smuggling
Jan Breytenbach, a legend in the former SADF, describes how he discovered that senior officers were using ivory-smuggling routes for their own corrupt ends
Jonas Savimbi’s headquarters was at a place called Jamba, a sort of squatter camp 10km south of the Biongue omuramba (flood plain) and about 15km south of the Luiana River.
When journalists went to visit Savimbi they were always shown elephant, zebra, giraffe and other species dotting the Biongue omuramba and the adjacent bush. Another pocket of game was to be found around the old Portuguese military post at Luiana. Down the Quando River as far as the cutline with Namibia one could, with luck, come across pockets of elephants and, of course, the big herd of buffalo that straddled the Angola/Namibia cutline.
Savimbi used these pockets of game as proof that he had a strong and working conservation policy. He also used these areas as a private hunting ground for himself and his friends, especially foreign politicians, generals and economists who could assist him in his war against the MPLA.
The fact that his troops had denuded at least 90% of the vast Quando Cubango by indiscriminate and often planned slaughtering of all game species is therefore considered a myth, particularly by journalists sympathetic to his cause.
I don’t want to discuss the merits of Unita’s war against the MPLA or even their efficiency as guerrilla fighters. I have seen far too much of their performance on the ground to get excited about their soldier-like qualities. What I do object to, and want to discuss, are the moral issues involved when wild animals are slaughtered to support a war effort.
Bear in mind that apart from vast numbers and a tremendous variety of African savannah game species, the Quando Cubango had nothing else to offer. There were no mines, industries, cities, energy sources or agricultural potential that could be tapped to support Savimbi’s long, drawn-out war. The only resource available was the game, particularly the vast herds of elephant and a considerable number of rhinos.
Savimbi considered his fight for his version of democracy to be of greater importance than the continued existence of elephant herds and black rhinos belonging to the scarce Chobiense sub-species.
He started to shoot these two species on an organised basis. The tusks and rhino horn were stockpiled at Jamba, while a means was sought to export the loot to the Far East, particularly Hong Kong.
Savimbi claimed that he had to pay South Africa for its assistance with ivory and diamonds, according to Fred Bridgeland in his book Jonas Savimbi: The Key to Africa. However, this is a misrepresentation by Savimbi. I know that the support budgeted by Military Intelligence in 1986/87 amounted to R400-million. I also know that with that money the South Africans bought virtually all Savimbi’s military hardware fuel and clothing. The money for supporting Unita came out of the South African taxpayer’s pocket.
I am all for a just war, but I have great difficulty in reconciling the justness of war against the wholesale rape of the African savannah’s last outpost.
Savimbi might have been a better ruler for Angola than (Eduardo) dos Santos, but then again, he might not. From what I have seen of Africa and experienced at first hand through a whole string of wars in at least six different African countries, an improvement in government does not automatically follow change, which in any event is usually achieved by violent means. More often than not, a change in government ushers in deterioration. Sometimes the new broom will sweep clean for a while, only to lapse into mediocrity on a par with most other governments in Africa.
To sacrifice the last stronghold of the African savannah for the precarious freedoms promised by Savimbi, which would go unnoticed by at least 80% of the Angolan population anyway is, to my way of thinking, utterly despicable and an offence against God’s creation.
Then there was the inherent deviousness that formed an integral part of the whole process of getting the ivory to the Hong Kong markets that tended to corrupt those running the operation. In this particular case, the operation resulted in former well-respected officers in the defence force becoming tainted with the rotten smell that permeates the process of smuggling game products.
What really rankled was the calculating way in which those beautiful animals were appraised by the scheming eyes of South African Military Intelligence officers. To them, an elephant was a huge piece of worthless, mobile meat, carrying towards its front end valuable tusks under its ludicrous, hosepipe nose. These were the same men who thought I had a screw loose because I befriended the big cats. Waxing lyrical about a herd of buffalo or sable was considered tantamount to knocking at the door of a lunatic asylum. To show emotion over the unnecessary death of a kudu, run down by a speeding truck at night, served only to confirm one’s madness.
These were people whose idea of getting close to nature was to have a braai, somewhere in a wild spot along the Quando, with plenty of booze to accompany the feast. If one could do that every night for a week or so, with a spot of hunting thrown in, preferably from the back of a Land Cruiser, one was really communing with nature.
Someone who strolled through the bush, unarmed, following elephant footpaths and spending hours observing the antics of the various animals while coping patiently with tsetses and the pesky little mopane flies, was not considered a red-blooded South African whose roots were embedded in African soil. He was placed on a par with the fanatical Green Peacers from Europe and treated with the same derision.
I got my first inkling of what was going on when Manie Grobler cornered me one day and asked if I had any knowledge of several million rands worth of ivory waiting to be picked up from an airstrip in the Caprivi.
I had no knowledge of such a huge cache. Evidently Manie had been approached by a private pilot, who informed him that he was on his way to the Caprivi to pick up ivory for Military Intelligence.
There are three airstrips in the Caprivi. One is an all-weather tarred runway at Omega, capable of taking virtually any plane. A shortish dirt strip, known as Immelman, served Fort St Michl and Fort Doppies. A third dirt strip served the Military Intelligence installations in the vicinity of Bwabwata.
I came to the conclusion that the ivory was to be flown out of Bwabwata and advised Manie to contact his counterpart in Rundu with a request that he approach a certain colonel who had regular contact with Savimbi. I was of the opinion that the ivory could be a Unita stockpile.
A week or so later Manie, fuming with anger, informed me that he had received a message from this colonel, via an alcoholic middleman, to lay off inquiring about the ivory or else he would get “sorted out”.
Now Manie Grobler, although a biologist, is also a nature conservation officer and thus a law enforcement officer. Notwithstanding Manie’s position, the army colonel clearly considered himself and the organisation for which he worked to be above the law.
As a military man myself and one who was proud of my profession, I was disgusted that a senior officer should drag the name of the SADF through the mud by ignoring the laws of the country he was fighting for. But his action also set alarm bells ringing. Something was obviously not right.
I began making inquiries and putting together the few facts I could glean. The picture that gradually began to emerge was an ugly one and, at first, I found it hard to believe. Not in my worst nightmare could I have imagined that officers in the SADF would get involved in something that would be worthy of the Mafia.
The eccentric editor of a well-known Windhoek newspaper printed several incredible reports about a Portuguese crime boss, based in Rundu, who ran a smuggling ring operating between southern Angola and South Africa. Week after week, more startling disclosures were made.
The editor himself went to Rundu to investigate persistent rumours about the smuggling ring and ended up in a potentially dangerous confrontation.
The Portuguese had erected a high and sturdy security fence around his property, but somehow, the intrepid journalist managed to get inside. Subsequently, photographs were splashed all over the front page of his newspaper showing a mean- looking Portuguese in a cowboy hat, threatening the editor with a rifle.
All this made good copy, as the newsmen say, but none of it was taken seriously. I laughed with the best of them over the editor’s fertile imagination.
But when Manie Grobler told me about the ivory hoard, I began to have second thoughts, especially when a series of unexplained events came to my attention.
There were the accidental deaths of a policeman and a Rundu nature conservator, the only two “outsiders” who knew about the ivory racket at that time. The death of the conservator coincided with the mysterious disappearance of incriminating tapes from his briefcase before nature conservation officials from Grootfontein could retrieve them from the car wreck. Unfortunately, those were the only copies of the tapes in existence.
Then there was a cache of 70 tusks dug up in the kitchen of a Portuguese employee of the Rundu “godfather”. He was working on a road being constructed by his boss between Kongola and Lianshulu when he was arrested and his employer lost no time in getting to the court-house to pay the paltry R50 fine that was imposed, then promptly packed the fellow off to Swaziland, where he probably became engaged in opening up the Moambique arm of the ivory smuggling racket.
Another load of ivory, comprising 270 tusks, was intercepted in Namibia and the two smugglers, both Angolans, were given another ludicrously small fine which was promptly paid. They worked for the same Portuguese man from Rundu.
In all these cases, the accused simply pleaded guilty, thus avoiding having to give evidence and run the risk of cross- examination by the prosecution.
The Portuguese businessman then expanded his enterprises, placing one of his countrymen in charge of a shop he had bought in Katima. Soon the ivory flood to the south increased.
A Portuguese greengrocer would travel from the Republic every week in a pantechnicon crammed with fresh produce, making the return trip with an empty vehicle – or so we thought. Following a tip-off, he was searched at the Ngoma customs post on his way out and 80 tusks were found in false compartments. He was also given a ludicrous fine, something like R1 000, which he paid out of his small change.
Thanks to the help of other conservators, reliable information from a policeman friend, stationed in Rundu, and the Windhoek editor’s reports, which cut close to the bone, a grim picture materialised.
South African Military Intelligence had set up an organisation to ferry equipment into southern Angola for Unita and transport wood back to the Republic, with the idea of making money for Savimbi. This organisation, known as Inter Frama, was under the control of two Portuguese, one in Rundu named Lopez, or Lops, and one in Johannesburg, named Maya. I knew Lopez well and I had met Maya.
I heard about Inter Frama from colleagues who, like me, worked for Military Intelligence. It was supposed to be a “secret” organisation, but in due course, Inter Frama became an open secret, known throughout Namibia.
The organisation’s trucks pounded the roads between Angola and Pretoria, attracting the attention of our editor friend. The drivers all had passes exempting them and their vehicles from searches at police or army roadblocks on the grounds of security.
The trees were felled in Angola and sawn into planks or railway sleepers at a sawmill belonging to Inter Frama at Bwabwata in the western Caprivi. I must confess that without the slightest pangs of conscience, I pinched some of the sleepers for use in our house at Buffalo Lodge.
Savimbi had pushed for his stockpile of ivory to be exported via South Africa to the Far East and Military Intelligence had agreed, roping in a certain Chinese to take care of the disposal and export of the ivory once it reached Pretoria.
This Chinese, originally from Hong Kong, had previously been used extensively in sanctions-busting operations and was connected via family ties to Hong Kong ivory dealers.
The pipeline was in position and the illegal ivory began to flow down it in a constant stream.
The Official Secrets Act gave more than adequate protection for the covert operation but greed is a strange thing. Like cancer, it begins to feed on what is healthy, firm tissue, and turn it, in time, into a rotten, smelly mess.
This is precisely what happened. This extremely effective and secret pipeline was operating under the protection of the Official Secrets Act for the illegal export of ivory and rhino horn, so why could it not be used to serve individual greed?
Soon, ivory and rhino horn started to come in via a collection point in Katima from Zambia, Zimbabwe and points further north.
The collector was a Portuguese shopkeeper in Katima, running the business for his boss, Mr Lopez. In addition to the ivory, they also channelled mandrax that originated in Lusaka through the store.
I had already accepted the post of park warden for the western Caprivi, but I was still serving in the army, and therefore felt that my first loyalty was to the SADF. I had an impression at the time that the pipeline established by Military Intelligence had unavoidably been corrupted and that the officers in control did not really know what was going on.
So when I was visited by one of the senior intelligence officers in control of support to Unita, I decided to inform him about my suspicions and misgivings, including the mandrax that was being transported along the pipeline from Lusaka to Johannesburg.
I cornered this guy one night on his own, in our boma beside the glowing coals of a warm fire. I gave him all the details and asked him to close the pipeline, to disband the whole operation, to get rid of the Portuguese Mafia and take urgent steps, since the elephant herds and few remaining rhinos were being slaughtered.
He regarded me in stony silence, but a few weeks later, I received a message, via Alistair Macdonald, that my appointment as park warden had been withdrawn at the insistence of the SADF.
I had already indicated that I would retire from the army at the end of 1987 and my immediate reaction was to write a personal letter to the Chief of the SADF, asking on what grounds they had objected to my appointment as warden of the Caprivi game park. This letter was only answered after I had left the army, at which time the Chief of the SADF informed me that he had the matter investigated and found that there were no reasons why I should not stay on in the Caprivi as a park warden. He had informed the nature conservation authorities accordingly.
But Military Intelligence, who seemed to be behind the whole affair, refused to let matters rest. They flew a brigadier to Windhoek to have a personal interview with the senior official who had offered me the job in the first place.
Meanwhile, I had been reinstated, and was looking forward to being able to develop the park in accordance with my blueprint.
So it came as a double blow when Alistair once again turned up at Buffalo Lodge to inform me that the offer had been withdrawn for the second time.
A brigadier in Military Intelligence had succeeded in overturning a decision made by the chief of the defence force himself.
Of course, this unusual interference raised not only my hackles, but my suspicions regarding the involvement of some very senior officers in the smuggling racket. It seemed to me that far from losing control of their own corrupt creation, as I had thought, they had actually decided to enrich themselves along the way.
A certain officer who worked for Military Intelligence informed me that on returning from an operation deep inside Angola one day with his ammunition depleted, he had gone to a store in Rundu to restock. He opened a large box he thought contained ammunition and, to his surprise, found that it was filled with tusks. He then went to another box and found that one also filled with tusks. A third box revealed the same contents, as did one box after another.
The tusks were stored in an official SADF equipment store under control of Military Intelligence. Like a good soldier, the young officer decided to report the matter to his senior commander. This officer listened with some irritation, closed the door to prevent intrusion, and proceeded to lay into the young man in a rather menacing manner, promising all sorts of repercussions, including physical harm, if he should disclose his discovery.
Shortly afterwards, the young officer was posted back to South Africa suffering from “battle fatigue”.
Jan Breytenbach was founder and commander of the infamous 32 Battalion, which fought alongside Savimbi’s Unita forces. He retired as a colonel seconded to Military Intelligence in 1988, the most decorated soldier of the SADF.This is an extract from his latest book, Eden’s Exiles: One Soldier’s Fight for Paradise (Queillerie, R99,95)