ABSTRACT
The far-off geographical location of the war zone in Namibia's northern border area, and from its capital city Windhoek, allowed it to remain a distant and unknown terrain for those not directly involved. Laws that compelled combatants not to divulge military secrets, added to the secrecy and remoteness of the conflict, although many of those who took part in the war certainly would have had first-hand knowledge of atrocities. There are potentially productive but mysterious gaps between these images and the description of the related experience – an unsettled tension between what is seen and understood, and what has been forgotten. Namibian and Angolan civilians were also often caught up in the conflict between SWAPO's military wing PLAN and the SADF. In response to Liebenberg's important work, the conceptual artist Kia Henda states that he would have also wanted to see accounts of the suffering of Angolans during this period of conflict.
