Manuel Ferreira
03-02-2008, 18:03
Cassinga battle account reveals biased claptrap
A former South African Defence Force colonel who led forces in the controversial battle speaks out
February 03, 2008 Edition 1
I have followed the Sunday Independent letters between Mike McWilliams and Randolph Vigne of Cape Town concerning the Battle of Cassinga. I am totally in agreement with Mike McWilliams since I too was there - in fact, as Mike's commander on that fateful day.
Concerning Annemarie Heywood's accusation in her The Cassinga Event: An Investigation of the Records, it can be stated categorically that the battlefield was carefully sterilised by South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo) and People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (Fapla) troops before the international press arrived. Thus, there was no reliable evidence to be obtained from a subsequent photograph of a so-called "mass grave" to show the bodies of "the great majority of women and children" slaughtered by the paratroopers or the Air Force.
Nor could there be because there never was such a grave to photograph.
There was and still is, however, one photograph - and one only, of a so- called mass grave, which shows a great majority of men, all them combatants, with only three women barely recognisable among the lot and, significantly, without any evidence whatsoever, of dead or mutilated children.
This is the photograph that is used by Heywood, Vigne and others to accuse my paratroopers of butchering women and children indiscriminately, pregnant women having their stomachs ripped open by bayonets, after they had been raped, of course, to get at the unborn as well.
If there had been a photograph sent into the world showing a huge heap of women and children massacred by the "boers", John Vorster's government would have become history overnight and the concerned five western nations would have given up the whole attempt to come to a peaceful solution for the South West Africa/Namibia problem.
They and others would have instituted a water-tight sanctions plan, perhaps even a blockade of the South African and South West African coastlines, even used military force to kick the South African Defence Force (SADF) out of South West Africa/ Namibia. And even the Security Council would have been driven to accept Swapo as the only legitimate government of SWA/Namibia.
But there was no such photograph of hundreds of massacred innocents, if not the thousands, because the rumoured mass grave had, unfortunately, already been covered up before the first camera arrived on the scene.
It would, of course, have been sacrilege to reopen the grave of such a tragic event just for the sake of photographic evidence. So they had to make do with what they had and rely on Goebbels-type hype and propaganda to sway the ignorant masses and their "not-so-ignorant" leaders by embroidering the alleged atrocities committed by barbaric, ***-crazed paratroopers.
The only photograph they could produce had to serve, but no matter. An energetic propaganda offence would change the shortcomings of this photo, as pointed out above, into an instrument of almost gospel truth.
For Vigne's information, my paratroopers did not carry bayonets or any other sharp instruments with which to slaughter women and children, a fact he could have verified with General Constand Viljoen himself, since he had taken the infantry's bayonets away some years before Cassinga.
Incidentally, Viljoen also arrived on the scene of battle, unexpectedly, and the least Vigne could have done was to confirm his perceived details with the general who started it all, a man who was pronounced by Nelson Mandela himself as one of a very few totally honourable and honest men he has ever dealt with during his remarkable life.
I nevertheless refer Vigne, again, to the extremely prejudiced Cassinga Event, authored by Heywood, which he unequivocally favours, and specifically to the photograph I have mentioned, which is the only one ever used to accuse us of a genocidal massacre.
Then there is, of course, also the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report Vigne can go and dig up. He will discover that even the biased truth commission found that there was no substantial evidence, in spite of Heywood's accusations, that we, the paratroopers, had wiped out a refugee camp while pretending to attack a Swapo base.
If that is not enough information for him, I, as honourary colonel of the Legion of Associated Airborne, Republic of South Africa, invite him to a night out with paratrooper veterans in Benoni, or here in Sedgefield, to have a snort or two and to discuss his reservations with men who were there. I can assure him that the men are always on their best behaviour so that he need not fear being given a torrid time.
A less dodgy approach would have been to buy an older colleague, namely Willem Steenkamp, a malt whiskey and to tap his brains on many aspects of the border war.
Vigne is perhaps ignoring the fact that Steenkamp was a brilliant war correspondent for the Cape Times and that he wrote a book called Border Strike which covers, among others, the Reindeer and the Cassinga battles extensively.
This is by far a much more reliable and balanced account from the pen of a cool and calm reporter with impeccable integrity - compared with the prejudiced horror story told by a biased, almost hysterical Heywood.
So Vigne's excuse that only Heywood's less-than-salubrious effort should be considered is, to tell the truth, dishonest and holds no water at all with me.
Vigne knows about Steenkamp, where he comes from and where he can be found. What is more, Steenkamp is a Capetonian and thus easily accessible to a fellow Capetonian like Vigne.
On the other hand, Vigne can wait for my own telling of the Cassinga event to see the light of day in the near future. In this book, which he will have to buy (no freebies from me), I have gone out of my way to expose the manufactured evidence Heywood had used to project a deliberately skewed account into the world with the specific objective to discredit the whole SADF as baby killers and thus to cover up the vitally important fact that Swapo had badly lost the most strategic battle, ever, up to that point, in the history of the border war.
Unfortunately, the author of the masters thesis referred to by Vigne also relied, to some extent, on Swapo and Heywood claptrap, especially in some critical areas, to substantiate a somewhat watered down "accidental" killing scenario of civilians - the so-called "collateral damage" profile the Americans are so fond of using when justifying especially bombing raids, while discussing events during the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
My book has been written specifically to contradict the "baby killer" tag and a host of other serious accusations made by the author of the masters thesis and, by extension, by Heywood et al - thus also by people like Vigne who make ill-considered statements without proper research and cross-checking.
I have meticulously researched my book over a much wider spectrum than any previous pontificators on the Cassinga battle with the almost inevitable result that none of us really come out of the Cassinga battle smelling of roses. Nevertheless, we emerge with our humanistic reputations and our pride, as paratroopers and air men, still very much intact.
Lots went wrong on that day, up to a point when imminent disaster became almost a certainty, but the fighting spirit of all my paratroopers and some very brave pilots and aircrews pulled us through, so that we could go home more or less intact to claim a most remarkable victory.
Colonel Jan Breytenbach was first commander of 44 Parachute Brigade and commander of the paratroopers during the Cassinga battle
A former South African Defence Force colonel who led forces in the controversial battle speaks out
February 03, 2008 Edition 1
I have followed the Sunday Independent letters between Mike McWilliams and Randolph Vigne of Cape Town concerning the Battle of Cassinga. I am totally in agreement with Mike McWilliams since I too was there - in fact, as Mike's commander on that fateful day.
Concerning Annemarie Heywood's accusation in her The Cassinga Event: An Investigation of the Records, it can be stated categorically that the battlefield was carefully sterilised by South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo) and People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (Fapla) troops before the international press arrived. Thus, there was no reliable evidence to be obtained from a subsequent photograph of a so-called "mass grave" to show the bodies of "the great majority of women and children" slaughtered by the paratroopers or the Air Force.
Nor could there be because there never was such a grave to photograph.
There was and still is, however, one photograph - and one only, of a so- called mass grave, which shows a great majority of men, all them combatants, with only three women barely recognisable among the lot and, significantly, without any evidence whatsoever, of dead or mutilated children.
This is the photograph that is used by Heywood, Vigne and others to accuse my paratroopers of butchering women and children indiscriminately, pregnant women having their stomachs ripped open by bayonets, after they had been raped, of course, to get at the unborn as well.
If there had been a photograph sent into the world showing a huge heap of women and children massacred by the "boers", John Vorster's government would have become history overnight and the concerned five western nations would have given up the whole attempt to come to a peaceful solution for the South West Africa/Namibia problem.
They and others would have instituted a water-tight sanctions plan, perhaps even a blockade of the South African and South West African coastlines, even used military force to kick the South African Defence Force (SADF) out of South West Africa/ Namibia. And even the Security Council would have been driven to accept Swapo as the only legitimate government of SWA/Namibia.
But there was no such photograph of hundreds of massacred innocents, if not the thousands, because the rumoured mass grave had, unfortunately, already been covered up before the first camera arrived on the scene.
It would, of course, have been sacrilege to reopen the grave of such a tragic event just for the sake of photographic evidence. So they had to make do with what they had and rely on Goebbels-type hype and propaganda to sway the ignorant masses and their "not-so-ignorant" leaders by embroidering the alleged atrocities committed by barbaric, ***-crazed paratroopers.
The only photograph they could produce had to serve, but no matter. An energetic propaganda offence would change the shortcomings of this photo, as pointed out above, into an instrument of almost gospel truth.
For Vigne's information, my paratroopers did not carry bayonets or any other sharp instruments with which to slaughter women and children, a fact he could have verified with General Constand Viljoen himself, since he had taken the infantry's bayonets away some years before Cassinga.
Incidentally, Viljoen also arrived on the scene of battle, unexpectedly, and the least Vigne could have done was to confirm his perceived details with the general who started it all, a man who was pronounced by Nelson Mandela himself as one of a very few totally honourable and honest men he has ever dealt with during his remarkable life.
I nevertheless refer Vigne, again, to the extremely prejudiced Cassinga Event, authored by Heywood, which he unequivocally favours, and specifically to the photograph I have mentioned, which is the only one ever used to accuse us of a genocidal massacre.
Then there is, of course, also the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report Vigne can go and dig up. He will discover that even the biased truth commission found that there was no substantial evidence, in spite of Heywood's accusations, that we, the paratroopers, had wiped out a refugee camp while pretending to attack a Swapo base.
If that is not enough information for him, I, as honourary colonel of the Legion of Associated Airborne, Republic of South Africa, invite him to a night out with paratrooper veterans in Benoni, or here in Sedgefield, to have a snort or two and to discuss his reservations with men who were there. I can assure him that the men are always on their best behaviour so that he need not fear being given a torrid time.
A less dodgy approach would have been to buy an older colleague, namely Willem Steenkamp, a malt whiskey and to tap his brains on many aspects of the border war.
Vigne is perhaps ignoring the fact that Steenkamp was a brilliant war correspondent for the Cape Times and that he wrote a book called Border Strike which covers, among others, the Reindeer and the Cassinga battles extensively.
This is by far a much more reliable and balanced account from the pen of a cool and calm reporter with impeccable integrity - compared with the prejudiced horror story told by a biased, almost hysterical Heywood.
So Vigne's excuse that only Heywood's less-than-salubrious effort should be considered is, to tell the truth, dishonest and holds no water at all with me.
Vigne knows about Steenkamp, where he comes from and where he can be found. What is more, Steenkamp is a Capetonian and thus easily accessible to a fellow Capetonian like Vigne.
On the other hand, Vigne can wait for my own telling of the Cassinga event to see the light of day in the near future. In this book, which he will have to buy (no freebies from me), I have gone out of my way to expose the manufactured evidence Heywood had used to project a deliberately skewed account into the world with the specific objective to discredit the whole SADF as baby killers and thus to cover up the vitally important fact that Swapo had badly lost the most strategic battle, ever, up to that point, in the history of the border war.
Unfortunately, the author of the masters thesis referred to by Vigne also relied, to some extent, on Swapo and Heywood claptrap, especially in some critical areas, to substantiate a somewhat watered down "accidental" killing scenario of civilians - the so-called "collateral damage" profile the Americans are so fond of using when justifying especially bombing raids, while discussing events during the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
My book has been written specifically to contradict the "baby killer" tag and a host of other serious accusations made by the author of the masters thesis and, by extension, by Heywood et al - thus also by people like Vigne who make ill-considered statements without proper research and cross-checking.
I have meticulously researched my book over a much wider spectrum than any previous pontificators on the Cassinga battle with the almost inevitable result that none of us really come out of the Cassinga battle smelling of roses. Nevertheless, we emerge with our humanistic reputations and our pride, as paratroopers and air men, still very much intact.
Lots went wrong on that day, up to a point when imminent disaster became almost a certainty, but the fighting spirit of all my paratroopers and some very brave pilots and aircrews pulled us through, so that we could go home more or less intact to claim a most remarkable victory.
Colonel Jan Breytenbach was first commander of 44 Parachute Brigade and commander of the paratroopers during the Cassinga battle