(This story first appeared in the October 2015 edition of SA 4x4 Magazine)
At first it is the red-tipped stakes I see rising about a metre from the
white Angolan sand. A double row of them
marks a narrow corridor of death snaking through the bush. Then I see that between the stakes lie partially
uncovered anti-tank mines. Twenty-eight
years ago I was a soldier on the frontline of battle. Now the frontline is still here and the mines
fight on like a lost regiment, not knowing that the war is long over. It is the mine-clearing NGO, the HALO Trust
that forms today’s opposing army as they painstakingly find and destroy the
mines, making the land safe for the people of Angola.
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| Disabled and rusting SADF Olifant tank in the Tumpo minefield |
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| A belt of anti-tank mines yet to be destriyed by the HALO Trust |
I’m in the Tumpo triangle near the Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale. It is in Kuando Kubango Province, a place the
Portuguese colonists called The Land at the End of the Earth. It was the scene of the biggest land battle
in Africa since the Second World War. The
SADF took part in the final battles of South Africa’s involvement in the
Angolan war here. I am part of the
backup crew for a group of former conscripts who have come here in support of
their friend Johan Booysen who was here during the war. Johan had contacted me after reading my book about
my own trip back to Angola and asked for advice on putting together an
expedition to Angola. Then he invited me
to join his group.
Johan is joined by his good friends Kobus,
Steve and Wayne, all former conscripts and his daughter Tammy who is in her
mid-twenties. He is journeying in search of peace: with himself, with Angola and with its
people. This will be an adventure. It will be something much deeper too. I
have made this journey myself, I understand Johan’s need to make this
physically arduous and emotionally difficult return. It is a pilgrimage of sorts.
Johan towers above the rest of us. He used to play fly-half and his friends call
him Bosch after the legendary rugby player Gerald Bosch. He takes a strong lead amongst the bikers and
is very much the man in charge. Yet I
think I recognise something just behind his eyes. Perhaps it is the post-traumatic stress he’s
carried from the battlefield. I
recognise it in him, because I have undertaken this pilgrimage myself.
It takes us five days to reach Cuito Cuanavale. And it will be a 5000 kilometre round trip
before we return to Johannesburg. After
a long journey through two cold Kalahari nights we reach Maun. On the way we’ve dodged the potholes, suicidal
kudus and insomniac donkeys. The roadside is unfenced and the donkeys seem
to enjoy playing chicken with the cars. The
two designated drinkers on the rear seat of Johan’s Hyundai people carrier have
worked their way through the slabs of lager while I have dozed and Wayne has
relieved Johan at the wheel. The two
trailers we are towing with two bikes apiece have behaved themselves
impeccably.
And on the bike
At Maun we meet up with Patrick Ricketts and his support vehicle. Patrick is a former Umkhonto we Sizwe veteran
and makes regular visits to Angola. He
is outgoing and loud and laughs a lot from a mouth hidden by a massive bush of
a moustache. Importantly, he has helped
with the tricky visa process and he will be expedition leader from here. The group will proceed from Maun on the
motorcycles and in Patrick’s old Land Rover.
As we leave the next morning Tammy has her first fall on the sandy
access road barely 200 metres into the journey.
With no damage except a little dented pride, she gets back on and heads
into a very long day that will end after dark at Rundu.
I cram myself into the Land Rover
along with the other five non-motorcycling members of the expedition. Anthea, a friend of Patrick’s who I know from
my 2012 expedition, reclines across the baggage in the back for want of seating.
The over-worn seats are as hard as those
in the Ratel Infantry Fighting Vehicle I first entered Angola in in 1987.
Also in the vehicle is Gobbs, an earnest man with white hair and the
demeanour of a sensitive soul. He went into exile in the mid-seventies in the
wake of South Africa’s political unrest. Naked, he crossed the Limpopo into Botswana on
a dark night with his clothes in a bundle on his head. He tells me of how he was terrified of being
taken by a crocodile. Gobbs survived the
ordeal and went on to do military training as part of Umkhonto we Sizwe. This is an emotional journey for him too; it’s his first visit to Angola since being
based here during the apartheid years. He has a daughter in Angola and they became
separated during the dark days of the past.
It occurs to me that we are from different sides of the conflict, each
with our own wounds, each on a healing journey.
One day, Gobbs tells us, he hopes to be reunited with his daughter.
The Road to Caiundo:
Travelling through four countries means six different sets of customs
and immigration officials to deal with on both legs of the journey. It’s a tedious yet necessary part of our
tour. Eventually we are through the hour
long Angolan bureaucracy and the drivers are adjusting to driving on the right
hand side of the very poor roads.
Tonight we will sleep in Savate before heading onwards to Menongue via
Caiundo.
Between the border and the town of Caiundo, the road is one of thick
loose gravel and bad corrugation. There are huge pot holes and dongas and in
places the cars have to be put in low-range to pull through the sandy
patches. The bikes and support vehicles
are separated from time to time. Now, in
the distance, through the thick dust hanging low over the road, I can see a
motorbike. It could be one of ours. Or it could be another Angolan on a small
capacity commuter bike. As we get closer
it’s clear that we have caught up with our bikers.
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| Bikers on the road to Caiundo |
Tammy, the least experienced of the group is doing well, though
struggling to keep her bike upright at times.
After four falls she is crawling along and looking tense. Johan is bringing up the rear to make sure
she’s alright.
As soon as we reach them they stop.
Tammy is off the bike and has whipped her helmet off and is saying “I’ve
had enough! Uncle Wayne can ride the rest of the way.” Her concern is justified. We are up to two hundred kilometres away from
a hospital if one of them gets hurt.
Wayne, the back-up rider, pulls on her pink trimmed biker’s jacket,
which is a little short in the sleeves and tight at the shoulders. He dons a spare helmet and pulls off with a
lot of throttle. I watch the rear wheel
twitching and worry that he hasn’t given himself time to assess the conditions. No sooner have we started off again when we
reach the good tar road at the town of Caiundo.
Tammy has managed a couple of hundred kilometres of bad gravel and has
quit only about four kilometres short of the tar.
Although the conditions are tough the Land Rover is munching up the dirt. Johan’s original concern was that the Land
Rover would struggle to keep up with the bikers when things got rough. But the bikers have different levels of
experience and the Landy is happily barrelling along at 80kms an hour so we are
faster.
We fly over the corrugations and the vehicle is rattling almost too loudly
for conversation. Patrick is trying to
catch up with Steve, who is riding out in front. Occasionally the vehicle slews, exaggerated
by the weight of the trailer, as the he avoids a pothole.
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| The river at Savate |
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| Washing and collecting water at Savate |
Dinner with a General
We arrive in Menongue, the only big town on our travels in this
country. It is from where the Angolan
air force MiGs flew sorties against the South African forces during the war and
from here they supplied the front line at Cuito Cuanavale and beyond. We hang about while Patrick goes to check in
with the Administrador. I notice how
much building has happened since my last visit.
The town is looking more prosperous.
There’s even a little kiosk selling a very decent cup of coffee. Eventually the vehicles return and we head
towards our campsite for the night.
The mine clearing NGO, the HALO Trust, have allowed us to camp at their base. In a paddock of lumpy grass they have erected
a couple of tents for our use. The bikers are exhausted after another full
day of riding and are grateful to roll out their sleeping bags
Tim, the Halo trust area manager is looking anxious. He’s heard that the Menongue grapevine is chattering
about the convoy of South Africans driving around town. The Angolan authorities can be wary of outsiders. Especially if the right people don’t know who
you are and why you’re there.
I try to reassure Tim that Patrick is friends with an Angolan General and
has observed the local protocol, but he looks unconvinced. “Really,” I say, “you don’t have to worry,
Patrick has already been to visit the General to pay his compliments. Everything’s cool.”
As I’m talking I hear Patrick’s loud voice call out, “Hey, General
Nando!” The retired General Fernando Mateus has arrived. Driven by a uniformed colonel he says he’s
come to see how we’re settling in. Soon
Tim is practicing his Portuguese on the Colonel and looking visibly relieved to
have us endorsed by such seniority.
Soon the anxiety shifts from Tim to the three female members of the
group. The general has announced that
the women must not camp but stay at his house instead. But before they are whisked off in the green
army Land Cruiser we are invited to join the General for dinner at The Ritz
Lauca.
We’re dusty, sweaty and in need of a shower. So we feel a little self-conscious as we
slope through the shiny reception of the hotel.
I half expect someone to turn us around before we get to the
restaurant. Until I remember who we’re
with. I also wonder with some
trepidation, what this is going to cost us.
At this point I realise that the bikers are missing. Somehow in the confusion and darkness at the
Halo camp they’ve either been forgotten or have carefully avoided being
corralled with the rest of us.
I’m at the opposite end of the table to the general who is talking
intently to Patrick. After a while the
general breaks from his conversation says something to me. Gobbs speaks Portuguese and acts as our
translator. ‘The General wants to know
how many Russians you saw when you were fighting in Tumpo .” I tell him firstly that I didn’t fight in the
Tumpo Triangle. I fought in the battles
on the Lomba River and a few more leading up to the assault on the Angolan Brigades
at Cuito. But no, I saw no
Russians. Though I heard reports that
there was a handful of Russian advisors in the Brigades we faced. This seems to please the general. He asks the same question about Cubans. No, I didn’t see any Cubans either. It seems I’ve proved the General’s point
though I’m not entirely sure what it is.
Perhaps he is making the point that it was the Angolans alone who faced
down the formidable SADF. But I’m here
as a peacemaker and I’m not entering into the ‘who won at Cuito’ argument,
which other former soldiers seem so ready to do.
Encouragingly though, the general tells me that he would like to see
more former SADF soldiers visiting Angola.
“So that those of us who actually fought can discuss the truth about what
happened at Cuito Cuanavale,” he says as,
to my relief, he pays the bill for dinner.
We all have our own versions of ‘the truth’. But it is good when former combatants are
able to reach out to one another to discuss their experiences in the spirit of
peace-making rather than post-war point scoring.
The next day we drive to Cuito Cuanavale, a town that was reduced to rubble
during the South African assaults. The
G5 artillery could reach it from over forty kilometres away. But even since my visit in 2012 the town has
grown and developed. There’s a Chinese
built hydro- electric scheme being constructed.
There’s a bank and a shiny new cell phone shop representing one of the
national providers. A young man speaking
pretty good English, rare in these parts where most speak Portuguese, helps me
with my local connection problem. It’s
good to see these changes following the devastation of war.
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| Cuito Bikewash |
The Tumpo Triangle
It’s time to go to the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the
war: The Tumpo Triangle. It’s a wedge of land bordered by the
Cuanavale, Cuito and Tumpo rivers to the east of Cuito Cuanavale. The HALO
Trust has offered us a rare privilege:
they will guide us through minefield, a journey too hazardous for us to
do on our own, to see their frontline in the battle against the landmines.
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| End of the tracks. SADF tank taken out by a mine |
After several kilometres on bush tracks, we reach a makeshift parking
lot and finish the journey wading through the deep sand on foot. It reminds me of my time here in ’87, and of
trudging along bush-tracks, humping cases
of mortar ammunition back to our vehicles from the echelon. But now the only thing I’m shooting is my
camera. And the tanks I’m shooting at
were long since disabled by the Angolan anti-tank mines. They sit there, rusting and sinking into the
white sand. I notice how this one has
driven itself off its tracks, terminally crippled. I’m viewing a piece of military history. And it’s my personal history too.
Next to the broken tanks the Angolans have erected flagpoles flying
their national flag high above the treetops.
Rows of white stakes snake off
into the bush. A few metres wide, the stakes
mark the former mine belt which thwarted the South African armour. The mines now safely destroyed by the
dedicated HALO Trust teams.
Landmines litter Angola in their thousands. And all sides are culpable. The HALO Trust is doing valuable work here
under difficult conditions. Yet the big
donors like the USA and EU have cut their funding to the Angola programme significantly. They believe the Angolan government is now
capable of funding demining itself. And
there are concerns about alleged government corruption. It seems grossly unfair
to the people who are trying to make lives farming on the edge of the
minefields. The Halo Trust has cleared
over 27 000 mines around Cuito Cuanavale alone and estimates that it will
take many more years before the area is completely cleared.
A little way away there is a piece of taped off ground. A mass grave found during the demining
activity. It could be where the UNITA
soldiers are buried. Many of their infantry
were killed by FAPLA artillery as they advanced with the South African
armour. It’s a reminder that this battle
was also part of a bitter and bloody struggle between Angolan factions in a
civil war that lasted thirty years. I
find it sad that no flag flies over this site as they do over the broken
tanks. This grave of unknown soldiers is
surely the most important reminder of the devastating human consequences of
war.
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| UNITA mass grave |
After the grimness of the minefield there is moment of levity when the
local police chief gets his Land Cruiser stuck in the deep sand. After much advice shouted by onlookers,
Patrick takes charge and uses the winch on his aging Land Rover to rescue the
Toyota from further humiliation.
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| Land Rover rescues the Police Chief's Cruiser |
Back at the Cuito administration buildings, Johan and his friends give
out the educational toys and books that they have brought for the
schoolchildren of the town. They want to
give something back to the community, a gesture of goodwill from a former
enemy. The exercise becomes a little
chaotic as the over excited kids make a frenzied grab for the goodies. But there seems to have been no harm done and
one can only hope that the good intentions of the former conscripts have been
communicated beyond the language barrier.
The convoy of bikers, support Land Rover, and the TV crew in their shiny
Toyota Hilux 4x4 hire car head back to Menongue for a final night at the HALO
Trust camp. There comes a time in an
expedition when a difficult decision has to be made. And safety should always be paramount. In this case the bikers have decided that not
all of them are experienced enough to be sure that they’ll make it back along
the dirt road unscathed. Their purpose
has been achieved and that they’ll not risk riding the bikes back along the
hazardous sandy gravel to Namibia. With
the help of the general they secure the services of a small truck to drive them
and their motorcycles to the Katwitwi border post.
The border post is already closed when we get there. The local police show us where we can camp
and we set up camp and cook and forage for some final cans of Cuca lager at the
local tavern. When the bikers gun there
engines in the morning there is a strong sense of achievement in the air. They have the long road to Maun via Rundu to
travel back to their people carrier and then home to Johannesburg. They have had an adventure, they have
supported Johan in his quest to deal with this dark piece of his past. Maybe the war-ghosts have been put to rest
once and for all. Time will tell.
