This is episode 43 and we’re into 1980. Last episode we met Tannie Pompie van der Westhuysen and touched on a growing sign of PLAN action through late 1979. 1980 was going to be a momentous year in Border War history and from now on, the combat ramps up along with the casualties on all sites. Up until now the SADF had been winging it – using a pastiche of military techniques backed up by a somewhat haphazard political agenda. To outsiders it appeared that the National Party was organised and focused but the real situation was far more chaotic. Then PW Botha took over from BJ Vorster and the hawks in the party won out in 1980. Not that Vorster appeared soft and gentle to outsiders, but in terms of the overall political strategy he’d been advocating a negotiated settlement from the immediate position while Botha preferred a future negotiated settlement from a future position of military strength. So in February 1980 in the Triangle of Death, that zone between Grootfontein, Tsumeb and Otavi, the farmers were gearing up for what was going to be an escalation of the war. There were few incidents again for a week, then on 22nd February the Dressel family were up and about in the morning aware that something was amiss. First their dogs began barking constantly, then they tried the landline, but the telephone was dead. Sonja Dressel was about to turn into a hero.

Desmond Latham

Much has been written about the South African Border war which is also known as the Namibian War of Independence. While the fighting was ostensibly about Namibia, most of the significant battles were fought inside Namibia’s northern neighbour, Angola. South Africa’s 23 year border war has been almost forgotten as the Cold War ebbed away and bygones were swept under the political carpet. South African politicians, particularly the ANC and the National Party, decided during negotiations to end years of conflict that the Truth and Reconciliation commission would focus on the internal struggle inside South Africa. For most conscripts in the South African Defence Force, the SADF, they completed matric and then were drafted into the military. For SWAPO or UNITA or the MPLA army FAPLA it was a similar experience but defined largely by a political awakening and usually linked to information spread through villages and in towns. This was a young person’s war which most wars are – after all the most disposable members of society are its young men. Nor was it simply a war between white and black. IT was more a conflict on the ground between red and green. Communism and Capitalism. The other reality was despite being a low-key war, it was high intensity and at times featured by unconventional warfare as well as conventional. At times SADF soldiers would be on foot, walking patrols or SWAPO on foot, launching attacks across the border. But there were motorised heavy vehicles, tanks, artillery, air bombardments and mechanised units rolling into attack each other. For some that was a nightmare, for others, freedom. At times youngsters from the suburbs of Pretoria or Durban were fighting experienced soldiers from Russia and Cuba. For veterans the territory would come to be known as “Nam” as the experience replicated the American experience in Vietnam to some extent.

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