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  1. #1
    Moderator KK20's Avatar
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    Default May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    live out your imagination , not your history.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    Thanks for posting this.
    Always helpfull to be reminded of the opposite perspective in a conflict. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...

  3. #3
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    Default Re: May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    Just watched this. I guess the take away from it is that the PBs got screwed over, as is always the case in war. To me, this documentary presents a very biased and in many instances, incorrect view - Koevoet "death parade"?

    Correct me if I'm wrong but that was standard practice to bring back bodies for fingerprinting / other intel gathering purposes? Makes perfect sense to me. Who would want a leaking corpse in their crammed, hot steel vehicle?

    As for Cassinga itself, lol.

  4. #4
    User Paul's Avatar
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    Default Re: May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    Hmmm...

    OK, I'll play...

    This piece of propaganda makes several assumptions and mistakes which are telling. The 'conscription' they speak of was purely the white and so-called coloured population, as in South Africa itself. And of this the white population bore the brunt of conscription... just as in SA.

    The Owambo (mostly Kwanyama and Ndonga) flocked to the recruiting stations in ever-increasing numbers. And NOT for the pay (which was standard, rotten, SADF pay).

    You see... the war was not waged against the SADF in the main (the propaganda piece makes mention of attacks against strategic targets and the military). This was a guerilla war, waged mostly against the civilian population, with few and signal exceptions. This was a war for the 'hearts and minds' of the Owambo population... based on the principle that if you have the population by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. This was a war of landmines planted on kraal tracks, of standoff mortar barrages, of execution and torture of local Owambo. Only occasionally was the war waged directly against the SADF/SWATF, and then mostly because we had tracked them down and brought them to contact.

    To be sure, PLAN fought fiercely and bravely when they were brought to contact... as at Cassinga. To claim otherwise would be to deny brave men their recognition... on both sides.

    One of my friends' father and uncle was assassinated by the expedient of a landmine planted inside the gate of his kraal near Eenhana in 1981. He was an Owambo leader and involved with the DTA to bring about Resolution 439 as quickly as possible. PLAN murdered him because they had no interest in a peaceful transition of power. They had images of themselves riding into Windhoek on the turret of a T72... to local adulation. This was above all a Soviet-driven internecine struggle for political hegemony.

    This was proven beyond any reasonable doubt when, on April 1 1989, after we had been demobbed, our heavy weapons packed away, Koevoet disbanded, the UN Transitional Assistance Group fully installed in the runup to UN-monitored 'free and fair' elections, Sam Nujoma launched a massive sneak attack on Namibia by a well-armed and organised conventional brigade that he had massed north of the Namibian border.

    The Namibian people (101 was no longer in existence) rose up and thrashed PLAN roundly. Nujoma, in a desperate attempt to hide his treachery, used heavy machinery to create mass graves for his PLAN fighters... under the noses of UNTAG and the much-vaunted international community.

    Years later, my good friend Karel Njoba was implored to return to Namibia by PLAN (to their ever-lasting credit) to recreate a professional Defence Force for the country. Karel died a few years ago of cancer whilst serving as Namibia's Military Attache to Germany... a necessary step as a future Chief of the NDF.

    It's not at all as simple as it sounds.
    "Always remember to pillage before you burn"
    Unknown Barbarian

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    Default Re: May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    Cheers Paul.

  6. #6
    Moderator KK20's Avatar
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    Default Re: May 4 : Casinga Day - Namibia no easy road to freedom.

    live out your imagination , not your history.

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