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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 4 of Episode 28
| Time | Summary | | | 16:05 | We stay north of South Africa’s borders. Tens of thousands of young white South African men fought in Namibia and Angola in the seventies and eighties as national servicemen, the so-called ‘troepies’ on the border were used shamelessly by the government as a way of boosting white patriotism and a laager mentality, essential elements in the apartheid façade. But the price was heavy, too heavy. Apart from all the hundreds of lives lost many former conscripts carry the scars of those wars to this day. This is a story of South Africa’s days of playing regional military super power in the late eighties when the full might of the Defence Force was used in central and south west Angola to defend UNITA against the onslaught of the Angolan government forces. It culminated in the now well-known confrontation of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987. This is the story of a family who lost a son but hasn’t dealt with their loss. They wanted to tell their story but stay anonymous because some members ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 17:14 | This woman is the grandmother of a young man who joined the army’s signal’s core when he was 17. He was sent to Namibia and from there to Angola. Against his will and in a SWAPO uniform, he said. The things he saw there changed him forever. He told his family that he had become an empty shell. And upon his return to civilian life he wrote his story calling it ‘The Diary of a Dying Man,’ then he committed suicide. Now his grandmother feels that the words he had written should be heard. | Full Transcript | | 17:51 | ‘We were issued enemy uniforms, rifles, ammunition, weapon gear and transport. We were to tie yellow scarves on our shoulders to go enemy or not. Major Du Toit was operation commanding officer and Captain Ben Venter field commanding officer over Operation Modular. Infiltration, deep into enemy territory, disguised, we attack. We attack where we can by total surprise. Walk right up to them, shouting, don’t shoot we’re on patrol, we are one of us, in Portuguese and shoot the shit out of everything. // We attacked Luambo and Benguela railway line, big fuck up. Training camp turns out to be Taifun rest camp. Shot the shit out of us. 230 dead. 800 wounded. Three lost - presumed dead. Rough, but almost correct estimate of our losses. As Quatro Puma helicopters flew almost 14 hours non-stop to get us out, to go on again to Cuito Cuanavale. Do you know what it is like to fight 4000 kilometres from home? The worst shit and you wonder why they go nuts. I have run, I have died. I have ...more | Full Transcript | | 19:36 | His grandmother says that PW Botha must release information on how many servicemen were killed during the war. | Full Transcript | | 19:43 | ‘It is a national duty to request and insist that the exact figures on fatal casualties, suicide, disabled and mentally disturbed national servicemen be released according to the Freedom of Information Act, to be put on record in a book of remembrance.’ // What hurts a lot is that they believed in the government. You know, that also hurts. They believed in them. Although they blame the white people, they didn’t know. I still don’t know… and I feel ... I hope that mister Botha has mellowed and he will be humbled, he will humble himself to cooperate. | Full Transcript | | 20:45 | She lives with the memory of her grandson, with the pain she still sees in the eyes of those he left behind and with the words he wanted them to remember him by. // ‘I hurt so I can’t cry anymore. It’s driving me insane. God help me. Come down and speak my pain into people I love. Tell them how I feel, let them know I can’t live like this. They say you have never lived until you have almost died. I have died on the 27th of October 1987. It’s kind of funny to know that you will die in less than nine hours. Everything is different. It is as if your soul knows.’ | Full Transcript |
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