This issue details extensive torture allegations in Rhodesia, including specific cases of teenage detainees Benchard and Leavit Katumba, Bibo Chitsedza, and Duster Katanha. It reports on political trials, executions, petitions for clemency, and the expansion of martial law across prisons in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. It also covers SWAPO detentions in Namibia, repression in South Africa (including bannings, exile, and suppression of political activists), the creation of a South West African Defence Force under South African control, and press censorship. Further reports cover banned and exiled individuals, refugee crises, and new powers granted to police and Bantustans to restrict movement and civil liberties.

This issue documents South African destabilisation operations in Southern Africa during 1988-1989, including military attacks, support for insurgent groups (UNITA, MNR), cross-border raids, bombings, assassinations, and other forms of aggression in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. The article references numerous primary sources and provides context on the humanitarian impact, including displacement and refugee crises.