Skeptik
Banned
PART 1
RiP THE REPATRIATION OF OUR FOUR FALLEN COMRADES.
Contact details: RESEARCHER
Land line :012 6585090 IN RECENT SOUTH AFRICAN
Mobile :082 415 7117 MILITARY HISTORY
Facsimile :012 658 5090 20 JUNE 2007
PostalO box 10028.
Centurion 0046
mailto: [email protected]
THE REPATRIATION OF OUR FOUR FALLEN COMRADES.
My Greeting to one and all again, this is what army language calls a SITRAP[sic], a situation Report. As I sent one out in March this year I will table this one as SITPAP number 2. It covers the position where we stand at the moment as far as bringing our fallen soldiers, the young men who fought for their Country whether they believed in the Government’s policies or not. A soldier as we know, is there to carry out the orders given to him from his superiors. As you know, the four soldiers were:
a. Captain Daniël J (Tallies) Taljaard SAIC 7 SAI Bn.
b. 2nd Lieutenant Keith A Williamson 11 Squadron SAAF
c. 2nd Lieutenant Eric B Thompson 11 Squadron SAAF
d. Trooper Niel Lombard SAAC 1 SSB
Going through me address lists I have addressed this to those that I remember showed an interest in the proceeding since the search began. Some of you heralded to my appeal on behalf of the families for donations. I thank you very much. In rand and cents we have been able to accumulate a considerable amount but once converted to US$ it is still very little. This time, I am not appealing for donations, although a donation would always be welcome. The essence of the sitrap is to bring you, the people that have showed an interest in the search and an interest in the repatriation of the remains of our fallen comrades up to date with the latest developments.
SITRAP:
We located the graves July 11th last year. Since then I have been trying to get the necessary authorizations, certificates and documentation ready so that we (a family member of each family and myself could go up there and supervise the exhuming of the graves and then bring the remains back to South Africa. Easier said than done and before I realised it here was a much bigger task or mission than previously expected.
At that stage, January/February 2007, we were looking at three scenarios:
a. To fly to SAA Luanda and to hire two 4x4 vehicles and travel by road down to Waku Kunga (Santa Comba) where my contact lived and where the closest hotel to the gravesite is situated. Stay in the hotel there and travel the 200 km per day to the gravesites and, by using local labour, exhume the remains. Once we had the remains, return to Luanda and fly back home with the remains.
b. To charter a private aircraft and after landing at Oshakati/Ondongwa for custom clearance, continue to the airfield at Cela. From here we would try and “borrow” vehicles to go to the gravesites. Here we would have to charter the plane and pilot(s) for the whole period as well as pay fuel and landing charges. We would have to accommodate them in the hotel as well.
c. To go by road from Johannesburg to Waku Kunga and on to Ebo and the gravesites. Return again by road. This would be a grueling six-day trip (if all went well,) staying at least one night alongside the road. The same for returning. Running costs repairs paying of drivers/interpreters would have to be taken into consideration.
With all of these finance was the overriding factor. An air ticket return to Luanda is R6000. The hire of vehicles from $120.00 per day (it is advisable to take one of the hire firm’s drivers. An extra $20.00 to $40.00 per day. (Plus fuel) Hotel: B&B $80.00 per day. Payment of labour, handouts and bribes must also be considered. I have been lucky enough to get first hand information from people who have just returned from a similar mission and an organized tour group that were able to give me valuable tips and information of what to expect and help me with an estimate costing. The worst-case scenario is that we must look at $20 000. But as thing are turning out, we can almost discard the worse case scenario. We still are however very short of finance. Luckily a few donators heralded to plea and came to the fore. I want to express my deepest appreciation to these organizations. Not knowing what the final situation will be, it is difficult to put a figure on what the expected outlay will be. As you see in the different scenarios, the figure will differ from one scenario to the next. Any moneys left over will go to veteran organizations for the upkeep and possible expansion of care for the aged.
What I did not include in the last sitrap was the fact that I was (and hopefully, am,) in consultation with the Honourable Minister of Defence, Mr Mosiua Lekota. On 6 December 2006, I gave him and his personal staff an in-depth briefing on the incident and his response was very positive saying “We, my staff and I, will assist you as much as we can excepting you cannot expect us (the government,) to make any financial contribution. That you must provide.” I accepted his words on good faith. We were and we are collecting our own funds. He asked me further what time frame we were looking at. My answer was that the tropical rain season had set arrived in Central Angola and that it was impossible to move in the area until the rains abated. I said further that we were looking at a date of somewhere in the region of the last two weeks in March/beginning of April. He was pleased at this as: “This gives my staff time to work on all the administration.” He further asked that I specify what I expected from him, (the Minister of Defence,) to do. This I gave to his Chief of Operational Staff in writing.
Through my contacts, my small party and myself were offered the opportunity of flying in with a special United Nations Chartered aircraft leaving on April 14th. They were to fly in to Huambo (Angola,) from where we would hire vehicles to travel the four hundred kilometers to Waku Kunga, (the nearest hotel accommodation to the gravesites.) We would conduct our business there and return to Huambo and fly out again with the United Nations aircraft four days later. I would thus have to have the clearance certificates, permissions and authorizations that I had asked the Minister’s office to obtain by April 13th.
Unfortunately, his personal staff slipped up and between December 2006 and March 2007, nothing was done and to date (it seems,) still nothing has been done. I cannot get an interview with the Minister unless I go through his personal staff and without being biased, it seem as if they are blocking my requests.
If anyone has direct access to the ministers e-mail address I would appreciate being helped. The end result here was that without the clearance certificates, it will serve no purpose to go into Angola to retrieve the remains.
Originally, I set the finding of the locations of the graves as a primary objective and as a secondary objective, the repatriation of the remains of our comrades, the first objective, I have achieved. I will not settle for less. I have over the past few weeks/months received offers that have made the achieving of the objectives more of a reality. One organization held a Golf Day and made a collection.
It appears as if the Government of the Republic of South Africa / SADF/ SANDF and unfortunately I must say numerous Veteran Organizations are not interested in retrieving our soldiers but are prepared to let them lay in a foreign country in untended (up to now unknown) graves, while their families were not even informed of where and how their son’s had died, I have been able to inform the families of how and where the four soldiers were killed. I have assured them that I will not rest until I am able to get them out. The minor threats and attitude of some of the members has not in any way put me off. In fact it has made my resolution even stronger.
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Dude, how old are you? You may be too young to remember but S.A. fought in a bush war in Angola? I'm assuming they were killed in action.
