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Buffalo Soldiers
| Date: |
16 November 2003 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Gerard van Niekerk
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Jonny Cambinda is 26 years old. He is a security guard at a Johannesburg bookshop. Earlier this year while on duty, Jonny came across a book that peaked his interest.
Jonny Cambinda (son of 32 Battalion Soldier): ' I saw the book and it was written ' Buffalo Soldiers' and I thought, 'What is this now?' When I look nicely at the cover of the book, I saw this badge on it. I know this badge from somewhere. This is the badge my daddy used to wear. So this book must be the book of my people.'
Jonny's father was a member of the infamous 32 Battalion. Jonny was raised on war stories, but this book revealed a lot more than he had ever known.
32 Battalion was considered Africa's most elite fighting-unit in the last decades of the Apartheid regime. It was the most highly decorated unit and the most controversial.
General Georg Meiring (Former SA Army Chief): 'The proud and distinguished history of this unit cannot be changed and it will always remain a legend in the South African army.'
On March 26 1993, 32 Battalion was disbanded without any warning.
General Meiring: 'We must see to it that we never forget them.'
But they have been forgotten. 32 Battalion was effectively abandoned by it - the National Party government.
Colonel Jan Breytenbach (32 Battalion Founding Commander): 'The guys who did so much dying and fighting for this country were just sort of disbanded on the spur of the moment. It just isn't right. I think it is terrible. I think they were betrayed, quite honestly.'
Colonel Jan Breytenbach who wrote The Buffalo Soldiers, was the founding commander of 32 Battalion, which was originally made up of desperate Angolan refugees.
Jan: 'They had nowhere else to go. There was chaos in Angola. I brought them back as a result of that. So they looked up to me as a sort of saviour to get them out of the problems they had ... them and their families.'
He took this motley crew of Angolan refugees and turned them into a disciplined and ferocious fighting machine - the first black soldiers in the SADF.
Jan: 'We put them through their paces. We trained them very, very well indeed. And then of course there was our training area, which was actually among the enemy. So they only got better and better until, I think, they became one of the best units that Africa has ever seen.'
They were fighting South Africa's secret war in Angola - one that the government of the day categorically denied being a part of. It was a war against their own people and they earned the reputation for being vicious. They were aptly nicknamed The Terrible Ones.
Most of them fought for a cause they didn't entirely understand, but they gave their lives for their battalion and their comrades in arms.
Hundreds of these crack unit fighters died defending the apartheid cause and Jonny recalls what being the son of a 32-battalion soldier really meant.
Jonny: 'Ja, there were tough times when your father goes to war. Because there are times he would come and say, 'Goodbye' and that means goodbye forever. You are not going see him. The only thing that you are going to see is, we had a priest that comes to you. If you see a priest approaching your house that means your daddy is gone. '
It seemed, for the SADF, losing 32 Battalion soldiers was far preferable to losing their own young white conscripts.
Jan: 'They didn't want to see young national servicemen coming home in body bags. So they were - to put it very bluntly - expendable... I don't want to call them expendable because they were my troops.'
And once SADF withdrew from warring with neighbouring countries at the end of the eighties, 32 Battalion was redeployed in South Africa and used to quell township violence. They were accused of extreme brutality, and this spelt the beginning of the end for them.
Jan: 'There were rumours going around that 32 Battalion would be disbanded because 32 was operating in the townships, and they were not very popular... only the IFP or the ANC, because they didn't take sides.'
It was 1992; the ANC demanded that 32 Battalion be disbanded, or they would not continue with the negotiations.
Jan: 'They were disbanded for political reasons; they were used as political pawn... Political expediency by people who should have stood behind them or who should have supported them, because we fought for them -the politicians who were then in power.'
Colonel Breytenbach believes that the National Party sold them out. He is not alone in this sentiment. 32 Battalion commander, Lieutenant Daan Kruger demonstrated his outrage at their disbandment ceremony.
He berated Army chief General Meiring for promises made and not kept. He was forcibly removed from the parade ground and ordered never to return. Colonel Breytenbach felt his men were treated disgracefully.
Jan: 'They treat you with contempt. This is the main thing that makes me 'the moer in' [the hell in] with the whole thing. They were treated with contempt.'
Most of the men were given a once off payment of R20 000 and left to fend for themselves in a dusty far-flung base called Pomfret.
Pomfret lies on the edge of the Kalahari [Desert] near the Botswana border, in one of the remotest corners of South Africa. That's one of the reasons 32 Battalion was moved here to the middle of nowhere. Out of sight and out of mind.
Jan: 'I had the impression that to them it was more important to get them away, as far as possible from South Africa, as such... To put them out in our own remote Siberia, which is the Kalahari Desert, you see.'
Jonny took Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter) ]to meet his father in Pomfret. Pedro John was a founder member of 32 Battalion and, during his 26 years of service, he was awarded six medals for bravery.
Pedro John (32 Battalion Soldier): 'I am not happy. They abandoned us without telling us. We served 32 Battalion with pride and they just left us. Also, they didn't pay us according to the service we did. So, today, here we are, we can't go home.'
Pedro Sozinho fought alongside Jonny's father.
Pedro Sozinho (32 Battalion Soldier): 'I lost a lot. I lost many friends and loved ones. We got nothing for the service we provided. Did the government appreciate my services or did they just use me? We were just abandoned. I feel like I was used. My South African senior officers worked with me and now they have just abandoned me. It appears like we never worked for this government.
There is nothing for these men in Pomfret. There are no jobs, no industry and the nearest town is Vryburg 180 kms away. Their R20 000 payout didn't go very far and most of these men are living on the bread line.
Jonny: 'If I look around Pomfret, I feel very bad. This was supposed to be their home of the former 32 Battalion. And they were supposed to take care of them. I feel very bad.'
Derek: 'What sort of lives do these proud soldiers lead now, in Pomfret?'
Johnny: 'The life they are leading - for most of them, they lead a life of drinking and trying to forget what they did in the army. They are old and they are tired. Some of them were shot, some they can't even do some things.'
Another former soldier, Joao dos Santos, feels bitter at the state the army has left him in
Joao dos Santos: (32 Battalion Soldier): 'I mean the people use me and they have to pay me fully.'
He was injured in the line of duty and is confined to a wheelchair; he dreams of one day going home.
Joao: 'If I go home without nothing, my family are going to ask me, 'You had this accident in the South African Defence Force, now you come with nothing. How are you going to survive?' '
Derek: 'What about the other soldiers?'
Joao: 'The rest of the soldiers... this one here also same story. Many of them here, they left them. Is there justice in South Africa? I don't know.'
Pomfret was the end of the road for 32 in more ways than one. Not only was the Battalion disbanded here, but many soldiers who cheated death on the battlefield may yet fall victim to the grey asbestos dust that blows off the old mine dumps. And their families face the same danger.
Jonny: 'When we moved in we weren't warned. We were only prohibited from substance A ... which we were not supposed to know.
This town is the site of an abandoned asbestos mine which was forced to close down in the early 90s because of the known health hazards of asbestos mining.
Jan: 'In my opinion, whoever did this, whoever was responsible for selecting Pomfret - I'm talking from military side - did these guys a huge disservice.'
Derek: 'Now the dangers of asbestos were known then?'
Jan: 'It was known, yes! The people who did it knew it.'
Correspondence between the army and the department of mineral and energy affairs confirms this. A letter written by senior military health officer Capt J A Ribiero states:
'The potential health hazard presented by the presence of Crocidolite asbestos fibres in the air has been and still is a matter of grave concern.'
Jonny: 'It's gonna be a bomb that will be exposed in ten years to come because asbestos is already out and people are breathing that asbestos in.'
Asbestosis is a silent killer and the future looks bleak for what remains of 32 Battalion. No one is prepared to do anything about their plight. The SANDF inherited this problem, but they say they have passed the responsibility to the provincial government and it is no longer a military matter.
Colonel Breytenbach finds this hard to live with because he feels responsible for his men.
Jan: 'It makes me sick inside. It makes me very sick. They are my men. We fought together... and Willie as well. He is also an ex-32 Battalion guy.'
While the old guard sits helpless, Jonny and the new generation are determined to move on.
Jonny: 'To me, we must look back to our daddies. Let us, as the sons, pick up where the daddies left off and must continue where they left. So they can see, old members of 32 Battalion can still be proud of their sons that we did fought in the war, the bit that we brought, our kids move on from there.'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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