, let me go back and get them! Oh, father! mother! They hit them on the head with a gun. Mother wasn't moving....she was bleeding. Hurt. A tear gas canister lobbed by attacking riot troops landing in the midst of the fleeing refugees, causing them to trample each other in a maddened frenzy as gas-masked policemen closed in from all sides, swinging nightsticks with bone-crunching effectiveness. The stronger men were half-dragging their wounded friends and neighbors, legs or shoulders torn open by stray bullets. A few, though, bravely attempted to put up a fight. It was a mismatched one, undoubtedly, an effort doomed to failure, but one that was amusing to the hardened Koevoet troopers. A few clutched sticks or broom handles, anything they could lay their hands on, prepared to die that some of their fleeing family might escape, prepared to retaliate for this unwarranted attack on their race.

A hastily-constructed barricade of garbage cans and the lifeless husk of a wrecked car were dragged over the road, and several of the black workers who had pushed and hauled them into place gave a cheer, ready to celebrate even the smaller victory here and now. As the smoke began to clear, the barricade's defenders stared at the seemingly empty road beyond, now only littered with charred debris and bullet-riddled bodies. Had they succeeded in pushing back Suidwes-Afrika's feared security machine? Few had time to see the metal hull of an open-topped armoured personnel carrier as it smashed into their defences at full speed, rolling over two screaming women as they ran and flattening their corpses into the rocky ground. Stones and table legs hurled in futile desperation clanged harmlessly off the monster's steel hide as it lumbered down the road, leaving a trail of twisted rubble and crushed human wreckage in its wake.

Through the oily smoke and billowing tear gas came the riot police, weapons shouldered. A gang of boys, most not older than eleven or twelve, charged, throwing as many insults as pebbles. However, they had made the mistake of getting in the way of merciless men. A shotgun blast ripped open the chest of the nearest youth, and it was followed by six more. The police were now firing wild, buckshot spraying into houses nearby. Someone laughed hoarsely and tossed a burning match into a kindling stack next to the row of homes on the left--within moments, flames were already beginning to lick at their crudely constructed cardboard walls. One tiny girl crawled out, crying in pain and fear, a blanket wrapped over her shoulders. She was, in a fashion, fortunate. Point-blank rifle fire from the nearest Koevoet sergeant blew open the girl's chest in a ragged, bloody, mess. She died instantly, but her brother hiding underneath a table met a much more horrible end, burning to death in the same fire that swept through their shack.

If anyone could gaze on what was left of the street now, it would resemble nothing short of a butcher shop. Every paved surface was stained crimson, flowing with fresh blood and dotted with expended cartridges. The dead were all around, many motionless but others still grimly clinging to life as they writhed about in agony or attempted to drag themselves to cover. A single policeman derived satisfaction from putting an end to such misery. Single shots here and there snapped out as he went about his awful business, then it was quiet as the caravan of death moved on.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Wintenbruck, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Major Giere Herholdt scowled as he impatiently studied a map outside the Wintenbruck Football Stadium. There was another anti-apartheid speech brewing inside, he reckoned. Barricades, police land rovers, and military APC's blocked every road and footpath nearby, with surly guards beating off curious spectators or meddling journalists with strings of obscenities and whips. A few hours ago, close to a thousand people--mainly white students from the local university--had massed there in spite of orders to disperse. Striking black laborers, who made up eighty per cent of the city's workforce, had quickly swelled their numbers as several took turns giving impractical speeches about freedom of dissent.

The major sighed discontentedly in reflection. He and his men were overstretched to a breaking point cracking skulls in every slum alongside the city's hardened security police. When news of the forced removal and a number of other recent government policies had reached Wintenbruck, the normally calm and quiet city had erupted into massive demonstrations by its black populace, all of which had been countered with tear gas and an array of clubs. So far, they had exhausted themselves by patrolling known trouble spots such as the university campus or dispersing disruptive protests inside the black neighborhoods. But the unrest had only grown in scale, and now there simply weren't enough authorities to suppress every single act of political defiance now breaking out in each corner and alleyway. No one liked this at all. It was bad enough clubbing so many ungrateful, thieving, pests like the local kaffirs, but using the same heavy-handed tactics in dealing with white youths who might have been their sons or daughters was beginning to rudely weaken morale.

In a futile attempt to deal with the disorder, the City Council had issued a new series of emergency orders, calling for a dusk-to-dawn curfew for everyone, with no exceptions. Public assemblies of more than three persons were to be broken up by force. Herholdt wanted to scream in frustration. Such draconian decrees simply could not be enforced any longer. There were not enough soldiers or police in a city gradually falling under complete military rule following the nation-wide State of Emergency declared by officials in Windhoek several days ago.

Herholdt looked up from his thoughts, noticing that several of the young stadium protestors were visible now, big, heavy, blacks waving flags and posters proclaiming absurd messages demanding an end to meager pay and management abuses. They were quickly turned back at a jeep surrounded by squads of armed troops. Tear gas canisters exploded in front of the men, and as they fell to the ground choking or attempted to flee, pursuing soldiers ran them down, striking each one with a baton several times before they were finally hauled off to the waiting prisoner vans. All exits in and out of the stadium had been sealed. There was certainly no way the subversives expected to escape this closing net. Still, progress had been agonizingly slow. Warnings given that the crowd was to withdraw or face detention had been ignored. They were getting bolder. This was madness. It had to end and end now.

"Captain!"

The major indicated his second in command. Like himself, the poor man appeared tired, rumpled, and utterly miserable. Forty-eight hours of directing the consistent suppression of disturbance after disturbance had taken its definite toll.

"Yes!"

"This farce has gone on long enough. Begin deploying more tear gas into the stadium. Form the rest of the troops into a cordon and sweep every entrance. We'll storm the damn place if we have to, but by God this ruffians are going to get the hell out of our hair. Arrest everyone, and if they resist or run, shoot them."

The captain began issuing the necessary orders via the phone in his land rover. He was directing more riot police to the stadium's eastern side to clear the disorderly away. Soldiers in their heavy gear and shields moved into position, kneeling in a line.

Whump!

Tear gas projectiles landed inside the stadium, into the mob of workers and students. A white haze settled over everything. Soon screams and horrible retching noises began to echo over that terrible setting.

"Fire more tear gas. Fire now!"

Whump! Whump!

Protestors began to stagger around the entrances, the half-choked screams growing in volume and intensity. A mass of people surged themselves out the nearest double doors, gasping for the fresh air. Several went down, trampled to death in the mad rush to flee what had become an erupting volcano within a few bloody seconds. Others ran out the other exits, colliding violently with their waiting captors, who began to beat them savagely. Several turned and fled back inside, coughing and hacking uncontrollably, while more still simply pushed helplessly against the police in a desperate attempt to escape the spreading gas. A few fell limp to the ground before going into involuntary convulsions.

"Adopt a pacified position and place your hands on your head. Do not attempt to escape or we will open fire. This is your only warning. Halt now and surrender or lethal force will be deployed!"

The captain was speaking into a bullhorn. But no one seemed to hear. They were all running now, a few even escaping through gaps in the police line. Major Herholdt stared, his face blanching. There were too many! Already they appeared to be overrunning his men. Perhaps a show of the deadly force so blatantly promised was in order to stop this insane rush.

"They've been warned. Shoot, shoot! Fire!"

"Fire!"

The kneeling soldiers brought their rifles to bear. A panic-stricken line of white students, mainly young women, had almost reached them. Many hesitated.

"That....that's an order! Fire now! Fire!" The captain's eyes widened in a combination of horror and disgust as Herholdt screamed out his rage over the fear-maddened shrieks unlike anything either man had experienced in their former imagination.

The leveled assault rifles cracked in unison, and every deadly bullet struck home.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Windhoek, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

"Run the camera, Chris."

"You sure about this, luv?"

"Yes. Run it now, please."

Lynn Tessendorf stood in the street, watching as black men and women, many dressed in the ugly, tattered, green overalls which reflected their societal status as the scum of Suidwes-Afrikan society marched in a chanting, solemn, procession through the streets. Factory workers, many undoubtedly the product of conscripted labour laws, which amounted to virtual slavery and had paved the way for cruel European exploitation during the colonial era.

"Hell," Lyn murmured silently to herself. "Here, colonialism never ended." Her country remained the last bastion of imperialist white minority rule in the entire region, to its citizens' eternal shame.

She and her cameraman had snuck through the police line to view the demonstration by striking blacks, the latest in a series of staggering twelve which had rocked Windhoek in the past week. Apartheid's true horrors were heartbreaking, and in defiance of stringent media censorship imposed under the current State of Emergency, Tessendorf had always brought her viewers, black and white, the truth. So the truth it would be.

"Freedom, freedom, freedom," the blacks had began chanting in English. The occasional white face was visible among them. Chris turned the camera towards the two most prominent, both young men of military age. They had agreed that it was necessary to show that not all white people agreed with their country's ruthless crackdown. Truth was always a solid answer to a public which had been confused and misled over the past few weeks. Urban unrest was growing, gathering strength day by day, despite the even harsher measures adopted by the police and those Koevoet paramilitary bastards. Student riots flared in the capital on a daily basis. Growing numbers of white youths aged eighteen were refusing to report for national service, horrified by the bloodbath they were guaranteed to be pressed into. To top things off, disquieting rumors were breaking out that the all-white security forces were increasingly reluctant to enforce their superiors' brutal directives against everyone who stood against apartheid's regime.

Lyn's eyes filled with tears as she thought of her beautiful niece Janet, among those students coldly gunned down by the army at a peaceful civil rights demonstration in Wintenbruck. The amount of innocent blood now running freely through the country's streets needed to be stopped, cut off at the source, before it was too late.

"Authorities have sent in police to end two significant strikes by workers in Windhoek’s southern districts today," She was speaking now, speaking to the camera and making no attempt to hide the emotion written over her attractive features moments earlier. "This crackdown came just two weeks after native workers in the capital had engaged in days of protests, smashing government buildings and clashing with security units, against police violence, official discrimination and surging prices. A 20-year-old male worker interviewed earlier today explained: 'From our salary, the company also deducts 100 kalahars for social security and 50 kalahars for food if we dine inside the plant--[the latter of which] is an entire month's wages. The food is literally from the dustbins there and unfit for human consumption, but we have no choice'. Native employees of the local industry here have given similar horror stories, claiming that they are worked for twelve hours a day, and beaten physically by security staff if they fail to meet their demanded quotas. Many have also confirmed that they were not permitted breaks to even using the toilet, and were banned from drinking water except after their shift. Several women from the local garment industry said the management treated their black people as less than human beings, and white employers may sexually assault their married female workers any time they please."

The faces of the black workers further down the procession as the camera panned soon changed to panic. Grey-jacketed policemen brandishing batons had been lurking behind the next street corner, intending not to let the line proceed any further. Now they materialized out of nowhere, forming a physical barrier which stretched across the narrow road. Three immediately tackled a terrified old woman who had been at the head. One man ran to her aid and was immediately downed by a gloved fist which crashed into his nose and sent him stumbling backwards. The others were already fleeing in disorder. Fear was written across their eyes, wide in the growing dusk, and their gaping mouths.

Most of the policemen moved deliberately slowly, beating up and handcuffing those who had fallen or were otherwise incapacitated but allowing the majority to escape. Better to chastise them when they protested than try to arrest everyone. The jails were crowded enough with black political prisoners as it was.

An elderly man in a ragged pair of pink cotton trousers went down in a flailing heap, blood gushing from his thigh. One gunshot rang out, then another.

"Stop!" An officer seized his partner by the wrist as he raised his 9mm to finish the old black off. His green eyes were troubled. "Why did you do that, Sternkamp? You didn't have to shoot him."

"He ran."

Everyone opened fire now, the aura of violence spreading down the police line. Half a dozen of the fleeing workers fell before they knew what hit them. Another half a dozen dragged their bleeding, broken, bodies for another valiant few feet before joining the anguished mass of dead and dying on the ground.

Ping!

A wild bullet struck an aluminum panel inches from Lynn Tessendorf's head. God, she'd never been shot at before! But her mind was numb from the carnage.

"Chris, did you...did you get it all?"

"Right until the bastards started shooting, luv."

"Good enough."

The police were drawing closer. Through the lifting smoke their muzzle flashes continued, but the deafening sound no longer registered in Lynn's ears. She took one look at a poor teenaged girl, coughing out rivers of blood as she crawled towards their hiding place, reaching for them in agony, and nearly broke down. She couldn't leave her. Not after what these monsters had done.

"Not now! They're coming! Lynn, please!" Chris grabbed her by the sleeve and tugged her back towards safety. "You know what will happen if they find us here. Journalists violating a police line--"

Tessendorf nodded. She knew. The white skins of herself and her cameramen were no longer guaranteed protection against arrest, interrogation, execution. Now it was all about suppressing anyone who opposed the forces of apartheid.

Their luck ran out once they were nearly to their car. It was gone.

What they found instead were a group of big white men, shotguns in hand, gathered around smoking casually as they waited. Waited for them.

"Going somewhere?" The leader of the gang stepped in front of Lynn, his expression invisible under a black ski mask. They formed a circle around the two reporters.

"Please, we are only journalists. Let us pass." Lynn could hear heavy footfalls behind them and knew at once there were more. No chance of making a dash for it now.

"Traitorous, meddling, reporters." Another man spat the words out. They were all wearing camouflage trousers, combat boots, and military-style webbing over windbreakers with some sort of odd emblem crudely stenciled on each one. Lynn frowned. Who were these people? Vigilantes? One of the community goon squads? Fanatic thugs, plain and simple? Not that it mattered. She began wishing that a real policeman would show up. Anything to take these ugly paramilitary madmen out of the picture.

"We should kill you now."

"But we won't." The ski-masked leader simply frowned visibly and spoke in a guttural accent, the words harshly grating on Lynn's nerves. He gestured to Chris. "Give us the camera, sir, and we'll wish you a very good morning. If you don't....."

A heavy club was in his gloved hands, patted against one palm.

"Consider yourselves lucky, kaffir-loving swine. Broken equipment can be replaced but ribs and skulls are not so easily mended."

"You can't! You have no right!" Lynn was trying to calm herself. She was not succeeding.

"Oh, but we do. We aren't the law. We are above it. And furthermore, duly recognized representatives of the government. The police can't arrest us. Our papers were signed by the Justice Minister himself."

"What papers?!"

"In these troubled times, concerned civilians are authorized to take measures into their own hands. If this current crisis gets too out of hand, the military and police will be overstretched past a breaking limit. We, the people, must then defend ourselves from the native menace, to keep them where they belong: in subjection to the civilized races."

Tessendorf felt her stomach tightening. The man was insane! What sort of government would turn authority on the streets over to these unshaven thugs and mercenaries? The camera. It contained the truth. It needed to be protected.

She seized it from Chris and his unresisting fingers, just a moment before a shotgun crashed down on his skull. The cameraman dropped to the ground and crumpled into an unmoving heap. Blood stained the cobblestones around his head.

"You've hurt him!"

"Be lucky we don't hurt you, too. Give us the camera now--or you can expect no better from me."

Lynn clutched it to her breast, and knew instantly it was a mistake. Something cracked against the side of her head. She screamed, hoping someone would hear, but then dimly remembered it would be no use. The camera fell, striking home with a sickening crunch as the young reporter looked up from where she lay to see a heavy leather boot filling her vision.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Koevoet Internment Camp #46, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Josiah Lume began to stir as a coppery-tasting, thick, liquid gathered around his head, soaking into his face. For a moment, he imagined himself to be back in the shack at Jamesfield, and was vaguely aware of the fact he was late for work. His unforgiving foreman and the boorish white who owned the place would be unlikely to let another tardy appearance go. Where was he?

For a moment, the narrowed vision cleared, forcing his eyes open as his bruised face glanced upwards into a harsh spotlight glaring down towards him. The floor was hard. Stone. There was a razor-topped fence in his vision.

It was only when one eye refused to part, having been swollen shut after the beating his guards had given him the night before that he remembered. Remembered the police raid, dragging all the blacks from their homes and burning the neighborhood down. He saw his belongings, everything he owned in the world, go up in smoke. The few of his desperate neighbors who tried to resist or hide were destroyed with their makeshift houses. A blow from a nightstick had smashed into his elbow. He was confused and sleepy. For a moment he imagined it to be an impossible nightmare.

"Oh, no! Oh, no!"

Lume staggered to his feet, suddenly empowered as though he had been struck by lightning. His good eye bulged in horror as he stared at the floor, which was soaked with a spreading pool of blood. His elbow hurt so bad he wondered fleetingly if dying was an option, but at the moment he had good reason to be worried about other matters.

Josiah scanned the room around him. A massive, cavernous, chamber. Many bright spotlights fixed on wall mountings, although some had clearly been shattered recently. Shards of broken glass littered the corners.

A mere youth, fifteen in years, was sprawled nearby, his head twisted at an impossible angle. Lume was soaked with the boy's blood. It had been the latter's dying gasps which had revived him. Other blurry shapes took form as well. Black men of all ages and descriptions. Most were just now beginning to look around vacantly.

With a screech of feedback and a crackle of static, a voice began to speak from an unseen microphone. Lume, by now panicked by his situation, looked this way and that for a door, any sign of an exit. There was none. Where was he?

"I am Captain Vertiers, and you are now all in my power. This is a Koevoet detention facility. For those of you stupid illiterates unfamiliar with that term, it is where we send bloody kaffirs who have been accused of subversion. Now, of course you can expect us to give you a fair and proper hearing before passing sentence. Some may even be released, of course, if they are found to be innocent. Who among you is worthy of this honour? Our mercy is limited. You may begin."

The tone was smoother than silk, and uttered in almost halting Swahili. If it hadn't been for the obvious arrogance, Lume might have even suspected that a black man was addressing them. Whoever spoke the language spoke it much, much, better than he wanted to sound. What did he mean by limited mercy?

At that, three of the men seemed to realize what was about to happen. They began to wail like children, and immediately charged the razor fence in futile attempts to scale it. More joined them, and started to clamber onto their backs. The others ran towards them. Fights began to break out. Those trying to escape fell first, limbs broken and skulls fractured by stronger opponents. Then the attackers turned on each other. One had procured a blade of glass and drove it so far into the ribs of another that he could not pull it free. That corpse was instantly swarmed by others who were fighting for control of the valuable weapon, and was soon torn apart. Mangled tissue and gore spattered white clothing.

No!?! The captain couldn't mean...! Surely he wouldn't! They couldn't! Lume recoiled with the monstrosity of it all. Koevoet actually wanted them to kill each other in the vain hope for amnesty.

Inside a comfortable observation deck several blocks away, surrounded by video screens depicting the impending massacre, Captain Vertiers watched the bloodshed with mild interest. He didn't even have to waste ammunition ending those sorry lives, either. They had been coerced into murdering each other. It was an ingenious solution for natives guilty of political subversion. Those who were willing to kill lasted longer. Those who weren't died at the hands of their own fellows.

He knew how it would end, too: Four or so survivors, warily circling each other in the human jam of severed body parts and bone tissue, stained crimson from all the death. Then his troops would give them the mercy they so desired: A quick death at muzzle distance.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Nyonka, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Matu Ngiza frantically picked up the heavy metal crate, grunting with the effort before hurling it into the back of the battered old Datsun. The others hoisted packages of canned foot and dry meat behind him.

Ngiza stared at the wristwatch dubiously. It had been nearly four years now since he'd pinched it, on this very day, from that town councilman's office. He hadn't like doing so, but it looked like it may have been worth a lot at the time. Now, it was worth much to one particular link in a long chain which was referred to as the Liberation League.

Most messages in the organization had to travel secretly, through an intricate network of cutouts, drop points, and trusted couriers who could be expected to guard information with their lives. But there was nothing slow about the letter which had reached Ngiza and his friends only hours earlier. They had been compromised.

SWAPOL, the national territorial police, had somehow gotten everyone's names and location published in a dreaded Koevoet binder filled up with descriptions of those marked for elimination. Thanks to some special informants, the Liberation League had gotten wind of this and had passed along a warning. Matu and four of his fellow junior league members were to evacuate the safe house near Nyonka immediately, taking with them only what supplies were necessary for the next haven south of Windhoek.

It was long past time to leave.

"Hurry, man! Come on, we must go!"

Matu liked serving the league. The prospect of danger only provided him with some genuine excitement; besides, he'd been told that his descendants would forever hail him a hero of the peaceful struggle once apartheid was toppled and racist hatemongers no longer ruled the nation.

Now, for the first time faced with the possibility of capture or worse, he was having second thoughts.

The other four black youths piled into the pickup. Three of them clambered ackwardly into the bed while the other two shared a seat with Ngiza. He was assuring himself they would make it. Perhaps too late he wondered if a black teenager driving a truck like this one would attract unwelcome attention.

As the Datsun pulled away, no one looked back at the little cottage they had called home for the past seven months, so often the site of important meetings between African nationalists.

Security Checkpoint 44, near Wyneham

Shorland vehicles surrounded the sandbagged position, which was spiked with enormous concrete blocks painted a day-glo orange to mark them out in the dark. Soldiers milled around in full combat gear, bored with what seemed like a completely routine security assignment.

Lieutenant Riaan du Toit surveyed the scene with disapproval. There was one thing which had cause to seriously disturb him, and it was the free-lance reporters. A handful of sentries and a sergeant had escorted some journalists through the checkpoint, damn it, and he had a right mind to rip them up for it. He'd given explicit orders against such inexcusable business, and should've forced them to demand the special permits which exempted members of the press from the normal media bans under emergency decrees.

"Roll the camera. Let's try to do this in one take."

Du Toit resisted the urge to howl with rage. He walked over to the camera, muttering angrily. "Shut this thing off. Now!" Instead of obeying, however, the idiots simply pivoted the instrument dumbly towards him. The lieutenant seethed with fury, and decided that once was enough.

"What is the meaning of this, corporal? If you don't want to be a private by morning, you will tell us why exactly you did not report these unwelcome visitors to me and checked to make sure all of their papers were in order!"

"Sir, I--"

The corporal's eyes widened suddenly, his flow of words interrupted by the powerful roar of an engine. Everyone glanced up, du Toit dumbfounded by the deafening sound.

Most of the cars in front of the checkpoint were idling, their drivers ready to pass down the line and flash their identification to the men on duty. But one pickup truck, clearly driving with blackout lights, suddenly accelerated forward in a motion too fast for the officer's eye to follow.

"My God!"

The floodlights illuminated the rogue vehicle now, and it was clear that its occupants were all kaffirs, black as night, and young men at that, too. This was not looking good. Some idiot, probably drunk, was making a run for it. The Datsun was faster than it looked.

Even as it seemed to reach its maximum speed, flames stabbed out of the darkness and the truck's windshield shattered. Rifles were discharging on full and semi-automatic, bullets tearing into the engine and blowing out the tires. As the disabled pickup swerved madly off the road and into the embankment, the lieutenant was already rushing it, pistol drawn.

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!"

His words only seemed to take effective twenty seconds after they were spoken.

Two grim-faced white soldiers, caught in the glare of the checkpoint headlights, yanked open the passenger door, which was punctured visibly. A corpse, faintly ridiculous in a blood-drenched sweater on such a warm evening, slid slowly out onto the ground, striking the dust with a heavy thud. It was promptly seized by the ankles and dragged away. Lieutenant du Toit approached gingerly. Rough hands grabbed onto another suspect, this one babbling deliriously as his eyes rolled, and pulled him from the vehicle. He offered no resistance.

Du Toit stared at the dark stain collecting on the ground around the bullet-riddled wreck coldly. There was no need to check on the driver, who was slumped over the steering column; Matu Ngiza had taken one in the head. The tailgate slammed down and the loud wailing began. Well, well, well. Some of the blacks had survived the carnage.

They were led out now, three that had been cowering in the bed, caught while attempting to stumble off into the night. Sentries held their arms, while others locked automatic weapons onto proper aiming points. When each abortive intruder was handcuffed, they were pushed painfully to the ground near the unconscious form of the sole survivor from the cab.

Du Toit's eyes narrowed. "All right, who the hell are you bastards? And what are you trying to do?"

They cowered, cuffed hands placed obediently on their heads but refusing to speak audibly.

"Please! I've been shot. I'm hurting. I'll bleed to death. Please get an ambulance!"

The wounded Liberation League man was just starting to stir. He still sounded off, but he was clearly getting some measure of sanity back.

"Let's see if we can sort the kaffirs out. Look for any IDs or passes." The lieutenant began issuing orders to his men.

"He's hurt. He's been shot. By your men! You must help him!"

One of the natives finally pushed his men too far. They were angry now, murmuring amongst themselves.

"Don't attempt to escape," Du Toit warned. He nodded at the blanching corporal, who was gaping at the awful scene, and the younger man handed over his weapon.

"Who in the bloody hell do you think you are?! Let me send you and your kind a message. They are not welcome in Suidwes-Afrika. Do you know why we fight? We are fighting for the survival of our society, of our people. And we will not surrender as along as a single rebellious black is alive to menace this country. Now I'm going to give it to you, you kaffir son of a whore, in the mouth just as you deserve."

He fought bravely in spite of odds, but the huge hands of the soldiers held him taut. The barrel of a Heckler & Koch poked into his jaw, severing any defiant last words before they could be spoken.

Du Toit wordlessly pulled the trigger. As if on cue, his troops immediately fired at once.

Three bullets slammed into the chests, shoulders, and heads of each unarmed prisoner. Every last one died instantly, the planet washing out to a permanent fade.

Behind the lieutenant's shoulder, the news camera continued to film as the journalists looked on in silent horror, streaming live images of the senseless massacre across Suidwes-Afrika and the world.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Jamesfield, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Boycotts, demonstrations, and strikes ravaged Jamesfield on an almost daily basis, prompting a white populace increasingly calloused to the bloodshed around them to go about their daily lives. Young women in bathing suits relaxed with dog-eared paperbacks by swimming pools where small children splashed about freely, while the tennis courts filled up with players. Rutted streets leading past the traditionally European suburbs, however, were filled with native youths warily carrying containers of water past the silent gun turrets of Ketchel armoured cars advancing in column.

Down the road, a large crowd of local residents had rapidly multiplied. Some waved banners while others carried boldly worded placards. Several clapping their hands as one, others dancing, they streamed towards the oncoming convoy before settling in place to block the road.

The first military vehicle braked to an uneasy halt, and white faces glared at the new obstruction. This was the not the first mob the patrol had encountered that day, and each soldier was well aware it wouldn't be the last. A corporal snapped the safety off his Lechter assault rifle. His action was copied by others seated atop the car, and the man subsequently cleared his throat for emphasis before cupping a hand over his mouth.

"You have one warning to stop obstructing the road. Either disperse of your own accord, or we have no alternative but to take stronger action!"

Smiles vanished, but the mass of black people refused to budge. Instead, with sad glances one to another, they clasped hands.

"Father, I'm afraid."

"Hush, my child. Everything will be all right soon." One of the men addressed the corporal. "We will not resist, sir. But we cannot turn back, either. Do what you will."

"But....why?" There was a note of genuine curiosity in the other's voice. For a moment they gazed at each other, white soldier to a black headman, across the racial divide which had always separated them. And for a moment, the latter's very soul was reflected painfully in his opponent's eyes.

"Our lives are not worth anything now. But we must make a stand someday. Our country, your country, must be made safe for freedom and true democracy. And so we appeal to you, soldiers, leave our neighborhood. If we must die, then we die only by God's will."

The corporal, stunned into silence, could only shake his head. But his comrades were not so moved.

"You heard the blex! Their lives aren't worth spit."

Another corporal scooped up his own rifle, thumbing the selector switch to full automatic. In one swift motion he brought it to bear and held the trigger down, others in the squad quick to reciprocate. Lead raked through the line of civilians, but most simply closed their eyes and met their fate with bravery. Some collapsed instantly, covered in blood. None made any attempt to flee.

With a roar, the lead Ketchel gunned its engine and rolled forward as the shooting continued unabated.

The Chiwembe Herald
Tragedy and Hatred law of the land in Suidwes-Afrika

The future of Suidwes-Afrika remained uncertain at the end of an especially violent year for the industrially developed but racially troubled African nation as contemporary prime minister and hardline white supremacist Walbert Braun continued to pursue a tough policy of strict racial segregation. Since coming to power in April, the Braun administration has already distinguished itself by consistently vowing violence to preserve white minority rule. Recent demonstrations by members of black nationalist movements have met opposition from pro-government extremists, and the death toll from police bullets alone has already exceeded into the hundreds. An alternating cycle of strikes and bloody repression entered its sixth month today, ever since security forces clashed with native plantation workers striking for better working conditions on July 1. The regime attempted to draw a veil of secrecy over Suidwes-Afrika, sealing it against outsiders, but this failed to prevent a number of international news sources from reporting first hand about the terror and bloodshed which followed under the state of emergency.

Suidwes-Afrikan soldiers and territorial police crushed protests with great savagery, while self-appointed members of white 'vigilante' groups were implicated in the wanton slaughter of black citizens. For weeks before the initial unrest regional attention was already focused on the plight of the millions of blacks in Suidwes-Afrika. White settler rule was harshly criticised particularly for implementing forced labour laws which many fact-finding missions charged amounted to a system of slavery.

The Seabrook Chronicle
Braun unflinching on apartheid policy

Economic problems continued to prove a thorn in the side of Walbert Braun's racial segregation programmes and increasingly tyrannical domestic policy. Food supplies continued to dwindle, and black refugees have been superseding other "chief exports" to neighboring countries. Foreign investors, too, are fleeing in droves. The once promising nation was losing admirers inside and out, and Suidwes-Afrika has continued to take on the grim character of an apartheid police state.

By year-end more than half of the countries in the surrounding region have severed diplomatic relations with the Braun government. In addition, an interregional foreign ministers' conference has been called to consider the threat posed by Suidwes-Afrika to local stability.

Opposition to white minority rule from within continued to grow in spite of merciless retaliations by the security forces. Neighborhood "law and order" committees were enlisted to report anyone voicing opposition to the regime. Thousands of black persons have been arrested this week alone, and even makeshift jails were said to be overflowing. Braun was also making it difficult for people to leave the country. Although many foreign newsmen have already been expelled, reports of a growing underground movement have leaked out. Although there was some dissent among white professionals and businesspeople, Braun's personal popularity among the settler population has generally been strong. Large bands of 'political subversives' have been defeated or contained by SWAPOL, the territorial police. On over a dozen recent occasions public protests continued to be suppressed by lethal force.

[Suidwes-Afrika]

Hocheberg Commercial Farm, Republic of Suidwes-Afrika

Begnu Kaverizeri stood forlonly at the edge of the massive trench, his eyes squinting in the harsh sunlight as he looked out over another hard day. He smiled briefly, turning away when shrill laughter started reaching his ears from the mass of humanity slaving away somewhere below his vision.

Trust Africans to keep their sense of humour. It was, after all, in their blood. The black foreman consulted a clipboard held in one hand, then examined another as reality returned him to his former anxieties. First one series of precisely written directives, then another, conflicting even as he read them.

Both were in the prim, unmistakable, handwriting of Gunther Hocheberg. The active and seemingly indestructable elderly German ran the farm's operations almost singlehandedly, with the brisk, impersonal, efficiency of a man who had nothing else to live for. He had no family, as far as Kaverizeri knew, but lived in the lonely old colonial dwelling on the hillside by himself. No one very far down in the level of management had actually seen their employer, but Begnu had seen his handwriting often enough. There was no missing it, and every last order handed down to the lowest native foremen always had his personal signature tacked somewhere to the bottom.

Kaverizeri found that likable in his own way. No dialogue, but a directness that was not hard to fault and not hard to understand - at least until recently.

For the first time in six years, Hocheberg seemed to have finally lost something along the way. A bitter frown creased Kaverizeri's face as he read and reread messy wording, trying to make some sense out of the latest two unpleasant articles marked down on his roster.

The frown was still there when the battered half-ton lorry braked to a stop somewhere behind him. It deepened when the foreman recognised the distinct muttering as someone slammed the lorry's door, and the rapid approach of heavy footfalls on the dirt track.

"This had better be good, boy."

Gunther Hocheberg aside, Derek Rackstraw was one of the only three white Suidwes-Afrikans who worked the farm and its massive black labour force, and he had been appointed Kaverizeri's immediate supervisor. Most of the time everyone seemed to get the impression that Rackstraw didn't care dirt about doing any real work, and only got around just enough to look like he was doing his job.

In his quarters, Bednu's face often crumpled in disgust when he thought of the toffee-nosed, boorish, and unsmiling manager.

"Yes, baas."

Countless years spent under his country's winter sun had creased and reddened Rackstraw's face as it bleached his hair, giving him a fixed expression of sour irritation.

"Well? Come on, out with it, man. I haven't got all day."

Kaverizeri handed over the clipboard.

"The new directives, there must be some mistake with them, baas."

Rackstraw tipped back his patched sun helmet, mopping his brow as he gave Hocheberg's very explicit instructions a cursory glance.

"Everything seems to be in order."

"Yes, baas. It is about the new directives. We are cutting the supply of daily mealies to the workers nearly in half, but the quotas have risen sharply."

Rackstraw looked deceptively blank, but his tone signalled his growing annoyance with the other man.

"I trust there is no problem with that?"

"Sir, the people, they are not getting enough. It takes a family of four to carry their daily allotments of grain. The villages this year have been hit hard by drought. Many people conscripted for work are already starving. People are dying. They too hungry to work. They cannot work, under these conditions."

The white manager snorted through his nose unpleasantly. "Nothing for you to be concerned about, my son. It's all been worked out. You just do your job. They'll always be plenty of blacks that Hocheberg can get. Workers are workers."

"But the little we are feeding the people is not enough!" Kaverizeri was having trouble grasping Rackstraw's casual indifference. "Now we are cutting their meals by nearly half, and expecting them to do twice the work."

"And there will always be others to take their places if they can't make it," Rackstraw responded. "Stick to your own knitting, if you please."

"It is my job to ensure that these quotas are met. And I assure you, baas, they cannot. Not now, and not later when our workers die of hunger and exhaustion."

"They can work all the same, can't they?"

Derek turned towards the trench, aware that all the black workers there had dropped their implements. Some were staring down at the dirt or their feet, but others had their eyes unashamedly fixed on his. Everyone was listening.

Curse it all to hell, they'd picked up enough of his Swahili to understand what he was talking about. The bad news had just been broken.

"What are you bloody kaffirs waiting for? Get back to work!"

No one stirred.

"Who told anyone that he could stop?"

Rackstraw's voice dropped two octaves.

"Get back to work. Now."

"Sadist!"

Begnu Kaverizeri's dark eyes flashed fire. He jabbed his pencil at Rackstraw's chest. "These men and women know that they're already dead to your kind! We are just cattle, are we? Your black people, born to hew wood and carry water, nothing else, is that it?"

"Shut up!"

If Kaverizeri had caught the warning note in Rackstraw's voice, he took no heed. "No one has ever wanted to be worked to death here, on this farm! No one has ever wanted to be starved! But we're suffering, because you don't care how many poor peasants die. There will always be others. That's why you cut their food while telling them to work harder! So that you can sponge as much from them as you can before they starve and others come and take their place in the cycle of death! You don't care. You just don't care."

The last two words in the rant came out only as half-sobs, as if the foreman had reached a revelation. Through the tears, he never saw the huge, calloused, hand coming.

Rackstraw swung and connected, easily knocking Kaverizeri three feet across the ground. He landed hard in the dust, blood already flowing freely from his nose and jaw.

"I knew you kaffirs would eventually get too cheeky for your own good." Rackstraw's hand went to his side, to the shiny snap-down holster that was always buckled to his belt. "A little crack of the whip has always gotten black buggers moving again, when they get cheeky. Now we do things just the same. Only this time - it will be the crack of the gun."

Kaverizeri tried to stand, his chest heaving. The heavy Browning pistol crashed down across his forehead, causing him to collapse like a pricked balloon. He tried to scream, but his throat seemed to be filled with gravel.

Everything moved slowly from that moment on. He never heard the gunshot.

The labourers stared open-eyed, open-mouthed, at the corpse for two minutes before Rackstraw blew down the barrel of his weapon.

"Now get back to work, goddamned lazy bobbejaans, or you'll all be next," he snarled, liberally dispensing the Afrikaans word for 'baboon'. "I can teach anyone here what happens when you step out of line."

When the creaking of pickaxes and shovels indicated that the kaffirs had wasted no time in complying, Derek Rackstraw turned back towards his lorry, dismissing the cold shooting of his most faithful and longest-serving foreman without even glancing back.

Already thick with flies, the body lay where it had been felled for the final time.

[Nui-ta]

[OOC: Since you invited me in to condemn and set up a human rights watch here....well...here we go.]

---

When Nicolai found out about the atrocities going on in Suidwes-Afrika, he was considerably shocked. There were reports coming in from within the nation about racial atrocities....persecution of inter-racial unions, genocides, slavery, senseless rapes and killing.

It was the Partition all over again. He couldn't get through half of the report without becoming visibly sickened and green.

Now, Nicolai was the prince and Heir Apparent of Nui-ta --- not its true Emperor. At least, not officially. Yet.

In practice though, with his father becoming increasing ill...Nicolai was all but a formal ceremony away from becoming the 8th Emperor of the nation. He wasn't very happy about that...but what could he do about that? Sure he wanted to take the throne, but watching his father...the once proud Emperor Vincentius di Amori III, shrivel in front of him....it was hard. It was a lot to take in.

So was watching one of the worst moments in history repeat itself on a different country. He couldn't help but want to do something.

Anything.

He finally sighed and looked up at the only other people (besides his bodyguard) who were sitting in the room with him. The Minister of Defense, Hendri ri-Denshir, and the Minister of External Affairs, Cosette Hijuvin.

Hendri was a stern man in his early 60's. Although old (most Nui-tans died around 65), he was still in full health. He wore a full suit and a raised collar to hide scars on his neck gained from war, and his cold, gray eyes reflected nothing but a business-like demeanor. It was the kind of gaze that only an individual seasoned in all of life's cruelties could give.

In contrast, Cosette Hijuvin was a pretty young woman of 32 years. She had blue eyes, which was very unusual for a Nui-tan, but the rest of her features were starkly Nui-tan: black hair and a tanned complexion. Even though she had grown up in Mercuria, which was the most modernized and "forward-thinking" state of Nui-ta, Cosette dressed quite modestly. Her dress went down from just above her shoulders to her knees. It was a very plain, almost black shade, with sleeves that went down to her elbows. Quite unusual attire for a Nui-tan summer, which were known to reach 22-24 degrees Celsius. The only decorative thing she wore was a large blue ribbon in her hair that matched her eyes --- it seemed she never took the thing off.

Nicolai sighed. "So I'm sure you've seen a copy of this report on your desk?"

Hendri and Cosette simply nodded in response.

Nicolai groaned. "You know, I'm reputed for not having a very violent personality. Can I get emotionally inflamed? Of course...but this is something different. This makes my blood boil. This makes me angrier than when my sister attacked the former Prime Minister for being a commoner."

He sighed and leaned back, sipping some water on his desk and wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. He looked back at his bodyguard (who was also his fiance).

The bodyguard simply looked back at him a bit worried, without saying anything.

Nicolai continued. "So listen. Here's what I want from each of you. Hendri, I want to know if there is some way that we can get...not troops....but agents. Agents into Suidwes-Afrika to monitor the situation as part of a human rights watch, and to send us back a human rights report. My personal recommendation from the selection of personnel at your disposal is someone from ILOP's External Branch, as well as someone from the Elite Corps, since I don't know if things are going to get bad there."

"Cosette, I want you to help him with this. And see if we can send them in diplomatically rather than covertly....even though I'm afraid that covert means are what we are going to have to resort too. Also, Cosette. I want you to write up a condemnation. Make it very clear that we are not happy with what has been going on. Make it as strongly worded as you can. Show them just how terrible their actions are."

"Dismissed. Both of you."

The two Ministers nodded, Hendri giving Nicolai a bow and Cosette giving him a curtsy. They then quietly left the room.

Nicolai looked at the report sadly, and then back at his fiance.

"Sijur." Nicolai asked.

Still on bodyguard duty, Sijur ke-Driovion was not his usual happy-go-lucky self. ke-Driovion snapped to attention. "Your Highness?"

"Tell me something. Did you fight in the Partition?"

"Yes sir. Standard Corps Infantry, 2nd Company, 1st Armory Brigade, 8th Squad. I was in Rahku during the Royal District bombings."

"Did you ever....did you ever go west? To Hephazi? Or Alinia?"

Sijur paused.

"I didn't go west during the Partition, your Highness. After it was over, while they were rebuilding, I went to Alinia after joining the ILOP to enforce order while they were putting the state back together."

"You weren't there during the Partition though?"

"No sir. Only afterwards."

"What was it like?

"It was..." Sijur winced. "It was bad. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen. Broke my heart to see the place like that. Most of the train lines were cut off and people were looking for family members that had long since been....gone. In all the violence. And people were afraid, because they were living in an area where there were lots of different races of people. Nui-tans were afraid of Hadinians. Hadinians were afraid of Nui-tans. Kavians were afraid of both of them, and everyone was afraid of the Kavians. They were turning orphans out on the street because of their race, and people were still rioting and living in fear. It was terrible. Absolutely terrible."

Sijur looked lost in his own thoughts as he continued. "And I came into Alinia after the war was over...on the tail end, when order was already being re-established..."

Nicolai sighed. "If it was happening somewhere else.....somewhere far away. Even if they only asked for a little bit of help....and you weren't sure what to do...."

"I would try to do something." Sijur sighed. "I would try to do anything if it was ever that bad."

"Did you do anything?" Nicolai asked.

"A girl tried to rob me. She was 14. She was recovering from a gunshot wound that someone had given her."

"What did you do?"

"I took her and her little sister in. And I sent them off to school. And I prayed they'd be safe. Me. An Atheist. Praying. That's how sad their situation seemed to me."

"What happened to her?" Nicolai turned and asked. "Do you know?"

"I never heard from the little sister again. But I found out that the other girl is doing....much better. So if I were you...I'd do something."