Some history of the past !
Greenleader
There are heroes who walk among us never looking for glory or praise They don't seek recognition for their thoughtful, caring ways. Living lives of deep commitment providing for those they hold dear Steadfast with a quiet strength through times of laughter and tears. You are a person like that to me the most selfless man by far. So Greenleader I'd like to thank you for being the HERO that you are.
In memory of our Buddy ....... James RIP !
Say it with a sting.....Monday, April 28, 2008
3861 Swapo were killed--153 Koevoet members died.
Koevoet: it was a luvverly warSOUTH Africa's former Koevoet (Crowbar) fighters gathered near Cape Town recently to reminisce about their glory days as the apartheid regime's most efficient killers of terrorists and to help each other cope with being outcasts now.The specialised police unit sometimes celebrated by slashing off the ears off its victims and stringing them into necklaces. Officers used to drag bodies behind their vehicles to instil fear."We did good work. We were described by many an international journalist as the best anti-terrorist unit in the world," Brigadier Isak van der Merwe, the former second-in-command of Koevoet, told AFP as 180 of his men holed up at a holiday resort near the rural town of Paarl outside Cape Town last weekend.Koevoet earned its reputation killing members of the South West African People's Organisation (Swapo) in neighbouring South West Africa before that territory became independent as Namibia in 1989.The unit numbered only 300 South Africans, backed by co-opted native Namibians, but managed to kill more than 10 times as many members of Swapo.The statistics are proudly emblazoned on the labels of wine bottles emptied at the reunion -- 3861 Swapo were killed compared with 153 Koevoet members who died in action.But in an interview with the Cape Times, former Koevoet members said they were brainwashed by the apartheid rulers to believe that Swapo, like the then-banned African National Congress, posed a terrorist threat.Now that the two movements are ruling respectively Namibia and South Africa, they have come to realise that they were fighting for nothing."They told us we were fighting the swart gevaar (black danger) and communism. But now Swapo and the ANC have the most democratic constitutions in the world," said former Koevoet member Herman Grobler said."And the people we were fighting against weren't communists. They were ordinary people."Grobler said he also felt guilty about the 1000 Ovambos, black Namibians, 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."The memories of the past and the public condemnation have taken their toll on the members of Koevoet, which was disbanded in 1993.Some have had nervous breakdowns, and many have committed suicide, Grobler said."They felt that they had no purpose in life. Nobody thinks you have any right to exist. It is the Vietnam syndrome. You are not being acknowledged for who you are, that you fought as a soldier for your country."It is the same argument that has been taken by countless security police members and defence force fighters who have been accused of atrocities while trying to suppress the liberation struggle, but the argument has found little support outside the white right wing.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up by former president Nelson Mandela to probe apartheid era abuses, found the unit had been responsible for gross human rights abuses.Its report, handed to Mandela in 1998, described how Koevoet soldiers tied the bodies of those they had killed to car bumpers and dragged them through Namibian villages.Van der Merwe said it was now up to the former Koevoet members to support each other, and that it why they founded an organisation, the Union for Former Koevoete with its own constitution, at the weekend."We just want to take care of our people, especially the families of those of our men who were killed. It is a welfare thing. It is a non-political organisation; we support the government of the day," he added.The main purpose of the reunion, he said, was for the "men to relax over a few drinks and to talk about old times".The weekend was a family affair where the men's wives and children came along, and ended with a church service.The preacher told the men God would forgive them their sins if they confessed. Several burst into tears, but Van der Merwe was adamant that the group had no regrets."The whole thing was one big success we are proud of. We shot and they shot and we shot better. We don't apologise for it, not one .THE SAME GOES FOR ALL THE SAP COIN MEMBERS WHO FOUGHT IN RHODESIA TO MAINTAIN LAW AND ORDER IN SOUTH AFRICACongratulations to Special Assignment and its team on the well documented programme on Tuesday 29 April 2008.It clearly shows that the South African forces were outnumbered, outstretched and out manoeuvred, but never outgunned in Angola.Long live the memory of Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA forces that helped drive the Cuban forces out of Africa.Victory is only in the minds of men!“Great Britain the mother of colonialism, denied birth to White independence in Africa!”She bred terrorism against South Africa but cannot handle the Irish Freedom Fighters on her own soil!
Posted by Sonny Cox at 6:46 PM
Labels: ANC, Patu, pronto's, SAP (COIN), SWAPO, Vietnam syndrome., Zanu-PF, Zapo
5 comments:
Tango said...
The truth,nothing but the truth!Poem: Aftermath of War Reporter.co.za25 April 2008-War has never...Nor will it everBe justified...Too many innocent victimsOn both sides of the spectrumGet killed, are maimed and are woundedThe results of tribal warAre never justified...Judging by how many have died!I have witnessed the sights of disaster!The Zambesi Valley was once filled with butterfliesNow it is full of fleeing countrymenFleeing from their crazy ex presidentDrawing blood in that beloved landWho is out of touch with realityHe has lost his soul and conscienceHe will soon lose his fangs!Victory will be yours in the endHow far back will you have to bend!http://citizenalertza.blogspot.com
April 29, 2008 8:47 AM
Sonny Cox said...
Congratulations to Special Assignment and its team on the well documented programme on Tuesday 29 April 2008.It clearly shows that the South African forces were outnumbered, outstretched and out manoeuvred, but never outgunned in Angola.Long live the memory of Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA forces that helped drive the Cuban forces out of Africa.Victory is only in the minds of men!
April 30, 2008 8:09 AM
Tango said...
.In 1992 Savimbi finally stood for election after having signed a peace agreement with the Angolan government. The results, which confirmed Savimbi's and UNITA's defeat, were contested and Savimbi led UNITA back into war. He agreed to take part in peace talks in 1994 and signed the Lusaka Peace Accord, but resumed fighting shortly thereafterDespite the fact that he was offered a vice presidency it seems that Savimbi wanted peace only on his own terms. A former biographer claimed, "He is probably the most brilliant man I've ever met, but he's also dangerous even psychotic." Jonas Savimbi was killed in battle in February, 2002. UNITA and the MPLA have since agreed to a cease fire and have begun the negotiation of a permanent peace.SourceSIMPSON, C 1999 "Profile: Jonas Savimbi, UNITA's Local Boy" IN BBC News, Special Report: Angola, February 1.
April 30, 2008 3:23 PM
Sonny Cox said...
Another good reference is Savimbi's Angola - Cloete Breytenbach (Howard Timmins Publishers)(C) 1980
April 30, 2008 8:11 PM
Sonny Cox said...
We all lost friends, family, brothers, fathers and heroes during the Angolan war.They will not be left to grow old as we are left to grow old. Nor shall age weary them.At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.Their memories will live on in our hearts forever.
May 4, 2008 7:41 PM
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3861 Swapo were killed--153 Koevoet members died.
Koevoet: it was a luvverly warSOUTH Africa's former Koevoet (Crowbar) fighters gathered near Cape Town recently to reminisce about their glory days as the apartheid regime's most efficient killers of terrorists and to help each other cope with being outcasts now.The specialised police unit sometimes celebrated by slashing off the ears off its victims and stringing them into necklaces. Officers used to drag bodies behind their vehicles to instil fear."We did good work. We were described by many an international journalist as the best anti-terrorist unit in the world," Brigadier Isak van der Merwe, the former second-in-command of Koevoet, told AFP as 180 of his men holed up at a holiday resort near the rural town of Paarl outside Cape Town last weekend.Koevoet earned its reputation killing members of the South West African People's Organisation (Swapo) in neighbouring South West Africa before that territory became independent as Namibia in 1989.The unit numbered only 300 South Africans, backed by co-opted native Namibians, but managed to kill more than 10 times as many members of Swapo.The statistics are proudly emblazoned on the labels of wine bottles emptied at the reunion -- 3861 Swapo were killed compared with 153 Koevoet members who died in action.But in an interview with the Cape Times, former Koevoet members said they were brainwashed by the apartheid rulers to believe that Swapo, like the then-banned African National Congress, posed a terrorist threat.Now that the two movements are ruling respectively Namibia and South Africa, they have come to realise that they were fighting for nothing."They told us we were fighting the swart gevaar (black danger) and communism. But now Swapo and the ANC have the most democratic constitutions in the world," said former Koevoet member Herman Grobler said."And the people we were fighting against weren't communists. They were ordinary people."Grobler said he also felt guilty about the 1000 Ovambos, black Namibians, 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."The memories of the past and the public condemnation have taken their toll on the members of Koevoet, which was disbanded in 1993.Some have had nervous breakdowns, and many have committed suicide, Grobler said."They felt that they had no purpose in life. Nobody thinks you have any right to exist. It is the Vietnam syndrome. You are not being acknowledged for who you are, that you fought as a soldier for your country."It is the same argument that has been taken by countless security police members and defence force fighters who have been accused of atrocities while trying to suppress the liberation struggle, but the argument has found little support outside the white right wing.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up by former president Nelson Mandela to probe apartheid era abuses, found the unit had been responsible for gross human rights abuses.Its report, handed to Mandela in 1998, described how Koevoet soldiers tied the bodies of those they had killed to car bumpers and dragged them through Namibian villages.Van der Merwe said it was now up to the former Koevoet members to support each other, and that it why they founded an organisation, the Union for Former Koevoete with its own constitution, at the weekend."We just want to take care of our people, especially the families of those of our men who were killed. It is a welfare thing. It is a non-political organisation; we support the government of the day," he added.The main purpose of the reunion, he said, was for the "men to relax over a few drinks and to talk about old times".The weekend was a family affair where the men's wives and children came along, and ended with a church service.The preacher told the men God would forgive them their sins if they confessed. Several burst into tears, but Van der Merwe was adamant that the group had no regrets."The whole thing was one big success we are proud of. We shot and they shot and we shot better. We don't apologise for it, not one .THE SAME GOES FOR ALL THE SAP COIN MEMBERS WHO FOUGHT IN RHODESIA TO MAINTAIN LAW AND ORDER IN SOUTH AFRICACongratulations to Special Assignment and its team on the well documented programme on Tuesday 29 April 2008.It clearly shows that the South African forces were outnumbered, outstretched and out manoeuvred, but never outgunned in Angola.Long live the memory of Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA forces that helped drive the Cuban forces out of Africa.Victory is only in the minds of men!“Great Britain the mother of colonialism, denied birth to White independence in Africa!”She bred terrorism against South Africa but cannot handle the Irish Freedom Fighters on her own soil!
Posted by Sonny Cox at 6:46 PM
Labels: ANC, Patu, pronto's, SAP (COIN), SWAPO, Vietnam syndrome., Zanu-PF, Zapo
5 comments:
Tango said...
The truth,nothing but the truth!Poem: Aftermath of War Reporter.co.za25 April 2008-War has never...Nor will it everBe justified...Too many innocent victimsOn both sides of the spectrumGet killed, are maimed and are woundedThe results of tribal warAre never justified...Judging by how many have died!I have witnessed the sights of disaster!The Zambesi Valley was once filled with butterfliesNow it is full of fleeing countrymenFleeing from their crazy ex presidentDrawing blood in that beloved landWho is out of touch with realityHe has lost his soul and conscienceHe will soon lose his fangs!Victory will be yours in the endHow far back will you have to bend!http://citizenalertza.blogspot.com
April 29, 2008 8:47 AM
Sonny Cox said...
Congratulations to Special Assignment and its team on the well documented programme on Tuesday 29 April 2008.It clearly shows that the South African forces were outnumbered, outstretched and out manoeuvred, but never outgunned in Angola.Long live the memory of Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA forces that helped drive the Cuban forces out of Africa.Victory is only in the minds of men!
April 30, 2008 8:09 AM
Tango said...
.In 1992 Savimbi finally stood for election after having signed a peace agreement with the Angolan government. The results, which confirmed Savimbi's and UNITA's defeat, were contested and Savimbi led UNITA back into war. He agreed to take part in peace talks in 1994 and signed the Lusaka Peace Accord, but resumed fighting shortly thereafterDespite the fact that he was offered a vice presidency it seems that Savimbi wanted peace only on his own terms. A former biographer claimed, "He is probably the most brilliant man I've ever met, but he's also dangerous even psychotic." Jonas Savimbi was killed in battle in February, 2002. UNITA and the MPLA have since agreed to a cease fire and have begun the negotiation of a permanent peace.SourceSIMPSON, C 1999 "Profile: Jonas Savimbi, UNITA's Local Boy" IN BBC News, Special Report: Angola, February 1.
April 30, 2008 3:23 PM
Sonny Cox said...
Another good reference is Savimbi's Angola - Cloete Breytenbach (Howard Timmins Publishers)(C) 1980
April 30, 2008 8:11 PM
Sonny Cox said...
We all lost friends, family, brothers, fathers and heroes during the Angolan war.They will not be left to grow old as we are left to grow old. Nor shall age weary them.At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.Their memories will live on in our hearts forever.
May 4, 2008 7:41 PM
Post a Comment
posted by Tango @ 1:36 PM
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1 Comments:
Greenleader
There are heroes who walk among us never looking for glory or praise They don't seek recognition for their thoughtful, caring ways. Living lives of deep commitment providing for those they hold dear Steadfast with a quiet strength through times of laughter and tears. You are a person like that to me the most selfless man by far. So Greenleader I'd like to thank you for being the HERO that you are.
In memory of our Buddy ....... James RIP !
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