Koevoet

Namibia, mineral-rich country with a long Atlantic coastline, borders Angola, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia

Koevoet (Afrikaans and Dutch for crowbar), also known as "Operation K" and officially known as the "South West Africa Police Counter-Insurgency Unit" (SWAPOL-COIN), was a police counter insurgency unit in South-West Africa (now Namibia) during the 1970s and 1980s. ("Crowbar" was an allusion to their mission of prying insurgents from the local population).

Koevoet was the most effective paramilitary unit deployed against SWAPO fighters during the Namibian War of Independence.It was particularly known for its indiscriminate brutality and use of torture during that conflict.

History

Background

See also: History of Namibia

See also: Decolonization of Africa

At the end of World War I South-West Africa became a South Africa Protectorate. By the 1960s many African nations were embroiled in struggles for independence from colonial powers like Belgium, Britain, France and Portugal. In Southern Africa this took the form of guerrilla warfare supported by the Soviet Union and China, both seeking to expand their influence in Africa.

South Africa's government watched with concern as low intensity wars in neighbouring countries ousted white-dominated governments, replacing them with one party states based on various brands of communism. First came Mozambique and Angola in 1975 followed by the Republic of Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) in 1980.

The South African government stepped up its efforts to retain control over South-West Africa which, in its view, it was legally claiming under the issuing authority of the League of Nations (LON) in 1919 after the defeat of Imperial Germany. The South African Government had fought to protect the "C" protectorate status of SWA in The Hague on three occasions and won two of the decisions, in favour of the RSA maintaining its administrative control over SWA. The South African Government had consistently defended the position that SWA was placed under [their] control by the League of Nations and not by the United Nations (organised in 1946) thus recognizing the decision of the LON and refuting the remedy of the UN which the RSA government "felt" in no contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 of 1978.

South African Border War

Main article: South African Border War

At the time, South Africa saw itself as the only country on the sub-continent that could stave off the onslaught of communism. As such, South-West Africa and its northern border with Angola was the one battleground that South Africa had to control if it was to weaken the Cuban-backed South-West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO).

Rising insurgency

In many countries there is a formal separation of duties between law enforcement and the military. The former is generally responsible for domestic issues while the latter is deployed in defence of the nation. At first this philosophy was adopted in South-West Africa. Guerilla operations inside the country were dealt with by the police. Insurgents were seen as common criminals that should be processed by the criminal justice system. However, insurgents used military equipment which normal police officers were not equipped or trained to deal with. A better armed and better trained unit capable of facing such challenges was thus established within the South-West African Police (SWAPOL) force: Koevoet.

The paramilitary was founded in 1978 by Colonel Hans Dreyer, a veteran of the Rhodesian Special Air Service and an avid scholar of counter-insurgency combat. He seemed to have been especially inspired by the Selous Scouts, an elite force which clearly demonstrated how small units, trained to unusually high levels of expertise, could have an effect utterly disproportionate to their size.

Koevoet was largely based around the Namibia-Angola border and the Caprivi Strip. Most of the recruits were black policemen led by white officers. A few mercenaries and former FNLA/UNITA operatives from Angola were also known to have served in the unit, along with former SWAPO guerillas who were given a chance to serve the South African authorities by joining Koevoet's ranks. Early 1979 saw the first Koevoet operations carried out by ten trained troopers and about sixty local conscripts. These were largely involving surveillance of suspected SWAPO activists, known Communists, and other criminals. By late 1980, however, Koevoet had carried out several raids on guerilla camps and engaged in violent firefights with SWAPO fighters. According to the South West African authorities, in that year alone five hundred rebel operatives were killed or arrested by the paramilitary at the cost of only twelve men.

A large part of Koevoet's later work included APC patrols into SWAPO-held areas. Sometimes mortar attacks were carried out on guerilla camps, followed by armoured assaults. If necessary, a number of the operators would later dismount and pursue the enemy with small arms. Skilled trackers drawn from the local population were also hired to hunt down fugutives sought by the police. Clashes between SWAPO and Koevoet became increasingly costly and fierce; in 1989 official estimates suggested that over three thousand guerilla fighters were being killed or captured each year by the one unit alone. Their use of torture and assassination, however, proved to be their undoing; SWAPO compiled a list of atrocities committed by Koevoet which was promptly released to the international press. Even the South African government finally bowed to pressure and tried several operators for murder. In 1985 heavily armed Koevoet squads indiscriminately opened fire on anti-apartheid protestors in Winhoek.

By the mid 1980's, certain estimates put Koevoet's size at over a thousand troops. The organization established its formal headquarters in the present day town of Oshakati, Namibia.

Disbanded

SWAPO's accusations that Koevoet had conducted intimidation of voters during registration for the election was taken up by the United Nations. Consequently, in October 1989, Koevoet was disbanded so that SWAPO could not accuse South Africa of influencing the election. Its members were incorporated nationwide into the South West African Police (SWAPOL). A notable percentage of operators were also known to have taken up work with the South-West Africa Territorial Force.

The Koevoet issue was one of the most difficult the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) had to face. Because the unit was formed after the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 of 1978 (calling for South Africa's immediate withdrawal from Namibia), it was not mentioned in the eventual settlement proposal or related documents. Once Koevoet's role became clear, the UN Secretary-General took the position that it was a paramilitary unit and, as such, should be disbanded as soon as the settlement proposal took effect. About 2,000 of its members had been absorbed into SWAPOL before the implementation date of April 1, 1989 but they reverted to their former role against the SWAPO insurgents in the "events" of early April 1989. Although ostensibly re-incorporated into SWAPOL in mid-May, the ex-Koevoet personnel continued to operate as a counter-insurgency unit travelling around the north in armoured and heavily armed convoys. In June 1989, the UN Special Representative in Namibia and head of UNTAG, Martti Ahtisaari, told the Administrator-General (South African appointee Louis Pienaar) that this behaviour was inconsistent with the settlement proposal, which required the police to be lightly armed. Some Koevoet operators later maintained that where the SWAPOL-COIN police forces were weakened in order to meet the demand set by the proposal document, SWAPO had not yet relinquished its position and capabilities as an armed insurgent force, thus necessitating their cautious defiance.

The vast majority of the ex-Koevoet personnel were quite unsuited for continued employment in Namibian law enforcement and, if the issue was not dealt with soon, Ahtisaari threatened to dismiss Pienaar.

Ahtisaari's tough stance in respect of these continuing Koevoet operations made him a target of the South African Civil Cooperation Bureau. According to a hearing in September 2000 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, two CCB operatives (Kobus le Roux and Ferdinand Barnard) were tasked to give the UNTAG leader a "good hiding". To carry out the assault, Barnard had planned to use the grip handle of a metal saw as a knuckleduster. In the event, Ahtisaari did not attend the meeting at the Keetmanshoop Hotel, where Le Roux and Barnard were laying in wait for him, and thus escaped injury.

There ensued a difficult process of negotiation with the South African government which continued for several months. The UN Secretary-General pressed for the removal of all ex-Koevoet elements from SWAPOL, with Ahtisaari bringing to Pienaar's attention many allegations of misconduct by them. UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar visited Namibia in July 1989, following which the UN Security Council demanded that Koevoet formally disarm and the dismantle its command structure. Under such pressure, the South African foreign minister, Pik Botha, announced on September 28, 1989 that some 1,200 ex-Koevoet members of SWAPOL would be demobilized the next day. A further 400 such personnel were demobilized on October 30 - both events were supervised by UNTAG military monitors.

Structure

Koevoet was a +-1000-man force consisting of about 900 Ovambo and about 300 white officers and SAP non-commissioned officers (NCOs). It was organized into 40 to 50-man platoons equipped largely with mine-resistant armored personnel carriers called Casspirs and Wolf Turbo s for conducting patrols, a Duiker fuel truck and a Blesbok supply vehicle (both variants of a Casspir). They rotated one week in the bush for one week at camp.

There were three Koevoet units based in Kaokaland, Kavango, and Ovambo with each unit over several platoons.

Koevet's internal structure was the brainchild of Hans Dreyer (later a Major-General in the SAP) to develop and exploit counter-insurgency intelligence. The concept was originally modeled on the Portuguese Flechas and Rhodesia's Selous Scouts.

Koevoet operatives learned many of their later tactics during service in the Rhodesian Bush War. A number of the men were originally sent as part of a South African support unit which trained under the BSAP paramilitary. It was because of this past association with the BSAP (Known as the "Black Boots" for their distinctly black footwear) that Koevoet would subsequently be referred to commonly as the "Green Boots". Several members of the former organization were later offered positions in Koevoet following the end of Rhodesia's white minority rule.

Training

The white officers were either South-West African or South-African police officers and, as often as not, untrained for what were effectively military operations. Accordingly, these officers were usually sent for additional training with South African Special Forces Brigade in bushcraft, tracking and small arms handling and tactics.

The Ovambo and Bushman trackers were rated as Special Constables, who essentially underwent intensive basic infantry training although many were captured and "turned" SWAPO fighters that had already received training elsewhere.

From a Koevoet Operators perspective, Special Constables were "TIN" or "COIN" ("Teen Insurgensie" in Afrikaans) or in English " Counter Insurgency", and Koevoet Operators (local) were KOEVOETE (meaning plural of Koevoet) and were "a cut above the rest (of Special Constables)" because they had been accepted.

The trackers of the unit in the early days were local Owambu and not Bushmen as often claimed but operations were conducted with the bushman and paratrooper "bat" units with success. The Owambu, although accepting the skills of the bushmen, were in close competition and were in actual tracking and not just knowledgeable of the habits of the "tracked" equal.

Tactics

Koevoet operations were devoted to tracking groups of SWAPO fighters who were on foot. Their tracks were picked up in various ways, but most often from:

• Patrols of areas favoured for crossing by SWAPO fighters.
• Information from local inhabitants.
• From areas surrounding a recent attack.

Once a suspicious track was found, a vehicle would leap-frog ahead a few kilometres to check for the same tracks, and once found, the other vehicles would race up to join them. Using this technique they could make quickly catch up with the guerillas who were travelling on foot. The technique borrows strongly from experience gained during the Rhodesian Bush War.

The trackers were so skilled at their art that they could provide very accurate estimates on the distance to the enemy, the speed at which they were travelling and their states of mind. They were able to do this by "reading" factors such as abandoned equipment, changes from walking to running speed, reduced attempts at anti-tracking or splintering into smaller groups taking different directions ("bomb shelling").

Once the trackers sensed that the SWAPO fighters were close, they would often retreat to the safety of the Casspir armoured personnel carriers to face an enemy typically armed with RPG-7 rocket launchers, rifle grenades, AK-47s, SKS carbines and RPK and PKM machine guns.

Koevoet members were financially rewarded through bounty system, which paid them for kills, prisoners and equipment they captured. This practice allowed many of the members to earn significantly more than their normal salary, and resulted in competition between units.

See also

• Civil Cooperation Bureau
• Counter insurgency
• SWAPO
• Executive Outcomes
• History of Namibia
• South African Border War
• Angolan Civil War

Further reading

• Stiff, P. The Covert War: Koevoet Operations in Namibia 1979-1989, Galago Publishing Pty Ltd, 2000. ISBN 1-919854-03-7

Notes

• ^ Lise Morjé Howard: UN Peace Implementation in Namibia: The Causes of Success in International Peacekeeping, Vol.9, No.1, Spring 2002, pp. 99–132; also The New York Times of 15 January 1989 states that Koevoet were responsible for approximately 80% of Namibian deaths.

References

• Koevoet member Confesses to Commission
• Sean Mark Callaghan Application for Amnesty

External links

• United Nations Transition Assistance Group
• elite Crowbar Unit Footage and interview with ex-Koevoet members