Bomb Blast in Crowded Namibia Bank Kills 14

At least 14 people were killed Friday by a bomb blast at a crowded bank in northern Namibia in the deadliest attack of the 21-year-old guerrilla war in this South Africa-administered territory.

Police blamed the attack in the town of Oshakati on guerrillas of the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), which is fighting for independence of the territory.

But a SWAPO spokesman denied responsibility.

“The bomb is part of South Africa’s dirty propaganda campaign to smear the name of SWAPO,” said the spokesman, Hibipo Hamutemya.

55 Pounds of Explosive

The explosion, said by police to have been caused by about 55 pounds of plastic explosive, demolished the branch of the First National Bank at Oshakati, a military-civilian complex just south of the Namibian border with Angola. The blast occurred at 1 p.m. as the bank was crowded with customers.

A military spokesman said the dead were nine black women, three black men, one white woman and one black child. Police said all were civilians. All but three of 31 injured were seriously hurt, the military spokesman added.

The same branch was the target of a bomb attack about a year ago when a teen-ager was killed and four people were injured.

Oshakati is about 25 miles south of the Angolan border and is home to the largest military base in the region, a staging point for South Africa’s military intervention in Angola’s civil war.

SWAPO guerrillas based in Angola frequently operate in the Ovambo region around Oshakati.

SWAPO has been fighting since 1966 against South African control of Namibia, also known as South-West Africa. The territory is administered by South Africa in violation of a U.N. resolution. SWAPO has attacked both military and civilian targets during its sabotage and bombing campaign. An estimated 20,000 people have died during the bush war, about half of them guerrillas, about 700 of them security forces, and the rest civilians.

Fighting in Angola

South African and Namibian troops have been fighting for several months in Angola in support of Angolan rebels under Jonas Savimbi. South African officials say they will not grant independence to Namibia until after the withdrawal of the estimated 35,000 Cuban troops supporting Angola’s Marxist government.

Only about 70,000 of Namibia’s 1.3 million people are white, and the South African government has installed a multiracial transitional administration to run the territory’s affairs.

SWAPO has refused to negotiate with the transitional government, citing a U.N. resolution calling for South Africa’s withdrawal and for U.N.-supervised elections that would lead to Namibian independence.