Koevoet veterans: ‘We don’t give a damn for other people’s wars’

No Fear No Favour No turning back the clock..........



Koevoet veterans: ‘We don’t give a damn for other people’s wars’


A wall of remembrance and a statue honouring those controversial Koevoet soldiers who died in service were unveiled this weekend. In attendance were numerous Koevoet veterans: some still bearing the physical scars of battle, others surviving wherever they can find work. By DE WET POTGIETER.

“We don’t give a damn what Zuma does with his soldiers, fighting other people’s wars in foreign countries.

“We are here today honouring our own fallen comrades.”

This was the terse comment from a rugged soldier at a gathering of Koevoet war veterans at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria – an ironic one, given that the soldiers present had fought in Namibia and Angola under the Apartheid government. Veterans had come together in remembrance of their comrades; many of them gathered at the Monument to go through the names of the fallen. 

On Saturday, a wall of remembrance and a statue honouring the Koevoet dead were unveiled. It was a solemn occasion, but also joyous: some of the veterans were seeing each other for the first time since the controversial counter-insurgency police unit was officially disbanded in 1989.

Visible among them were the scars from the bitter war in Angola and on the northern border of Namibia. Several of the veterans were without limbs or in wheelchairs.

Sitting in his wheelchair in front of the wall for several minutes, pondering memories of a bloody war, was Sisingi “Stompie” Kamongo - the legendary Kavango tracker and co-author of the book Shadows in the Sand: A Koevoet Tracker’s Story of an Insurgency War.

Photo: Sisingi “Stompie” Kamongo (De Wet Potgieter)

While most of the white team leaders in Koevoet only lasted for a two-year stint on the border, the black trackers walked the tracks, hunting down Swapo insurgents for years. For Kamongo, the gathering on Saturday was like coming home to the people he lived and died with for so many seasons.

He was involved in more than fifty fire fights with the enemy, survived five anti-personnel mine and POMZ explosions and experienced a direct hit by a RPG rocket in his Casspir APC vehicle. Wounded three times, he finally lost a leg.

In his book, he tells of the trackers looking for “the shadow on the ground”, facing ambushes and landmines, and reveals some of the tricks of their trade - the art of tracking, “where dust can tell time”.

Kamongo was accompanied by more than a hundred of his fellow former trackers; men who fought the war on the side of the Apartheid government. When peace came in Namibia, they found themselves without a country. They were promised they would be taken into the new police force, but this never happened. Fearing for their lives in their motherland, they fled in droves the late 90s, over the border into South Africa.

Photo: Koevoet memorial (De Wet Potgieter)

They are still here – as is the case with the former Angolan soldiers of 32 Battalion and 31 Battalion (the Bushmen). They are living in a country hostile to them for their choices of the past, for siding with the “Boers.” Most of them work as security guards, and others are still being used as trackers, hunting down poachers on game farms.

At Koevoet’s millennium reunion 13 years ago in the Western Cape, described at the time as the “all-for-nothing party”, Herman Grobler voiced his bitterness and said: “To kill people has never been nice. And to get killed is the worst thing that can happen to anyone. But the worst of all is to come back home and to be told that it was all for nothing. That is definitely the biggest betrayal there can be.”

Grobler said he also felt guilty for the black trackers who fought with them. "They were my brothers. We drank out of the same water bags... but it was our war we forced on them."

On Saturday at the Voortrekker Monument, former Koevoet member Marius Brand told the gathering they had written the history of Koevoet over the barrels of their guns. “We didn’t fight in vain. We are here today to say goodbye to our fallen comrades whose names are on this wall, and then a new life awaits us.”

According to Brand, the South African government and the SAPS didn’t donate a cent towards the establishment of the memorial wall and statue. The Koevoet memorial is just across from the 32 Battalion League’s remembrance at the foot of the Voortrekker Monument.

Several former Koevoet operatives specially travelled from abroad to attend the ceremony. Since the disbandment of Koevoet, its members worked in every possible theatre of war in the world, where their expertise is today sought-after.

“Elsewhere in Africa and in the world, they openly welcome us to work, but in our own country we are not wanted,” said one of them, who works in Somalia for the UN in a peacekeeping capacity - as an explosive expert lifting landmines. Koevoet members have worked in conflict areas like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, as well as in Bosnia, during the bloody conflict in the Balkan countries.

Some of them also ride shotgun on cargo ships and oil tankers, offering protection against pirates.

Among the dignitaries attending the proceedings on Saturday was the founder commander of Koevoet, Lieutenant-General “Sterkhans” Dreyer, who commanded the unit until its disbandment. During his address, Dreyer mentioned how the jailed Vlakplaas commander, Colonel Eugene de Kock, had played a pivotal role in the early years of Koevoet’s operations in tracking down Swapo insurgents.

The founder commander of Koevoet, Lieutenant-General “Sterkhans” Dreyer and his trackers (De Wet Potgieter)

In 1979, when the counter-insurgency war on the Angolan/Namibian border was going badly for South Africa and Swapo was gaining the upper hand, it was decided to establish an elite unit based on the old Rhodesian Selous Scouts and Portuguese Flechas.

South African journalists were prohibited by law not to mention the name or even the existence of Koevoet in their stories. Meanwhile, this top secret unit soon realised it was a different kettle of fish to the Selous Scouts’ way of gathering intelligence by means of capturing and interrogating insurgents. General Dreyer reverted back to police work, like building informer networks, and employing skilled trackers to hunt down the “terrorists”.

In its 10 years of existence, Koevoet fought in 1,615 encounters and took 3,225 prisoners – the equivalent of almost six battalions of troops.

Koevoet was no stranger to controversy, with its unorthodox and deadly way of waging the war, and there were continuous accusations of atrocities levelled against them. At one stage there was an international outcry when a Namibian newspaper published graphic photographs of dead insurgents draped over the spare wheels of Casspirs coming back from an operation. 

Koevoet members were financially rewarded through a bounty system, which paid them for kills, prisoners and equipment they captured. This practice allowed many of the members to earn significantly more than their normal salary, and resulted in competition between units. It also resulted in a complaints being raised by the Red Cross about the disproportionately low number of prisoners taken, and accusations of summary executions of prisoners.

Former SADF generals like Constand Viljoen and Jannie Geldenhuys were very critical of Koevoet's activities, considering them cruel and crude, and undermined the army's "hearts and minds" campaign.

There was also animosity between the military and police generals because whenever an official communiqué was released to the media claiming the deaths of the enemy, it was credited to the “security forces”, and never distinguished between the SADF and Koevoet’s “kills”.  Koevoet was in fact the most successful in this low-intensity insurgent war.

As controversial as they were at the time of working, however, the Koevoet soldiers have today drifted into obscurity. Those who can, work where they can, when they can. Those who can’t work anymore survive any way they can. And those who did not survive at all are, to the comfort of their comrades, finally commemorated. DM

Main photo: When peace came in Namibia, they found themselves without a country. They were promised they would be taken into the new police force, but this never happened. (De Wet Potgieter)

De Wet POTGIETER

DAILY MAVERICK

COMMENTS BY SONNY

OUR WAR WAS A UNIQUE ONE........

ALL THE UNITS OF THE SAP WHO PARTICIPATED BALANCED THE SCALES.

NO ENEMY EVER DEFEATED US ON THE BATTLE FIELD.

WE WERE SOLD OUT BY TREACHEROUS POLITICIANS AND MEMBERS OF THE BROEDERBOND.

IF WE HAD TO , WE WOULD DO IT AGAIN.

REMEMBER ALL THE SAP MEMBERS WHO WERE PART OF THE BORDER WARS WERE VOLUNTEERS!

R.I.P.  -  SALUTE OUR BRAVE.

....."No tears, No sorrow, We are here to witness tomorrow"..... - B Cox 2013

More than 16 killed after weekend attacks in Afghanistan

No fear No Favour No East block ammo.........

AFP

08 APR 2013 06:23 - EMMA GRAHAM-HARRISON

A suicide attack has claimed six lives and air attacks have killed 10 children over a weekend that served as a reminder of Afghanistan's conflict.

On Saturday, an attacker detonated a vehicle full of explosives in the centre of Qalat just as a US military convoy passed the provincial governor and his entourage. The blast killed and seriously injured several people from both groups, including a young Kabul-based diplomat, Anne Smedinghoff.
Provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasery was in the convoy, but was unharmed, local and Nato officialssaid over the weekend.
Separately, 10 children, an Afghan woman and a US civilian adviser to the Afghan intelligence agency were killed by air strikes during an hours-long battle in a remote part of eastern Kunar province on the same day, senior local officials said. "In the morning after sunrise, planes appeared in the sky and air strikes started and continued until evening," said tribal elder Gul Pasha, who is also the chief of the local council in Shultan, where the bombing happened.
A senior Taliban commander was in the house, but so were women and children between one and 12 years old who were members of his family, Pasha told the Associated Press by telephone.
"I don't think that they knew that all these children and women were in the house because they were under attack from the house and they were shooting at the house," he said.
Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces have been one of the most emotive and high-profile issues of the war in Afghanistan, prompting street protests and condemnation from officials including President Hamid Karzai.
They remain a frequent flashpoint for national anger, and earlier this year Karzai banned Afghan forces from calling in air strikes, although his order appears to have been ignored on the ground.
US press officer killed
The deaths came as the most senior US general, Martin Dempsey, chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff, arrived in the country to discuss long-term training plans for Afghan soldiers, who from this summer are expected be leading the fight against the Taliban.
Smedinghoff, the state department officer killed in Qalat, Zabul province, was a 25-year-old press officer from Chicago who had less than four months left to serve in Afghanistan. At the time of the attack she had been heading for a local high school to help deliver books. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, paid a personal tribute to Smedinghoff, who he met on a visit to Kabul less than a month earlier. She had been put in charge of organising the trip, a prestigious role for someone on only their second overseas assignment, and he remembered her as "vivacious, smart, capable", with great potential.
Her death was a reminder of the gulf between the values that the US supported and those of the Taliban and other groups fighting the government in Afghanistan, Kerry told diplomats in Istanbul, where he was visiting the consulate.
"I think there are no words for anybody to describe the extraordinary harsh contradiction of a young 25-year-old woman with all of the future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy, of changing people's lives, of making a difference, having an impact, who was taking knowledge in books to deliver them to a school, and someone, somehow persuaded that taking her life was a wiser course and somehow constructive, drives into their vehicle, and we lose five lives."
There were also tributes from journalists and others with whom Smedinghoff had worked. "Saddened by loss of Anne Smedinghoff whose commitment always impressed me. RIP Anne & your sacrifice to get books to Afghans appreciated," the prominent Afghan women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh said on Twitter.
"Anne was helpful and kind, going out of her way to assist. Tragic," the Wall Street Journal correspondentMaria Abi-Habib said on Twitter.
Taliban claims responsibility
Last year, a civilian working on a diplomatic passport for the US government's development arm, USAid, died in a suicide bombing in eastern Afghanistan. But the last US state department diplomat killed in Afghanistan was ambassador Adolph Dubs, who was shot during a botched kidnapping in 1979.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had wanted to target either the government or a Nato convoy. "We were waiting for one of them," a spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, told AP. "It was our good luck that both appeared at the same time."
The 18-hour battle with the Taliban in Kunar province broke out when a clearing operation led by local intelligence agency officers met with fierce resistance, said Wasifullah Wasifi, a spokesperson for the provincial governor. An investigation was under way into how the children and woman had died, Wasifi said. The Nato-led coalition said it was aware of allegations of civilian casualties in Kunar and was looking into them.
The killings followed a bloody Taliban assault in the country's west on Wednesday that killed 44 people in a courtroom in Farah province. The United Nations says civilians are being increasingly targeted.
In a statement posted online earlier on Saturday, Ahmadi said the Taliban would continue to target Afghan judges and prosecutors.
"The Islamic Emirate, from today onwards, will keep a close watch over courthouses, all its personnel and all those who try to harm Mujahideen and will deal with them the same as the judges and prosecutors of Farah. – Guardian News and Media 2013

Mail and Guardian

COMMENTS BY SONNY

The ILLUMINATI is waging war - EAST VS WEST.

Russia has to dump its old war stocks so they sponsor their past enemies against the West.

Putin and Zuma are Brothers in Arms via Bric's.

CORRUPTION WILL NEVER END IN AFRICA OR ON THE GLOBAL FRONT!

Zuma's buddy wins R12,8 billion tender

No Fear No Favour No Corruption..........

Most expensive tender wins the bid.

04 April 2013 | Riaan van Zyl

In a saga that has al the makings of a mini-arms deal the City of Johannesburg has committed itself to a tender that will enrich the well known ANC donor Vivian Reddy.

From reports serving before the City of Johannesburg Council meeting of the 20 March further information emerged on the contracts that were awarded to Edison Power Gauteng with Itron for R1,45 billion over three years last year, and for R55 million with Itron Metering Solutions.

Addressing the Council on the Mid-term report for City Power, DA Councillor Dennis Hunt said that these contracts arise out of a tender that was issued for 2 000 automatic remote metering (AMR) meters.

"The tender accepted was for R38 million corresponds to R18 000 per meter."
Hunt told the Council that at that price automatic remote metering (AMR) is far from sustainable and wanted to know why the lowest tender for R9 milllion corresponding to R4 500 per meter was not chosen. This was for meters successfully supplied in Botswana to the South African specification.

“How was the contract increased to become R1,25 billion? This looks like a contravention of the Municipal Finance Act. At that price it must cover about 80 000 meters, which will provide for half of the domestic customers on conventional metering," explained Hunt.
The information previously made available on this matter and reported on in the media on 18 January was that a contract was approved for R800 million by the City Power Board which suggests that there were two changes to the scope of the tender, once to increase it from R38 million to R800 million and then further to R1,25 billion.

“Further, why was a meter under glass specified when that is not the South African standard which is based on a keypad? Why are these meters being imported when there is more than adequate manufacturing capacity in South Africa? Where is the commitment to jobs and the South African economy," Hunt wanted to know from the Council.

Prepaid meters have been manufactured in South Africa since 1996, and the Standard Transfer Specification (STS) protocol has been accepted internationally.

The Record asked City Power to comment but got an elusive and sometimes confusing answer from Sol Masolo, Spokesperson for City Power: "This mail serves to deal with some of the questions raised in your mail which include whether smart meters will assist in alleviating the billing challenges in the city. (This was only one of the questions asked and no comment was given on above allegations).

The smart meters will improve the accuracy of meter reading for our customers. The accuracy itself will lead to the reduction in the billing challenges that the city is currently experiencing.

This is a project which will be rolled out only in the City of Johannesburg and is not forced as your mail suggests (The question was whether the smart meters will be rolled and whether prepaid will be the only option as Tshwane is planning to do).

The City of Johannesburg will therefor only roll out the project in the city and not outside of Johannesburg. Once the project is completed customers will receive more accurate accounts for services consumed and as such we envisage a more improved relations between our customers and ourselves.

The smart meters remove the need for our meter readers to enter customer homes to read meters, instead meters will be read remotely without interfering with our customers' lives.

The company that was awarded the tender has gone through a vigorous tender process to get to the stage where it was selected. This is an open competitive tender which allows a number of companies to compete for a tender which is advertised in the newspapers.

Thanks for sending me the statement from the Democratic Alliance, I however believe that the statement makes this matter a political subject which I believe should be left to politicians to comment on.

It is therefore important that I state that from a City Power point of view this was an open tender which is ultimately awarded to a company that satisfied all our requirements".

Related articles:City Power's tyranny continues

Look Local

Comments by Sonny

Cable theft is rift in Gauteng.

Corruption is unacceptable.

What is the use of an intelligent meter box without power cables and power?

The Major and City Power must get their act together and stop ripping Johannesburg resident off.

After a power outage due to stolen cables residents were visited by a "City Power Agent" who demanded seeing 

their 'Prepaid meters' but did not know of the outage the previous night?

POWER TO THE PEOPLE AND NOT TO CITY POWER AND THEIR TENDER COMRADES!

SA’s intellectuals: Who is speaking the truth and exposing the lies?

No Fear No Favours No Lies Please....................

•  RANJENI MUNUSAMY
• SOUTH AFRICA
 02 APRIL 2013 01:59 (SOUTH AFRICA)

As the controversy over South Africa’s military involvement in the Central African Republic deepens, the burning question remains: Why did the government entangle the country in this conflict? But questions must also be asked about whether civil society is critically engaged or if the state is essentially unchecked. The role of South Africa’s intelligentsia and scholars needs to be examined as they are meant to guide the national conversation and sound the alert on deception. Where is the voice of the intellectuals when the Zuma administration has the country spiralling into the abyss? By RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

The one consistent question since it was discovered that South African soldiers perished in a protracted gun battle in the Central African Republic (CAR) has been: “How was this allowed to happen?” Like so much else that has gone horrible wrong in South Africa, such as the Marikana massacre, service delivery violence, corruption and wastage of taxpayer’s money, the CAR disaster happened as a result of multiple failures of society.

As Daily Maverick’s Simon Allison has pointed out, the South African media got its priorities wrong and had its eye off the ball when the additional South African National Defence Force (SANDF) deployment to CAR happened in January. And it is well known that the media in particular and South Africans in general are not particularly interested in African affairs.

It would appear that civil society did not care much about South Africa’s role in the CAR due to disinterest in African affairs generally, even though the SANDF’s involvement would cost the fiscus R21 million a month. The matter only registered on the radar, particularly on social media and radio talk shows, after news reports that South African troops had been killed and it was only then that President Jacob Zuma’s motives for the deployment were questioned. 

Leonard Martin , head of the Faculty of Humanity at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra), says the country lacks holistic discourse on Africa and is perpetuating Apartheid and colonial legacies of South African exceptionalism. 

He said the issues around the CAR troop deployment call into question the nature of African discourse in South Africa, which results in such “errors being committed”. South Africa’s universities, institutions and schools “lack woefully” in their approach to Africa and the type of knowledge imparted, said Martin.

South African society has not reacted sufficiently or critically to the role of the SANDF in the CAR war, Martin said, even though the deployment is clearly not in the national interest. Most South Africans do not know what the national interest is, he said. 

“There are a host of strategic questions that need to be asked including whose interests is the deployment serving and how did we end up supporting a dictator, against the grain of our Constitution,” Martin said. “Where else have you seen a country get embroiled in a war that cannot be defined?”

He said if South African society, particularly the intellectuals and middle class failed to interrogate all the questions around the CAR crisis, it could become the norm that South Africa gets involved in foreign conflicts and soldiers come home in coffins. This is why the “pussyfooting” on the CAR must stop and corrective action must be brought about, said Martin.

Where are the intellectuals who challenged former president Thabo Mbeki on issues such as his Aids denialism, quiet diplomacy policy on Zimbabwe and crime? Mbeki also came under fire for his alleged interference in the state’s organs of security as well as the prosecutions of Jacob Zuma and former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

With the bungling Zuma administration immersed in scandal, intellectuals seem to have grown increasingly quiet. Have they become complacent and disengaged or are they simply unable to make sense of what is going on?

Ebrahim Fakir, political analyst at the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa, believes there is still healthy intellectual engagement is society, but most of it is not being taken seriously by political decision makers.

“Whatever discourse there might have been, the incentives to deploy or not to deploy the SANDF were driven by different interests. It has emerged that there are South African business interests in the CAR which played a part in the decision to deploy. So whatever is spoken or written, it does not mean that Zuma and company are paying attention,” Fakir said.

However, there was a similar decline in resources and skill in academia and NGOs as is evident in newsrooms, leading to less engagement in public processes, Fakir says. The lack of resources was also leading to the closure and scaling down of institutions like the Institute for Democracy in Africa and the Centre for Policy Studies, while others were careful about being too critical as this sometimes affected the inflow of funds.

Fakir said Parliament remained an important platform for engagement on many levels, including through the committee meetings and public submissions. However the ANC is using its majority “much more crudely and rudely” to ensure that the ruling party’s position on issues prevail, he said.

“Even under Mbeki, there was sensitivity and the ANC was cautious then not to use the two-thirds majority they had then to bully the other parties. There was a certain degree of sophistication under the Mbeki administration, which is not there now,” said Fakir.

The new vice-chancellor at Wits University, Professor Adam Habib, says the “golden period” of vibrant political discourse was between 2006 and 2009, when intellectuals were emboldened to speak out on issues in the ANC and government. While the level of engagement has subsided, there is still critical discourse on issues such as service delivery, political leadership and e-tolling, he said.  

“However the troop deployment to the CAR was a real failure of the accountability regime,” said Habib. He said it pointed to failures among the intelligentsia, the media and the opposition, none of which had paid attention to the military intervention in the CAR until the 13 soldiers died.  

“In many democracies, governments would fall if such a thing happened. The situation has become really bad under Zuma where there is manipulation of the state for the benefit of private individuals. Mbeki believed the state had bigger interests and even with black empowerment, there should be political objectives. What is happening now is frightening,” Habib said.

But would Zuma and his Cabinet curtail their ways if society, in particular  intellectuals, were more engaged? Perhaps they would be less brazen in their conduct, although there is little evidence to suggest that they are overly troubled by exposure and intensive media scrutiny. And who can forget Zuma’s bizarre attack on black intellectuals (or “clever blacks”) who became too critical? 

Habib says “anti-intellectualism” has been prevalent since 1994 as the government has engaged the academy on its own terms. It tends to listen to academics who say what it wants to hear and disregards the critical voices.

“There is no doubt anti-intellectualism has gone up a notch under the Zuma administration. They are far more dismissive of intellectual opinion now. It does not mean intellectuals must be slavishly obeyed. But they must treat what academics say seriously, and give coherent responses,” Habib said. 

Although Mbeki was sometimes contemptuous of intellectuals, commentators and journalists, there was a sense that he was mindful of voices in civil society, to the extent that he would occasionally pen elaborate responses to dismiss their arguments.

But in the last few years it is not clear the president is even aware of the level of discontent in society, never mind being receptive to critical voices. With most of the crises that have occurred on his watch, Zuma has not bothered to acknowledge or respond to public debate. On the rare occasion that he is put on the spot, the default response is to pass the buck of responding to someone else.

But just because the president is dismissive of debate, does that mean society should no longer bother? Social media and radio talk shows are often dressed up as critical debate but as Fakir points out, these are not quality contributions and have no background or institutional mandate. While they are important platforms for free expression and dialogue, they do not and cannot take the place of proper intellectual debates and engagement.

In “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” (1967), linguist, philosopher and political critic Noam Chomsky wrote:

“Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the ‘responsibility of people’, given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.”

His words could not be more relevant to the current context in South Africa, where so much is shrouded in secrecy and concealed behind Apartheid-era laws, where the vast majority of the public are not aware of what they are entitled to know and are prejudiced as a result, and where the state is being manipulated for the financial gain of the politically connected few rather than the national interest.

South Africa went to war in the CAR and, as a result, people died, including its own citizens. We still do not know why and may never find out if there was in fact dubious intent. Those responsible may never be held to account. And those who should be ringing the alarm bells and demanding answers are not speaking up. Until the twin evils of silence and deafness are fundamentally defeated, South Africa will remain a society in decline; a country where human life is expendable and accountability nonexistent.DM

Photo: South African President Jacob Zuma sings with his supporters as he campaigns in Richmond, May 3, 2011. REUTERS/Rogan Ward

Ranjeni Munusamy  -  South Africa

Comments by Sonny

It is not that SA society does not care about what happens in Africa.

It is more a matter of the President of SA having publically stated in SA

Parliament that the ANC is in the majority and therefore does not need approval

from any minority group/groups?

WE CARE IN OUR SOLDIERS WELL-BEING.

WE CARE ABOUT OUR CONSTITUTION AND WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO

ABUSE OUR RIGHTS, OUR PEACE AND OUR FREEDOM!

How many were killed in car 13 or 50??

'New soldier death toll report an insult to SA Govt'

No Fear No Favour No Intimidation.....................

SANDF soldiers carry the bodies of their colleagues killed in the Central African Republic on 24 March 2013. Picture: Alex Eliseev/EWN



JOHANNESBURG 4 APRIL 2013 10:00



Mbali Sibanyoni | 40 minutes ago
JOHANNESBURG - The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Thursday reports by a French news agency about the number of South African soldiers killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) is an insult to government.

France's official news agency RFI reported that rebels in the CAR said the number of South African soldiers who died in battle last month ranges between 36 and 50.

The official death toll from government was 13.

The SANDF’s Xolani Mabanga has dismissed these claims.

“Anybody who has a figure more than 13 is more than welcome to bring the bodies of our personnel to the SANDF.”

Meanwhile, the South African National Defence Union (SANDU) has welcomed the decision to withdraw all South Africa’s troops from the CAR.

President Jacob Zuma attended an emergency summit in Chad on Wednesday where a decision was taken not to recognise the rebel government in the CAR.

This means South Africa’s agreements with that country effectively fall away.

Whatever troops remain in the CAR will now be withdrawn, although most of the soldiers have been brought home already.

SANDU National Secretary Pikkie Greef said they were satisfied with the decision.

“SANDU is delighted to hear about the withdrawal of the troops. This is what we’ve been calling for over the past week. We must however caution that it does not mean our troops will not be deployed there again in the future.”

(Edited by Tamsin Wort) 

EWN

The CAR debacle ends in SA – for now

•  KHADIJA PATEL
• AFRICA
• SHARE ON TWITTERSHARE ON FACEBOOKSHARE ON EMAILSHARE ON GOOGLE_PLUSONE_SHARE
  
• 04 APRIL 2013 01:58 (SOUTH AFRICA)

President Jacob Zuma has opted to withdraw South Africa’s troops from the Central African Republic. Zuma, who has faced a barrage of criticism for the deployment after the death of 13 South African soldiers in Bangui 10 days ago, has nonetheless indicated South Africa’s readiness to participate in military action in CAR in the future. By KHADIJA PATEL.

"President Zuma has decided to withdraw the South African forces which are deployed in Bangui," Chadian President Idriss Deby announced, following the Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the 10-nation Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in Ndjamena on Wednesday.

However, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Co-Operation, Clayson Monyela, denied that South Africa had been requested to withdraw its troops from CAR.  He wrote on Twitter, “Contrary 2 reports, SA was requested to keep troops in #CAR. #CAR no longer having a legit gov, SA announced a withdrawal. Summit accepted.”

Despite the reports of a military build-up and speculation that South Africa was preparing to launch an offensive against rebels in CAR, a withdrawal was always the most obvious choice available to Zuma’s administration. The African Union, for one, does not take unconstitutional changes of power lightly. And last week already, the AU rejected the seizure of power by the Seleka rebel coalition, branding the decision by the head of Seleka to declare himself president of the republic “illegal”.

"We are calling for the immediate restoration of constitutional order," El-Ghassim Wane, spokesman for the African Union Peace and Security Commission, said this week. "But also for the respect and strict implementation of the Libreville agreement, which provides an avenue and a framework for peacefully dealing with the challenges at hand."

Crucially, the meeting in Ndjamena has concluded without ECCAS recognising the Seleka rebel leader Michel Djotodia as the president of the Central African Republic.

“Self-proclaimed Central African Republic leader Michel Djotodia cannot be recognised as president,” Deby said.

Djotodia himself did not attend the Ndjamena summit, but his spokesperson Anne Victoire Yakossobe told Reuters earlier on Wednesday that she hoped the new leadership in Bangui would be afforded regional backing.

"What we want is support from the African Union and ECCAS for all of our plans to restore peace in the country... We need legitimacy," she said.

The Memorandum of Understanding between South Africa and the Central African Republic that led to the creation of Operation Vimbezela is not invalidated by the rebel takeover, however. Instead, any new government in the country inherits the agreements made with its previous incarnation. So if South Africa persisted with its military deployment in terms of the MoU, it would signal a tacit recognition of the Seleka rebel coalition as a legitimate authority in the CAR.

The non-recognition of Djotodia as the leader of the CAR by both ECCAS and the AU therefore means that South Africa’s military presence in the country is legally no longer valid.

“Remember ‘parliament’ has been dissolved in #CAR. If we were to honour the MoU we would need to relate to a sitting government,” Monyela noted.

The rebels have never been enthusiastic about the South African military presence in the country. In the time between the Libreville agreement that signified a ceasefire agreement between the now deposed president Francois Bozize and the Seleka rebels, it appeared the South African military presence was actually an impediment to peace. Bozize repeatedly defied calls for him to request a withdrawal of South African troops, however.

The Ndjamena summit has meanwhile also taken decisions about how best to handle the transition in the CAR.

"A committee selected by national figures must lead the transition. This body will have the executive role and must vote for a transitional president,” Deby said, noting that the transition should last no longer than 18 months.

The withdrawal of South Africa’s troops from CAR has already been applauded.

“This is especially welcome news for the family and friends of the troops stationed in the CAR, who over the last week have been in extraordinary danger, and who have lost 13 of their number in battle,” Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said in a statement.

Many of the questions that were raised after the deaths of the 13 South African soldiers 11 days ago remain unanswered. The motivation behind South Africa’s deployment of 200 troops to the CAR in January this year remains murky. The full story of the activity of South African troops in Bangui is similarly unexplained.

On Tuesday, the deposed president of CAR made the spectacular claim that Chadian Special Forces had in fact attacked South African troops in Bangui. His claims came after other reports that South African troops also fought off mutineers from the CAR army. There are other reports that the South African troops in Bangui fought more than one battle. These allege that South African officials have focused on the defensive battle which claimed 13 lives, but allege that South African troops also led a failed attack a day before that.

The withdrawal of South Africa’s troops from CAR necessitates further probing of these reports. 

In the meantime, many of the troops who had been deployed to Bangui have already returned home. As the Daily Maverick reported on Tuesday, there are fewer than 20 South African troops in Bangui. The withdrawal of troops began last weekend, so Zuma took the decision to withdraw from CAR at least one week ago – it just was not communicated to the public.

Military analyst Darren Olivier warns that South Africa’s withdrawal from CAR does not necessarily denote the end of South African military involvement in the beleaguered central African state.

“Note that SA's troop withdrawal from the CAR is based on the [Memorandum of Understanding] no longer being valid. It does not preclude future AU-led military action,” he said.

Chadian president Deby also acknowledged that Zuma was ready to provide troops in the future if necessary. DM

Read more:

• South Africa withdraws from CAR in Daily Maverick

Photo: Armed South African soldiers talk with a man in Begoua, 17 km (10 miles) from capital Bangui, in this still image taken from video, March 23, 2013. REUTERS/Reuters TV

Comments By Sonny

With corrupt politicians and military will South African ever be told the truth.

A politician who cannot tell the truth cannot run a country!

So what are our Soldiers and Aircraft doing in Uganda as we speak?

ANOTHER SUICIDE MISSION INTO THE DRC OR MALI?

HAS ZUMA REALLY LOST HIS MIND!

13 soldiers killed in CAR. 17 farmers killed in SA - Pieter Groenewald

13 soldiers killed in CAR. 17 farmers killed in SA - Pieter Groenewald
Pieter Groenewald
03 April 2013

FF+ says the slaughter on farms continues, after Paul Schulte shot dead in Muldersdrift

More die in farm attacks than in defence operations

The slaughter on South African farms are continuing unabated and despite the numerous calls of the Freedom Front Plus on government to declare farm attacks a priority crime, no finger is being lifted to give attention to the matter.

In contrast with this, billions of rand are spent on defence equipment and personnel to assist African countries to protect their interests.

To date this year, 17 people have already been murdered in 44 farm attacks in South Africa. These figures were obtained from media reports which have been collected by the Transvaal Agricultural Union's unit for farm murders, as no other official statistics on farm attacks are being kept.

According to these figures, 685 people have been murdered in 1 234 farm attacks in the past ten years.

In the latest incident, Mr. Paul Schulte, the manager of the popular Heia Safari Resort in Muldersdrift, West of Johannesburg, was shot dead on Tuesday morning while he was on his way to his house. The founder of the resort, Mr. Franz Richter, was also murdered on the farm in 2007.

On Sunday, Ms. Liesl Botha, also from Muldersdrift, was overpowered in her home and robbed. Her daughter, Alyssa (13), was shot dead on the plot last year.

After the tragic death of the 13 South African troops in the Central African Republic (CAR), the government intervened on the highest level and president Jacob Zuma and a senior cabinet minister delegation this week flew to Chad for urgent talks.

The official reason given for South African troop's presence in the CAR is to help with "training, disarming and demobilising". The assistance will last until 2018 at a cost of R21 million a month, which would amount to a total of R1,26 billion over five years.

Mr. Pieter Groenewald, the Freedom Front Plus' chief spokesperson on Police and Defence, says that government will have to account for the exact reasons for its presence in Africa.

"It is understandable that South Africa is involved in other places in Africa for strategic reasons. But is the country's farming community not one of its biggest strategic interest resources?

"The time has come for government to pay as much time, effort and money to their (the farmer's) safety and protection as it is paying for its interests abroad," Groenewald says.

Statement issued by Mr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus chief spokesperson: Police, April 3 2013

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Killing of intruders will lead to arrest’

Killing of intruders will lead to arrest’

April 3 2013 at 03:00pm
By Colleen Dardagan
Comment on this story

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
The arrest of Manor Gardens resident Dennis Webster, who killed an intruder in his kitchen at the weekend, has outraged many people.
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Police will arrest homeowners who kill intruders when protecting their homes and families – even if the incident is clearly self-defence.

A Durban criminal lawyer warned homeowners on Tuesday, particularly in the light of the escalating violent crime, that if they killed in self-defence, they could be arrested and charged with murder.

The advocate, who specialises in criminal cases and therefore cannot be named, said the police had “far-reaching” powers of arrest, according to the Criminal Justice Act, and a situation could “depend on the mood” of the arresting officer.

But the police were “not morons” and had been trained, and could see something at the crime scene to make them suspicious. “That’s why they have the power to make that decision there and then,” she said.

The advocate said killing another person was a schedule one offence and the guilt of the perpetrator had to eventually be decided by a court.

The arrest of Manor Gardens resident Dennis Webster, who killed an intruder in his kitchen at the weekend, outraged many people.

What made the situation worse was that the men accused of beating to death a rugby fan at a Sharks match 10 days ago still have not been arrested, despite being known to police.

“You can be quite sure these guys are lawyered-up and that there is a lot of negotiating going on behind the scenes. The cops want to make sure they get a conviction. It’s going to be hard to prove as most of the witnesses, I would think, were drinking, and of course, the suspects can argue it was dark,” the expert said.

David le Roux, an international expert on fight and flight behaviour who is often called to court for his professional opinion, said that no court would find Webster guilty of murder if he was defending himself against an intruder.

“Why he got arrested, I don’t know – it’s absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

Durban private investigator Peter Kitshoff, who was arrested several years ago for shooting a man in similar circumstances, accused the police of overreacting in incidents of self-defence.

“Why must the person be detained? The cops can’t guarantee that person’s safety in the cells. Things can happen there that can put a death sentence on you for the rest of your life – and all you were trying to do was protect your home and family. It’s life-changing,” he said.

On Tuesday, Webster said his night in jail and the “whole experience” had left him traumatised and shocked.

“I just don’t want to talk about it any more. I just want to keep to myself. This whole thing is crazy. I was just protecting myself,” he said.

Police spokesman Vincent Mdunge defended Webster’s arrest and the “deal” with the alleged rugby attackers.

“Each case has to be judged on merit. A human being has died and these people have to convince a court of their story.

“You must remember that an arrest is not to punish someone, but to secure their attendance in a court. There are many ways we are legally allowed to secure an arrest and, in both these incidents, we have acted within the law,” he said.

The Mercuryl lead to arrest’