“Ohandi ende ongeda nge ndili moBattle” was commander Thomas ‘Nopoudjuu’ Hamunyela’s retort to one of his soldiers, who noticed him limping while still barking orders and dishing out instructions in the heat of a historic battle.
He basically meant he bounces (walks in a boastful manner) when in battle. He did not want to show any sign of weakness or vulnerability in the heat of a battle later to be labelled as one of the most iconic in Plan’s history.
Hamunyela was caught by shrapnel in the early stages of the Indungu battle. He had a point to prove and wanted to show the apartheid forces attacking his base that Plan was also capable of standing its ground in a conventional warfare approach. He refused to flee and stayed for the duration of the battle, which took over 12 hours.
“It was the mother of all battles in Plan,” said former Zambezi governor Lawrence Sampofu, who was one of the combatants serving under Hamunyela’s command.
Hamunyela was at the time the Plan northern front chief of operations but found himself acting as regional commander because his two seniors, the regional commander Thomas ‘Mapaya’ Shuuya and his second in command (2IC), were both not around.
The regional commander, Shuuya was in Germany and the chief of staff, Sakaria Amukoto, was also away visiting his family. The two were allowed to leave the front because, during the winter months, Plan customarily reduced its missions into Namibia. This was primarily because it is during that time of the year when the trees lose leaves, making it difficult for Plan insurgents to camouflage themselves with the vegetation to avoid being detected and captured by the Apartheid forces.
Interestingly, Namibia’s capital, Windhoek was a significant factor in Hamunyela’s illustrious military career.
The second time came in 1999, when Hamunyela was recalled from a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. President Sam Nujoma, acting on the advice of the military top brass, tasked him with defending Namibia against a Unita threat. Hamunyela came highly recommended by the NDF chiefs, who felt he was the right man for the job.
At the time, Unita threatened to attack and bomb Windhoek. This was in retaliation for the Namibian government siding with the MPLA government of president José Eduardo dos Santos. Operation Mandume Ndemufayo was operationalised and eventually led to Jonas Savimbi’s death. The first significant moment goes back to 1987, prior to the battle of Indungu.
Hamunyela, as chief of operations for Plan’s northern front, orchestrated a daring attack on Windhoek. The target was the defence headquarters known as Bastion 1. The attack didn’t go according to plan; the car bomb did not hit the intended target. It exploded about 20 metres away from the target, somewhere between the Kalahari Sands hotel and the military building..
As a result, he got the South African government’s attention, and their intelligence networks confirmed that the attack was planned by Plan’s northern front. The Windhoek car bomb was preceded by an attack on the Ondangwa air base.
That was how the SWATF set its sights on the Plan’s northern front headquarters, situated at Indungu.
“We heard they were preparing for something, and we have been monitoring their activities,” said Hamunyela. He added that Plan intelligence gathered that there were unusual activities at Oshivelo, where the SWATF had their 61 Mechanised Unit, and Ondangwa, which housed the 101 Battalion, and at Sector 10, Oshakati.
“I decided we are not going to flee; we are going to face this enemy head-on,” Hamunyela said. He added that he wanted to go toe to toe with the enemy in their conventional warfare approach, unlike Plan’s preferred guerilla warfare tactics of planned attacks and quick retreats. Guerilla warfare’s currency is the element of surprise. This was primarily because Plan was no match for the Apartheid government’s sophisticated military. Swapo did not have the resources, equipment, and armoury, or the ground troops, to match the SWATF.
He had had enough, and he decided to prepare for the SWATF attack, which was imminent.
“We dug trenches and planted landmines,” he said, adding that he then went to the Plan chief of operations at the Operational Command Headquarters, Martin Shalli for support.
Hamunyela gave Shalli a wish list of the types of resources he needed. Plan was also short on resources, but Shalli managed to grant 60% of Hamunyela’s wishes.
It was the last week of October 1987 when word came that the enemy was coming and set to march for Indungu.
On the morning of 31 October, news came in that the enemy was on their doorstep. By mid-morning, the first attacks had come.
It was jet fighters.
The SADF/SWATF fighter jets first targeted the base’s air defence systems. That was when Hamunyela got hit on the leg by debris from the bombardment.
The second attack came before the ground operations came in. They had a heavy force of about 200 vehicles.
At around 13h00, Hamunyela and his troops managed to pull off some counterattacks to repel the Apartheid troops. Shalli then sent a message that Hamyela should leave the base and avoid being captured. “I refused; I said I first want to bury my soldiers and that a retreat at that point will push the casualty numbers higher,” Hamunyela said.
He opted to wait for nightfall before contemplating any form of retreat or escape. But he insisted that Shali send reinforcements.
By 14h00 the bombing had resumed, but the Plan fighters had moved away from the area under attack.
By 16h00 Shalli’s reinforcements had arrived, but they ran into an enemy ambush that was trying to close off the base. The reinforcements engaged the enemy troops; although they lost their in-house-built Swapo multi-rocket launcher and their vehicle was destroyed, they managed to damage a number of SADF/SWATF Caspers and Wolfs.
Just before sunset, the SADF troops started retreating. They realised that Plan despite being outgunned and outnumbered, was still fighting and inflicting damage as well. They never managed to completely destroy or capture any vital documents or senior Plan fighters.
It was a disaster for them.
In that one battle, Plan managed to destroy at least 20 SADF vehicles, capturing three Caspers and one Wolf. The enemy destroyed some of their own vehicles to avoid them falling into Plan hands. Hamunyela estimates that more than 40 enemy troops were killed that day. Some died in the burning Caspers. While many were injured and transported by helicopters to receive medical attention,.
At nightfall, Amunyela and his troops buried their fallen comrades who did not survive the battle of Indungu. He only evacuated the base after 22h00.
In his 2019 Masters dissertation with the University of Pretoria, Marius Scheepers noted that the South African forces did not provide comprehensive records or a detailed reconstruction of the events of the Indungu battle, which they codenamed Operation Firewood. Scheepers also noted that the SADF went into that battle expecting to run over the Plan base and its troops. But they got more than what they bargained for, with Plan fighters being batter-trained and equipped, unlike what the SADF anticipated. The SADF has also not recorded the number of wounded and dead as a result of that battle. Scheepers also added that when the SADF ground troops entered into a skirmish with the Plan fighters who came as reinforcement from the command centre, their SADF ground troops surrounding the Plan base, would have been annihilated by the Plan reinforcements.
Nopoudjuu has been asked by the veterans association to go to the Swapo pot so they have representation.
He fought many battles and is known to never back out of a fight, but perhaps his heroics at Indungu on 31 October 1987, will always stand out. A few months later, January 1988, Nopoudjuu was promoted to deputise Shalli as Plan’s deputy chief of operations, a position he held until he was repatriated to Namibia in 1989.
