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Breaking Rank: Secrets, Silences and Stories of South Africa’s Border War Gary Baines Abstract For some fifteen yeas little attention has been paid to South Africa’s Border War and the memories of soldiers who fought therein. Likewise, combatants with the liberation movements have all but been forgotten or otherwise marginalised in the new political dispensation. But the recent controversy over the exclusion of the names of SADF soldiers from the Freedom Park memorial wall and the involvement of ex-combatants in violent crimes has received media coverage. The spate of publications and the existence of internet sites that host personal accounts of the war also suggest that there is significant public interest in these matters. And the discovery of mass graves and the questions about the treatment of detainees in SWAPO camps has kept the war in the public eye in Namibia. This paper seeks to explain why the silences existed in the first place and why soldiers are breaking rank and telling their stories now. South Africa – Namibia – Angola -- Border War – silences – secrets – stories – memorials – trauma – Truth and Reconciliation Commission More than fifteen years have passed since: South Africa withdrew its armed forces from Angola and agreed to a negotiated settlement based on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 435 for Namibia, the Cold War ended, and the liberation movements suspended the armed struggle against the apartheid regime. This chain of events brought an end to the late Cold War conflicts in southern Africa that had caused extensive death and destruction and ruptured the region’s stability. Yet scant attention has been paid to the convergence of these events and how they contributed to the political transition in South Africa. 1 Especially neglected has been the bearing of events in the region on the country’s domestic changes and vice versa. For instance, the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) devoted a single chapter of its seven-volume report to events beyond South Africa’s borders. 2 Researchers were commissioned by the TRC and legal teams to investigate these events, but scholars have not followed their lead in any systematic way whatsoever. The records of the apartheid regime have not readily yielded their secrets to scholars in part 2 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ because large volumes of top secret files were destroyed by the old regime, but also because access to the military archives involves a lengthy procedure of declassification. Yet, ironically, it is access to American and Cuban records that has afforded a better understanding of why and how South Africa’s white minority regime waged war in the context of the changing dynamics of the Cold War. 3 It is with good reason that Peter Vale has expressed concern regarding the silences in the historiography of South Africa’s role in the Cold War. 4 And it is with equally good reason that Monica Popescu has bemoaned the “Cold War silences” in the disciplines of literary criticism and cultural studies. 5 If scholars have paid scant attention to the Border War in recent years, does this imply that the subject is taboo? Does academic “silence” necessarily mean that the subject is out of bounds to society at large? Is it like a shameful family secret that South Africans have been loath to acknowledge, even privately? Has South Africa’s quest for reconciliation meant society has placed a premium on former adversaries forgiving and forgetting the past? Has the peaceful political transition invalidated the memory of the war waged by the apartheid regime as far as former South African Defence Force (SADF) conscripts are concerned? In my view ex-combatants from both sides have earnestly begun to explore their place in post-apartheid South Africa by revisiting the memories of their military experiences. They are breaking rank and telling their stories. And this paper seeks to understand why this is so. The SADF learned the (mistaken) lesson of Vietnam from the United States forces that unrestricted media coverage of war could be demoralizing and self-defeating. 6 Accordingly, the Border War was waged away from the public eye. Censorship and disinformation served to create a conspiracy of silence. The Nationalist Party government and the SADF did not take the media, the soldiers or their families into their confidence. For instance, there was a “black out” of coverage by local media of Operation Savannah in 1975 when SADF forces briefly occupied parts of central Angola. 7 That local media were kept in the dark whilst the story was broken by their international counterparts occasioned acute embarrassment for the former. If the government treated local Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 3 media with outright contempt, it often treated the general public with sheer indifference. It repeatedly refused to disclose the truth about the number and nature of South Africa’s (often self-inflicted) casualties. 8 Stories released to and published by the media were often contrived versions of what had actually caused the deaths of servicemen. 9 This was compounded by the SADF’s reluctance to disclose the circumstances of individual soldier’s deaths to their next of kin. 10 Even the troops themselves were seldom informed about strategic objectives of military operations in which they were involved. For instance, troops were not briefed beforehand that they were bound for Angola, and officers were instructed not to divulge the enemy’s logistical and numerical superiority to their own troops at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. 11 Not only clandestine operations carried out by the SADF’s elite reconnaissance forces deserve the appellation the “Silent War”. 12 For the undeclared war was generally conducted amidst considerable secrecy and an oppressive silence. Secrets can reveal much about society and governance as “they are more about a kind of information than a kind of concealment.” 13 The apartheid state disclosed information about military matters only on a need to know basis. SADF national servicemen were sworn to secrecy by having to sign declarations in terms of the Defence Act not to divulge information pertaining to military operations. 14 This bound veterans of the Border War to refrain from telling the stories even to friends and family (although they undoubtedly swapped stories with one another and shared their memories of their experiences). Officially-imposed amnesia led some ex-soldiers to find alternative forms of remembering such as writing fiction. A few veterans with literary pretensions told their stories in thinly-guised fictionalized autobiographical works, especially in short stories, through the medium of Afrikaans. Some of this grensliteratuur achieved canonical status and won the recognition of an educated elite, 15 but was not widely read. Nor was the political poetry of the Staffrider variety. But illustrated coffee table books such as Peter Badcock’s Images of War (1981) that comprised a collection of poems and sketches that paid tribute to the “ordinary” soldier, 16 did find an audience. And the novels by Al Venter and Peter Essex that related far-fetched stories of machismo heroes and their beautiful, dutiful women taming the hostile 4 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ African continent achieved blockbuster status. 17 Equally popular were stories that appeared in magazines like Huisgenoot and Scope, photocomix like Grensvegter, 18 and films such as Kaptein Caprivi and Boetie Gaan Border Toe, 19 that celebrated the actions of adventurous and fun-loving heroes whose military training made them more than a match for their adversaries. However, such glamourisation of the troopie’s life was a far cry from reality when NCOs took perverse pleasure in rondfok (literally fucking the troops around) during drills and training exercises, and when boredom verging on stupor was induced by repetitive routines and a “hurry up and wait” mentality. Border duty might have offered the inducement of “danger pay” but the sense of adventure of SADF troops evaporated as soon as operations resulted in a mounting death toll. For its part, the South African public was starved of reallife military heroes. The stories that made headline news were those such as Sapper van der Mescht and Major du Toit who were captured during (separate) raids deep into Angola and paraded before the international media by their captors. 20 When these agents of the SADF’s risky military adventurism were able to tell their own stories, they came across as hapless victims. Thus, the SADF’s claim that troops were never forsaken behind enemy lines rang hollow. Such operations were clearly not pre-emptive raids on “terrorist” bases but attempts to sabotage the infrastructure and installations of a sovereign state. Such “dirty tricks” were part of a systematic campaign to destabilize neighbouring states that were said to harbour the country’s enemies (i.e. MK/APLA cadres). Inhouse publications like the magazine Paratus could do little to repair the damage to the reputation of the SADF caused by adverse publicity. In order to affect damage control, carefully vetted (photo)journalists and military correspondents were allowed to accompany units in the field. These public relations exercises might have convinced the public at home of the SADF’s good intentions, but the real battle for hearts and minds was for the loyalty of the conscripts in the SADF which was, after all, largely a citizen force. Apart from token Pro Patria medals and commemorative tshirts, no official or public recognition was given to the sacrifices of South African soldiers before a memorial was unveiled in 1979 at Fort Klapperkop. Built to honour of all those who had lost their lives in defence of the Republic of South Africa, 21 it has instead Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 5 become a monument to defeat. It is viewed as neither a site of remembrance, nor a place of mourning for friends and families of the deceased. Indeed, the Fort Klapperkop memorial is hardly known to ex-servicemen’s organization, let alone the general public. Thus a forum for veterans of the Border War has sought to have the names of those killed fighting for their country included in the roll of honour compiled for the Sikhumbuto memorial wall in Freedom Park which was erected as an act of symbolic reparation for those who died in the struggle for liberation from white minority rule. The veterans also objected to the fact that the memorial wall is to include the names of Cuban soldiers who died in Angola fighting the SADF. At the time of writing, their request for “fair treatment” had been rejected by Wally Serote, the CEO of the Freedom Park Trust, on the grounds that the SADF soldiers were fighting to preserve apartheid and not freedom and humanity. 22 This snub was regarded by former conscripts as further testimony that their neglect by the Nationalist government would continue under the African National Congress (ANC) government. They would remain marginalized in the “new” South Africa. Their sense of betrayal was exacerbated by the outcome of the war and negotiated settlement that, undoubtedly, devalued the experiences of SADF national servicemen. The silence imposed by the state was compounded by the veterans’ own wish to forget. Official invisibility intensified individual amnesia. Under such circumstances, veterans tended to repress their traumatic memories so as not to admit recollections too painful to recall. The marginalization of ex-combatants can be seen not only in difficulties faced by veterans of notorious SADF units such as 32 Battalion, 23 but also in society’s failure to acknowledge the hardships that “regular” soldiers who were not necessarily involved in heinous acts faced in coming to terms with their experiences. There are those who believe that the Border War is best forgotten as the country focuses on building a new future. But the experiences and trauma of conscripts/cadres, and the latent memories of an often brutal conflict cannot simply be wished away. Soldiers’ stories need to be told and the demons of both individuals and the nation exorcised. 6 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ SADF veterans of the Border War are unlikely to heal or attain closure until such time as they receive therapy. They were seldom given any opportunity to come to terms with their frequently traumatic and life-transforming experiences. One account relates how soldiers involved in some of the fiercest fighting in Angola in 1988 were rounded up before the uitklaar (demobilization) parade and given a pep talk by their commanding officer, offered a perfunctory prayer by the military chaplain, and a superficial collective counseling session by a clinical psychologist. 24 There was no debriefing whatsoever and the soldiers were sent home to resume their lives in civvie street. If the old order was not inclined to recognize the pain of its foot soldiers, then at least the TRC acknowledged in its report the need to “raise public awareness about the reality and effects of post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) and to encourage former conscripts and soldiers who participated in the conflict “to share their pain and reflect on their experiences.” 25 Unfortunately, not many conscripts availed themselves of the opportunity afforded by the TRC hearings to tell their stories. Some reported that the lack of public knowledge about the war created suspicion of their stories, while others were summarily dismissed as sympathy seekers or outright liars. 26 Not surprisingly, some veterans embraced silence and solitude. Even if the TRC “left the experiences of “ordinary” soldiers largely invisible - not merely forgotten but ‘wished away’” as a report of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) avers 27 – it cannot be blamed for perpetuating the silence. The TRC hearings were envisaged as a first step towards national reconciliation in South Africa so as to heal the wounds caused by the legacy of apartheid. Former SADF soldiers, however, seemed to fear that the TRC would become a witch hunt that would blame them for perpetrating crimes against humanity and ignoring the rules of engagement in South Africa’s conflicts. Karen Whitty explains why former SADF conscripts have been reluctant to tell their stories: Bound by a sense of honour to their fellow troops, and the patriarchy still espoused by white South Africa, few men have come forward and spoken about their experiences, however barbaric and mundane, in South Africa's border wars. 28 Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 7 Aside from proposing projects aimed at rehabilitating and rebuilding the lives of ex-combatants, the TRC envisaged that they could possibly be “help[ed] to tell and write their stories.” 29 And it would appear that the passage of time for reflection has given prospective soldier-authors the space to make sense of their experiences and construct narratives thereof. A number of soldierauthors have undoubtedly sought to achieve healing and reintegration into society through their writings. For some the act of writing has become a form of catharsis, of dealing with one’s traumas and exorcising the demons of the past. Clive Holt's book At Thy Call We Did Not Falter was written in this vein and Whitty reckons that it marks the beginning of this healing process for these former soldiers. In fact, Holt’s memoir is one of a number of such confessional texts that have been published in recent years. 30 Some ex-SADF soldiers have resorted to the apparent political neutrality of cyberspace to tell their stories in order to contest their invisibility in post-apartheid South Africa. The camaraderie of cyberspace has largely replaced bonding/drinking sessions in pubs and reunions of veterans’ associations. In fact, the reach and scope of the informal networks (often via email listservs or websites hosted overseas) serve as a kind of virtual veteran’s association. This community of war veterans who have served in the old SADF, belonged to a specific unit, or performed border, duty has established a network of sites to exchange memories and, in some cases, provide platforms for advice on matters like PTSD. 31 Most sites have disclaimers to the effect that they have no political affiliations and claim to be apolitical – although a few advertise their (invariably right-wing) political orientations and reminisce nostalgically about their time in the army. Such sites provide the (cyber)space for soldiers to tell their stories thereby contesting what Sasha Gear calls the “silence of stigmatized knowledge” carried by ex-combatants. 32 It is fashionable to speak of “virtual” or “cybercommunities” created by the Internet. Certainly, Web site links, multiple postings, and cross-citation reinforce the idea that Web authors and their readers share membership in a Net-mediated community. But what significance should be attached to the use of such metaphors as “virtual community”? Jodi Dean argues that 8 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ there is no longer a “consensus reality” according to which contested questions of fact can be resolved. She suggests that, instead, there are multiple contending realities which keep contested issues from being decided. Furthermore, the ease with which individuals who hold similar views can communicate with one another allows them to form at least “virtual communities” and provide the requisite social support for one another. 33 In other words, Dean reckons that there has been dissolution of the boundary between the margins and the mainstream. This implies that groups marginalized in the realm of realpolitik are able to challenge the consensus established by hegemonic groups. However, Michael Barkun believes that while the boundary has become more permeable it still exists and that virtual communities remain on the fringes of the power brokering of interest groups and political elites. 34 Certainly, former SADF national servicemen have resorted to the internet in order to share their memories and make their voices heard; something which they clearly feel is not possible in post-apartheid South Africa. Another group that regards itself as marginalized under the new political dispensation comprises retired generals of the SADF. They are convinced that the TRC was biased against the SADF and predisposed to finding it guilty of misconduct. These generals had sought to exculpate themselves of any wrongdoing even before the TRC held its hearings. Shortly after the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) were unbanned and the writing was on the wall for the old order, Jannie Geldenhuys, the chief of the army and then the SADF between 1985 and 1990, published A General’s Story. 35 This is no mea culpa. Indeed, it showed a complete lack of atonement and remorse. Geldenhuys insisted on his own professional integrity and defended the neutrality of the SADF, and maintained that its function had not been to support a particular political party but rather to ensure the security of all the citizens of the state. Magnus Malan’s more recently published memoir, too, is an evasive and self-serving justification of his role in the SADF and of the military in upholding apartheid. 36 But the generals showed their true political stripes (stars?) when they refused to testify before the TRC and feigned ignorance of war crimes sanctioned by the government. They evinced a singular lack of willingness to take responsibility for their acts of commission and omission. 37 When the generals Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 9 closed ranks so as to look after themselves they ignored the interests of the foot soldiers. They exacerbated the marginalization of ex-SADF combatants and compounded their inability to integrate into post-apartheid society and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). 38 The TRC deplored the intransigence of the SADF hierarchy and its reticence to supply documents or acknowledge its responsibility for flaunting the international community’s rules for the conduct of war. It opined that this attitude hindered the healing of the nation’s traumas. Perhaps in part because of the ongoing secrecy surrounding the war, and because the Border War remains for most of the public “far away” (according to an ex-Koevoet member who testified before the TRC), the hearings on the atrocities committed in Angola and Namibia do not seem to have attracted as much attention as similar acts committed at home. Unlike the TRC’s treatment of South Africa’s domestic matters there were no victim hearings whatsoever for human rights violations outside of the country. The Report stated that “South Africa’s occupation of South West Africa would merit a separate truth commission of its own.” 39 The same might be said of the SADF’s actions in Angola. However, the Report amounted to little more than a survey of South Africa’s acts of aggression against neighbouring states based largely on the perpetrator’s own incomplete records. 40 The TRC had neither the co-operation of these governments nor the resources to conduct an in-depth investigation into human rights abuses and war crimes committed in these territories. But SADF conscripts were still wary and suspicious of the TRC despite its assurance that the testimonies given during its hearings were “neither an attempt to look for perpetrators, nor a process that will lead to the awarding of victim status.” 41 If trauma involves a betrayal of trust and the abuse of relations of power, 42 for the conscript it entailed the likelihood of being held accountable for deeds committed in the name of the state at the behest of politicians and generals. There is good reason to speculate that the unwillingness to prosecute the SADF hierarchy was a quid pro quo for its undertaking to prevent the right wing from wrecking the negotiated settlement between the Nationalist Party government and the ANC. But ex-soldiers felt betrayed when 10 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ the very powers that they were convinced would protect them and provide security left them in the lurch. Certain ex-combatants in the ranks of the liberation movements feel equally betrayed by the post-colonial state. Groups comprising ex-combatants or veterans of the liberation movements also attest to being sidelined during the scramble for power and patronage in the new dispensation. Aside from the teething problems of integrating MK and APLA cadres into the new SANDF, the tensions between returned exiles and “stay-at-homes” remain potentially divisive. And according to Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli in their co-authored Umkhonto we Sizwe, 43 ethnic divisions were rampant in the ranks of MK and are still exploited in post-apartheid South Africa. These manifestations of anomie and high levels of alienation amongst male ex-combatants have been confirmed by studies produced by the CSVR. Indeed, a main finding of one such report was that: “Former combatants nowadays tend to receive public attention only in relation to real or imaginary security threats,” 44 a point confirmed by the attention paid to the violence that accompanied the recent security employees strike. 45 When ex-combatants make the headlines as ruthless criminals or family killers then the public sits up and takes notice. Otherwise they are forgotten and silenced. Whereas in South Africa the leadership of both the SADF/apartheid state and MK/ANC failed to make full disclosure before the TRC, in Namibia a fact-finding commission to uncover the country’s violent past was rejected by SWAPO as contrary to the spirit of reconciliation. One consequence of this, as Justine Hunter has shown, 46 has been the refusal of SWAPO to own up to the abuses and atrocities committed in its name, especially the mistreatment, torture and even execution of detainees in military camps established in neighbouring states during the war. Hunter rightly observes that unless this “wall of silence” is addressed in a transparent fashion, it will continue to bedevil the political process in post-war Namibia. Hunter also alludes to the recent discovery of unmarked mass graves of SWAPO cadres who were killed in the last months of the war. The public outcry caused by this incident was compounded by the disavowals of former SADF generals to knowledge of or responsibility for the massacres on their watch. In Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 11 fact, it was a matter of public record for revelations about the incident had previously been made in at least one publication about the final days of the war. 47 The media coverage reflected the ongoing public interest in the “unfinished business” of the Border War. The SWAPO detainees and mass graves issues in Namibia suggests considerable sensitivity in respect of matters relating to ex-combatants in that country. 48 In South Africa the Freedom Park memorial wall controversy has been the subject of media attention and even occasioned the mobilisation of civil society groups. Moreover, a collection of SADF conscripts’ reminiscences published under the inappropriate title An Unpopular War has racked up renewed interest and sales. 49 The popularity of this collection might simply suggest nostalgia for the old order or might equally hint at a deep-seated desire to come to terms with the past. Whatever the case, there can be no doubting the public interest in these matters. And public discourse has placed the subject squarely back on the academic agenda in a way that is commensurate with this interest in the “unfinished business” of the war. To this end, I have sought to break silences and even tackle some taboos about the Border War. Notes Even a major project such as the multi-volumed South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET) entitled The Road to Democracy in South Africa focuses primarily on the national liberation struggle rather than the regional and global dimensions of the conflict. Exceptions to this tendency include Chris Alden, Apartheid’s Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996 and Adrian Guelke, Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 2 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 2, Cape Town: TRC, 1998, ch.2 ‘The State outside South Africa between 1960 and 1990’. 3 Pioneered by Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002 and Alberton: Galago, 2003. See also his more recent article 1 12 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ ‘Moscow’s Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975-1988’, Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 3-51. 4 Peter Vale, ‘Pivot, Puppet or Periphery: The Cold War and South Africa’, Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, Portland, Oregon, Feb-March, 2003. 5 See Monica Popescu, in Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on South Africa’s late Cold war Conflicts, Gary Baines & Peter Vale (eds.), Pretoria: UNISA Press, forthcoming. 6 G.N. Addison, ‘Censorship of the Press in South Africa during the Angolan War: A Case Study of News Manipulation and Suppression’, MA Thesis, Rhodes University, 1980. The myth perpetuated by the US military was that media, especially television, coverage of the Vietnam War caused the tide of public opinion to turn against the intervention and that this, in turn, caused the politicians to scale down and eventually withdraw American forces thus effectively admitting defeat. For a critique of this perception, see Daniel Hallin, The Uncensored War: the Media and Vietnam, Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1986. 7 Robin Hallett, ‘The South African Intervention in Angola 1975-76’, African Affairs, vol. 77, July 1978, pp. 347-68. Arthur Gavshon, Crisis in Africa: Battleground of East and West, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981, pp. 223-57. 8 With good reason, the SADF has been called “the world’s most accidentprone army” by Tony Eprile, The Persistence of Memory, Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 2004, p. 171. 9 J. H. Thompson, An Unpopular War: Voices of South African National Servicemen, Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006, p. 149. 10 Willem Steenkamp, South Africa’s Border War 1966-1989, Gibraltar: Ashanti, 1989, p. 29. 11 Clive Holt, At Thy Call We Did Not Falter, Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2005, pp. 122, 137; Mark Behr, The Smell of Apples, London: Abacus, 1998, p. 82. 12 Peter Stiff, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969-1994, Alberton: Galago, 1999. 13 Gary Minkley and Martin Legassick, ‘”Not Telling”: Secrets, Lies and History’, History and Theory, vol. 39, no. 4, December 2000, p. 8. 14 Section 118(4) of the Defence Act of 1967 rendered it an offence for a person to disclose any secret or confidential information relating to the defence of the country which came to his/her knowledge by reason of his membership of the SADF or employment in the public service. See Kathy Satchwell, ‘The power to defend: an analysis of various aspects of the Defence Act’ in War in Society: The Militarisation of South Africa, Jacklyn Cock & Laurie Nathan (eds), Cape Town: David Philip, 1984, p. 48. Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 13 Hendrik van Coller, ‘Border/Frontier Literature’ in Space and boundaries in literature: Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, Roger Bauer, Douwes Fokkema & Michael de Graat (eds), Munich: Ludicium, 1990, pp. 254-9. 16 Peter Badcock, Images of War, Durban: Graham Publishing, 1981. 17 This includes titles such as Al J. Venter’s Soldier of Fortune, London: W.H Allen, 1980 and Peter Essex’s The Exile, London: Collins, 1984. See David Maugham-Brown, ‘Images of War: Popular Fiction in English and the War on South Africa’s Border’, The English Academy Review, vol. 4, 1987, pp. 53-66. 18 Photocomix like the Grensvegter series which featured intrepid heroes in uniform single-handedly winning the war, not unlike a Rambo-type figure, were widely known by the colloquial Afrikaans name poesboeke. This literally means ‘cunt books’ and is an oblique reference to the fact that the picture frames were filled with an array of pin-up women, most of whom were bikini-clad and occasionally topless but never naked. Poesboeke were essentially a poor substitute for pornography in apartheid South Africa. See http://www.allatsea.co.za/army/pboek.htm 19 See Keyan Tomaselli and Kevin Carlean, Boetie Gaan Border Toe, at http://www.und.ac.za/und/ccms/publications/articles/boetie.htm; Dylan Craig, ‘The Viewer as Conscript: Dynamic Struggles for Ideological Supremacy in South African Border War Film, 1971-1988’, MA dissertation, University of Cape Town, 2003 and ‘Screening the Border War, 1971-88’, Kleio, vol. 36, 2004, pp. 28-46. 20 Allan Soule, Gary Dixon & René Richards, The Wynand du Toit Story, Johannesburg: Hans Strydom Publishers, 1987. 21 Paratus Special Supplement, July 1979 vol. 30. no. 7. 22 Pretoria News, 17 January 2007 (‘Include us, says ex-SADF members’). 23 In the particular case of 32 Battalion, these difficulties include deprivation, an uncertain future as a refugee community shuttled from camp to camp within some of the most desolate areas of the country, unsympathetic treatment by the ANC government, and easy prey to mercenary recruiters. A brief summary of their conditions can be found at http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=198866&area=/insight/ins ight__national/ 24 Barry Fowler, Grensnvegter? South African army psychologist, Halifax: Sentinel Projects, 1996, pp. 123-7 outlines the SADF’s ‘model’ debriefing session. Holt, At Thy Call, pp. 116-20 reproduces it and at p. 122 relates how it worked in practice. 25 TRC Report, vol. 4, p. 221. 26 For instance the testimony of conscript Kevin Hall has been carefully scrutinised and rebutted by Hilton Hamann, Days of the Generals, Cape 15 14 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ Town: Zebra Press, 2001, pp. 221-3 and Magnus Malan, My lewe saam met die SA Weermag, Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, 2006, pp. 474-6. 27 Sasha Gear, Wishing Us Away: Challenges facing ex-combatants in the ‘new’ South Africa, Johannesburg: CSVR, 2002, viewed on 14 June 2006, http://www.wits.ac.za/csvr/papers/papvtp8e.htm. 28 Karen Whitty, Review of Clive Holt, At Thy Call We Did Not Falter, Viewed on 22 August 2005, http://www.iafrica.com/pls/procs/SEARCH.ARCHIVE?p_content_id=474 801&p_site_id=2. 29 TRC Report, vol. 4, p. 242. 30 Others include the short stories collected in Barry Fowler, ed, Pro Patria. Halifax: Sentinel Projects, 1995; Anthony Feinstein, In Conflict, Windhoek: New Namibia Books, 1998; and Rick Andrew, Buried in the Sky, Johannesburg: Penguin, 2001. 31 See, for instance, Army Talk at http://moo.sun.ac.za/mailman/listinfo/armytalk/ which hosted a chatline utilised mainly by ex- Citizen Force SADF members (i.e. conscripts). But it is likely that such sites are also accessed by military buffs, as well as veterans of South Africa’s and other recent wars. These sites are obviously male domains. Recently, this site seems to have been shut down or relocated, and its mailing list discontinued. 32 Sasha Gear, ‘The road back: Psycho-social strains of transition for South Africa’s ex-combatants’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. 33 Jodi Dean, Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 8-9. 34 Michael Barkun, A culture of conspiracy: apocalyptic visions in contemporary America, Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 2003, pp. 185-6. 35 Jannie Geldenhuys, A General’s Story: From an Era of War and Peace Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1995. Originally published in Afrikaans as Dié wat wen: 'n generaal se storie uit 'n era van oorlog en vrede, 1993. 36 Magnus Malan, My lewe saam met die SA Weermag, Pretoria: Protea Bookhuis, 2006. 37 A clique of former SADF generals did make a submission to the TRC. It was co-ordinated by General Dirk Marais, former Deputy Chief of the Army, under the title: ‘The Military in a Political Arena: the SADF and the TRC’. See Hamann, Days of the Generals, p. 130. 38 Gear, Wishing Us Away, pp. 123-5 39 TRC Report, vol. 2, p. 62. 40 Christopher Saunders, ‘South Africa’s Role in Namibia/Angola: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Account’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. 41 TRC Report, vol. 4, pp. 221. Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 15 Jenny Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 4. 43 Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli, Umkhonto we Sizwe: Fighting for a divided people, Alberton: Galago, 2005. 44 Gear, Wishing Us Away. 45 Many ex-combatants have left the armed forces and have found employment in the burgeoning privatized security industry, others have resorted to providing such services as far afield as Iraq or have been engaged as mercenaries. See Gear Wishing Us Away. 46 Justine Hunter, ‘No Man’s Land of Time: Reflections on the Politics of Memory and Forgetting’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. 47 Peter Stiff, Nine Days of War: South Africa’s Final Days in Namibia, Alberton: Lemur Books, 1991. 48 Lalli Metsola and Henning Melber, ‘Namibia’s Pariah Heroes: SWAPO Ex-Combatants between Liberation Gospel and Security Interests’ in The Security-Development Nexus: Expressions of Sovereignty and Securitization in Southern Africa, Lars Buur, et al (eds), Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2006 and Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007, pp. 85-105. 49 The Border War was not unpopular amongst the majority of the white populace nor conscripts while it was being waged. The moral ambiguity conferred on the war has happened retrospectively with these groups. Even those who once supported the war do not now think it was worth fighting. Coincidentally, Thompson’s An Unpopular War is now in its sixth reprint in almost as many months. 42 Bibliography Addison, G.N. ‘Censorship of the Press in South Africa during the Angolan War: A Case Study of News Manipulation and Suppression’. MA Thesis, Rhodes University, 1980. Alden, C. Apartheid’s Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Andrew, R. Buried in the Sky. Johannesburg: Penguin, 2001. Badcock, P. Images of War. Durban: Graham Publishing, 1991. Baines, G. and Vale, P. Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa’s Late-Cold War Conflicts. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2007. Barkun, M. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 2003. 16 Gary Baines ____________________________________________ Behr, M. The Smell of Apples. London: Abacus, 1998. Bopela, T. & Luthuli, D. 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Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2001. Holt, C. At Thy Call We Did Not Falter. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006. Malan, M. My lewe saam met die SA Weermag. Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, 2006. Breaking Rank ____________________________________________________ 17 Hunter, J. ‘No Man’s Land of Time: Reflections on the Politics of Memory and Forgetting’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. Maugham-Brown, D. ‘Images of War: Popular Fiction in English and the War on South Africa’s Border’. The English Academy Review, vol. 4, 1987, pp. 53-66. Metsola, L. & Melber, H. ‘Namibia’s Pariah Heroes: SWAPO ExCombatants between Liberation Gospel and Security Interests’ in The Security-Development Nexus: Expressions of Sovereignty and Securitization in Southern Africa, Lars Buur, et al (eds), Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2006 and Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007, pp. 85-105. Minkley, G. & Legassick, M. ‘”Not Telling”: Secrets, Lies and History’. History and Theory, vol. 39, no. 4, December 2000. Popescu, M. ‘Mirrorings: Communists, Capitalists and Vorrtrekkers of the Cold War’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. Satchwell, K. ‘The power to defend: an analysis of various aspects of the Defence Act’ in War in Society: The Militarisation of South Africa, Jacklyn Cock & Laurie Nathan (eds), Cape Town: David Philip, 1984. Saunders, C. ‘South Africa’s Role in Namibia/Angola: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Account’ in Baines & Vale, Beyond the Border War. Soule, A., Dixon, G. & Richards, R. The Wynand du Toit Story. Johannesburg: Hans Strydom Publishers, 1987. South African Democracy Education Trust. The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 1: 1960-1970. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004. South African Democracy Education Trust. The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 2: 1970-1980. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2006. South Africa. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 2. 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Van Coller, H. ‘Border/Frontier Literature’ in Space and Boundaries in Literature: Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, Roger Bauer, Douwes Fokkema & Michael de Graat (eds), Munich: Ludicium, 1990, pp. 254-9. Venter, A.J. Soldier of Fortune. London: W.H. Allen, 1980. Gary Baines is an Associate Professor at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. His research and teaching interests include the representation of war, memory and trauma.