Buffalo Soldiers
Colonel Jan Breytenbach
Publisher: Galago Books (SA) 2002
Paperback: 360 pages; 48 Colour & b/w pics; maps
Our Price: £19.99 + p&p (£3.99 First class)
This is a soldier’s story about South African soldiers in southern Angola and Namibia and the enemies they fought. It tells of insurgency and counter-insurgency, guerrilla warfare and counter-guerrilla warfare, almost conventional warfare and conventional warfare. It tells of a conflict which the world saw as unpopular and unjust, in which South Africa was perceived as the aggressor.
The South African soldiers who fought in it, however, saw it as a conflict fought to stop what is now Namibia falling into the hands of the Soviet and Cuban-backed SWAPO black nationalist political organisation. After Namibia South Africa would be next. They saw the whole conflict as an extension of the Cold War, but while it was ‘Cold’ on the frontiers in Europe, in Angola they were fighting a very ‘Hot’ war in Angola.
Eventually, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the war was resolved by the democratic solution of UN supervised free and fair elections in Namibia. Since then, regrettably, there has been interference by the ruling party with the democratic constitution put in place in Namibia which has eroded much of that hard won democracy.
32-Battalion, of which Colonel Jan Breytenbach was the founding commander, became the most controversial unit in the South African Army because of the secrecy surrounding it. Its story is virtually the story of the Angolan/Namibian war, because its involvement in it was greater than any other South African unit.
The regiment primarily consisted of black troops and NCOs originating from virtually every tribe in Angola. They were led by white South African officers and NCOs.
Neither apartheid nor any form of racial discrimination was ever practiced in the unit.
There was always a sprinkling of whites originating from countries like Great Britain, the old Rhodesia, Portugal and the USA amongst its leadership cadre, although in the latter stages of its existence this shrank to only a few. Such a presence undoubtedly led to stories circulating that the unit was a led by foreign white mercenaries. While it was true that the black Angolan element could have fallen with the mercenary definition, the whites involved were attested soldiers in the South African Army. In any case, they formed a minority and the vast majority of white officers and NCOs were born South Africans.
A fascinating and engaging read!
