Dr Abrahams to be returned to Bechuanaland

The South African prime minister, Dr H.F. Verwoerd, announced in a statement before the Supreme Court in Cape Town, that Dr. Kenneth Abrahams would be returned to the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Dr. Abrahams and three other South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) sympathisers, including Mr Hannes Beukes, had been kidnapped in Bechuanaland by South African forces on 11 August 1963*. This was one of the first instances of across border abductions in this period, dating from the early 1960s when a number of opposition activists who had taken refuge in some of South Africa's neighbouring states were kidnapped and forcibly returned to South Africa. In each instance, the sovereignty of the British government in respect of its colonial possessions was violated by South African security. In September, the United Nations in its Report of the Special Committee on the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa (Conclusions and Recommendations) expressed grave concern about this and other actions of the South African government. *One source gives the year of abduction as 1962, but this is not corroborated in other sources.   Sources: http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/index/menu.htm http://www.polity.org.za/polity/govdocs/commissions/1998/trc/2chap2.htm