Among the rebels negotiating with international mediators in the wake of the military coup in Sao Tome and Principe are three who once belonged to one of the most feared units that fought in apartheid-era South Africa.
The three are trying to shed their dark past as mercenaries and be accepted as normal members of society.
After a failed putsch in this small west African archipelago in 1988, about 70 frustrated coup-makers went off to fight with the South African Buffalo Battalion, a counter-insurgency force known as Os Terriveis or the Terrible Ones.
During the Cold War, the unit fought on behalf of white-ruled South Africa against Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and other Soviet-backed rebel groups in Angola and Namibia.
While most of the men who fought with the battalion stayed in South Africa, 16 returned to Sao Tome and Principe, one of Africa’s smallest countries, which shot into the news after the discovery of offshore oil and last week’s military coup.
Sao Tome sources identified Arlesio Costa, leader of the Christian Democratic Front and one of the rebel negotiators, as a former South African mercenary. Although not in the army, he wears military fatigues.
The sources said he is seeking rehabilitation for the former Buffalo Battalion soldiers, who feel marginalised at home where they are still feared because of their mercenary past.
He also wants the repatriation of the bodies of Sao Tome nationals killed while fighting with the battalion, the sources said.
According to one source, the Sao Tome government has been paying off the mercenaries with undisclosed sums of money to keep them quiet — and avoiding the problem of their marginalisation.
The sources said the former mercenaries have demanded the presence of a South African representative with the mediators seeking to resolve the political crisis stemming from the coup.
As Portuguese speakers, the men from Sao Tome fitted in well with the Buffalo Battalion, a white-led mostly black force that battled Cuban- and Soviet-backed forces in Angola. The battalion was disbanded in 1993.
It was originally formed from members of the Angolan National Liberation Front following their defeat in the 1970s by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. – Sapa-AFP