Non.Fiction.02.Immediate.Action.1995 by McNab Andy

Author:McNab, Andy [McNab, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The chief opposition force to the apartheid regime in South Africa was the African National Congress. It had been crippled by the arrest of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the early sixties but revived after the Soweto riots in 1976. Each time the government banned a moderate black opposition group, the A.N.C's membership swelled. In 1980 it began a successful bombing campaign, attacking plants manufacturing oil from coal.

In December 1982 the South African military raided Lesotho and killed forty-two members of the A.N.C in Maseru. In May 1983 a car bomb outside the Ministry of Defense in Pretoria killed nineteen people and injured over two hundred, including many black civilians. The bombing campaign increased after the 1984-86 riots.

There were scores of attacks throughout South Africa, killing many people.

Then, in June 1985, South African forces carried out a raid on Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Several ral homes were raided, and twelve men, allegedly A.N.C members, were killed in their sleep. The South African government alleged that Botswana territory was used by A.N.C guerrillas to launch attacks inside South Africa, including recent mine blasts that had killed white farmers near the border. Botswana rejected the claims, arguing that it did its utmost to prevent A.N.C military activities inside its territory.

Botswana appealed to the British for help; the appeal was approved by Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe and a. Regiment squadron of eighty men was to be sent to train Botswana's soldiers to defend their country against border raids by Big Brother. Selected soldiers from the BDF (Botswana Defense Force) would be given special training, including techniques of aggressive counterattack to neutralize South African raiding parties. We were told the training would take place in the north of the country, well away from the South African border.

We would not be involved in any contact with the S.A.D.F (South African Defense Force).

The Botswana Defense Force's mobility was shortly to be enhanced by the arrival of a number of helicopters to be provided by the U.S under a ten-million-dollar military aid program. The U.S was also providing special training in counter intelligence techniques to the Botswana security forces to offset penetration by South African agents; the skills we taught them would also make it easier for the BDF to detect any counterinfiltration by A.N.C guerrillas.

We finished our planning and preparation for the job.

Everything, we were told, was TS (top secret). The squadron would be flying from Brize Norton to Kenya, because that was not an unusual troop movement. From there we'd all be splitting off into little groups, making our way into Botswana by different timings and routes.

We got to Kenya and split up. Six of us stayed in the country for a while; others were going off to other African countries for a few days before starting to filter into Botswana to our squadron RP. Some of the blokes went off on safaris while they were biding their time; I mooched around with Ben, a jock who'd just joined the squadron. We

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