First Namibia Rebels Accept U.N. Escort

Four black nationalist guerrillas turned themselves in at a Lutheran church here Wednesday and were escorted under the U.N. flag to the Angolan border, the first rebels to take up the peacekeeping force’s two-day-old offer of safe passage out of Namibia.

No other rebel fighters have shown up at any of the eight other U.N. “assembly points” in the northern Namibian bush, where as many as 1,900 insurgents remain after a series of bloody battles that began 12 days ago as the U.N. plan for Namibia’s independence was launched.

Diplomats, church leaders and U.N. observers have expressed doubts that many rebels will turn themselves in at the U.N. posts, most of which are situated near South African Defense Force bases. Those officials say that some of the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) fighters, like the four on Wednesday, may eventually show up at churches, but many more will probably cross back into Angola on their own.

SWAPO President Sam Nujoma, speaking to reporters from his exile headquarters in Luanda, Angola, said Wednesday that he has urged his fighters, through their military commanders, to stop the fighting and go directly to Angola. He said he will not urge them to use the U.N. assembly points, which he described as South African traps.

Under the U.N. independence plan for Namibia, which was implemented April 1, SWAPO was to be confined to bases north of a line about 150 miles inside Angola. Then, in mid-May, unarmed SWAPO guerrillas may return legally to Namibia to participate in the U.N.-supervised November elections. SWAPO, whose 24-year guerrilla war against South African rule here has claimed more than 20,000 lives, is expected to win a majority in the elections.

Two of the four guerrillas who handed themselves over to missionaries here Wednesday had been injured but were able to walk. A U.N. team consisting of two Australian soldiers with light arms and a British military doctor escorted the men from the church to the U.N. monitoring post in Oshikango, on the border about 30 miles north of here.

S. African Turned Away

A South African officer tried to visit the guerrillas in the U.N. tent in Oshikango, but one of the U.N. monitors, a Pakistani army major, refused to let him in, Reuters news agency quoted witnesses as saying.

The goal of the U.N. Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) is to restore peace in the territory and protect the Namibian peace process, jeopardized when hundreds of SWAPO insurgents crossed into northern Namibia on April 1.

South Africa, which controls the territory until next November’s elections, says there will be no formal cease-fire in Namibia, and no return to bases for South African troops, until it is satisfied that the insurgents have left and are confined to bases in Angola.

Louis Pienaar, the South African governor in Namibia, initially said his security forces planned to “interrogate” any SWAPO rebels turning themselves in at the U.N. posts “in order to verify the suspected numbers of infiltrators . . . as well as the positions of weapons caches.”

But Pienaar, apparently under U.N. pressure, backed away from that statement Wednesday, saying that he had meant only to “question” SWAPO fighters “for humanitarian reasons” to determine the whereabouts of wounded guerrillas.

SWAPO has variously asserted that its guerrillas were already inside Namibia or that they infiltrated the territory in an attempt to report to U.N. troops.

But the Namibian peace accord had made no provisions for armed guerrillas to enter the territory or report to U.N. forces on April 1, and the guerrillas ran into the South Africa-led Namibian security forces. More than 250 rebels and 27 security force members died in the first 10 days. An uneasy truce has prevailed since Sunday, when SWAPO called on its troops to stop fighting and return to Angola.