Warfare by Other Means: South Africa in the 1980's
Peter Stiff
Publisher: Galago Books (SA) 2009
Hardback: 600 pages - b/w and colour illustrations
Our Price: £35.00 +p&p
(please select postage option below)
Incl. 1st class Post £40.29
Incl. 2nd class Post £39.70
Warfare by Other Means is not an apologia — it is a history, much of it oral and straight from the mouths of those involved. It tells of the actions of the SADF, performed within South Africa with the authority of the National Party Government through the State Security Council, during the ‘‘total onslaught’’ years.
It tells how it joined a disastrous attempt by Colonel Mike Hoare’s mercenaries to overthrow the Renéé regime in the Seychelles because it was ‘‘an anti-communist coup going begging’’ and ‘‘it was a shame to waste it’’. How it secretly paid millions of rands in ransom to secure the release of captured mercenaries who had been sentenced to death. How it deliberately foiled future coups attempts because, to the envy of the CIA and MI6 and the chagrin of the Soviets, it had amazingly managed to take over the Seychelles intelligence services through an SADF front company, Longreach.
Having failed to convert General Holomisa’s Transkei into its Eastern Cape bastion, it turned next to the Ciskei. How it seized the opportunity to introduce a front company IR-CIS to take over its intelligence functions when Brigadier ‘‘Oupa’’ Gqozo overthrew President Lennox Sebe in a coup. How IR-CIS played a pivotal role in several violent attempts to overthrow General Holomisa in Transkei. How it inveigled the discharge of all the black senior officers in the Ciskei Defence Force on trumped up charges of disloyalty. How it organised their replacement with white serving SADF officers.
A compelling read and compulsive read.
