Episode 42 – The Triangle of Death in 1979 and an introduction to Tannie Pompie

Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me your host, Death Slavery. This is episode 42, it's 1979, and all hell is breaking loose as the Redezion Bush War reaches its apogee and swamper increases its incursions into a vumberland and down into the triangle of death for the south. In this episode we'll meet an extraordinary woman called Tony Pompi, real name Pompi Ponder best hasn't. She's been lauded and memorialized by retired members of the SADF for good reasons. This idea every day that civilians play such a crucial role in communication in the midst of a war, and Tony Pompi was one of those ineffectable figures that history produces every night. By every 1979 Swapo Incursions became known as the Winter Games in a kind of content attitude of symbolic physiology because these were now taking place mainly in the summer. But it was during the rainy season, so the Winter Games, as they were known, accelerated starting at this point. The Triangle of Death, lay between Sumib, Otavi and Krutfontein. The Triangle starts around 80km south east of the Toshepan, and is well-watered making the Bush thick and extremely useful as cover if you're planning attacks on farms, which was precisely what Swapo was planning. Now the start of 1979 locals were being asked to join the commanders, or civilian units, because it was clear that Swapo's armed wing planned were in the area. Pompi Ponder best hasn't had heard word of the shots and explosions being reported near her parents' house in the Oshikongo district closer to Angola's border. Her kids would now talk of how the tourists were close, of course they were confining that word with the other at the time, terrorists, still the war seemed far away. The family lived on the farm Kudu's Flay, and the sounds of war were approaching year by year, starting in 1975, when Portuguese refugees fled south from Angola away from their war independence, then the terrible civil war. Sixty-one mech had also recently arrived, and he was going to be a close working relationship between the farmer's wife, who was a wizard with military radio procedure, and the battalion, who is going to hear it through the series. By November 1979, 61 mech was in sconce in their base at Umutia, where they'd remain for the duration of the border war. The people of the Triangle of Death farmed a variety of crops. The roots on the farm wilderness, for example, produced waterminens, others farmed cattle and some had gamepox. These are large farms for the most part, isolated, and therefore exposed. South of the Catalan, the two-meb commander was responsible for protection services here, the early warning system. The sand roads were swept by buffled troop carriers, dragging logs or metal bars, which meant anyone walking these routes during the dry season would be easy to spot. During the summer rainfall period, that became more difficult, thus Swapo focused their activities between the months of November and April to a large extent. There was one big problem with the drag roads strategy anyway. Swapo would already be inside northern South Africa, when their spool was spotted. So in May 1979, Venom and Liena Rurt loaded their bucket full of waterminens and headed off to Tumut. They left Granny and two youngsters behind, their son, who was three and their daughter, who was around four. The other children were attending boarding school in Tumut. Up to this point in the border war, white Namibians, civilians had been spared the pain of the civil war raging inside Angola, and the summary executions of November land officials and black civilians inside northern South West. It was only a matter of time, though, before the white farmers were going to find themselves targeted. Life wasn't going to be a simple matter of prior flasing, brane and upscope, anymore. German Southwesters such as Rhinon Friedrich, a third generation local of the area, were more aware, which was likely to happen next. He had been training his son or Bushman workers to prepare for the bad days, likely to come since the late 1960s, and while other farmers in the area sniggered behind his back at times, his prep work was going to come in handy shortly. He lived east of the Ruots Farm wilderness further along the dirt track out of Tumut. Mr Rhinon was growing concerned about other matters, as the threats increased the local police and the SCDF and Southwest African Defence Force appeared to be at odds and did not share information. That's a bit dense in the middle of an existential threat, you'd say, but not unusual, unfortunately, is often conflict amongst various security forces. There was also an ongoing war about who were the best trackers, was it the police, or the Defence Force. What is known as a pissing competition, which makes your head shake these days, but on the 8th of May 1979 this refusal to share information was going to turn deadly. The war was going to become very personal for German Southwester Friedrich, who received a shocking phone call that morning. That the Ruots had been murdered and Swapo was close to his farm, or perhaps already on it. What made this man extremely angry was that the Defence Force apparently knew by the evening of the previous day, May 7th, that Swapo guerrillas were in the area but didn't raise the alarm, preferring to attempt an ambush which then failed. They also went to avoid panic by staying stung by planned guerrillas who'd made it far south. Swapo fighters merely bypassed the army ambush and killed Grandmother Ruot and her two grandchildren. Plan wanted to do it quietly, so they slipped their threads. The young girl and grandmother were found in the house, the boy had tried to escape and was hiding outside near the car, when Plan caught up with them and killed him there. Banner Swapo had decided that all white and black civilians were targets, more so the whites, because they could try and convince black civilians to join the revolution, but their new white farmers would now support black majority rule, nor the concept of a socialist or communist regime, so killing white children was power for the course. It was Marxist dogma of the 70s extremely violent, religious and its further fundamentalist in its explosive hatred. This philosophy followed the dialectic dreamed up by German nationalist philosopher Hagel in the 19th century, the idea of absolute idealism and Hagel influenced Marx directly. Swapo had seen their children bombed at places like Savannah, so now that we're going to slit the throats of bud children, at least that was the narrative for the time. On the other side, the farming community had reinforced apartheid separation and were determined to maintain the myth of the white tribe seeking its promised land. For generations, most of these hardy farmers had regarded themselves as deliveries of civilization and Calvinism to people they regarded as stone age. They tried to insulate themselves as a white minority from the black majority and now the infants were directly in line for special revolutionary attention. Both sides here were held bent in the 70s and most of the 80s on killing each other, locked stock and smoking barrel, so Reinhard Friedrich put down the phone in some shock and thought he couldn't sit around waiting for Swapo to pitch up and shoot him dead in his own farmhouse. But the police were told to stand down for the moment as the army commanders were dealing with the Swapo guerrillas. By 1030 on the morning of the 8th of May, the rewitz children and grandma were dead and soon saw as Reinhard Friedrich's uncle called Adolf. This was a personal war for the civilians. The defense force commanders and special forces were on the trail of Swapo guerrillas who kept moving. These guerrillas who were extremely fit and could truck all day, they had very little to carry, a few magazines of AKM edition, their automatic weapon, a little water, hardly any food. They were the Namibian version of the Vietcong but even these hardy vatis could not escape the Aloit gunships, the buffels, the rifles, the islands, when are hunting them down. The biggest problem for Swapo is they could only go in one direction after military attack north towards the cut line. Between them and the safety of Mongolia was increasingly open sandy bushland and their trackers were lusting for revenge. They turned into a desperate race and for Reinhardt there was definitely revenge on his mind. He was still in shock but also angry as he languished back at his farm until late in the afternoon on the 8th, when the commandos announced they'd lost the spool or the track of the insurgents and asked the police to take over. So Reinhardt and other police trackers rushed to the point where the spool was lost and his men picked up the trail then the sunset. The next morning they found tracks and continued the hunt. The sand trackers were out in front followed by an armored vehicle but Swapo had been running all night so the followers were far behind and had to increase their temper. In Bushy terrain it's harder to follow a trail particularly for one man so as simple but effective technique was deployed to cope with the patches of grass and muddy pools. One man would remain on the central track while on his left and right and within eyesight two others would move along through the bush using hand signals. When the track shifted to the left all the right because of a thorn bush or thicket he had hand over to his fellow tracker and then shift left or right with the middle man ending up back on the main trail once more. All done in silence of course. And these trackers knew the terrain so after a few kilometres they would begin to guess where the Swapo gorillas were headed. A gunship would be called in and stopper groups would be dropped ahead at the water point or a natural beacon, a large group of trees or dry riverbed. Then they came across a large road running east-west. The Swapas as they were called, the SW Army. radio to say that they had a cunning plan. They would stop Swapu by riding the motorbikes back and forth on the road so that the gorillas would be frightened away. Of course, that appears to be a plan dreamed up by folks who haven't spent a great deal of time tracking other folks. It may have worked against animals, but not against humans. You keep silence as your weapon and driving motorbikes back and forth merely gives away your position, and the Swapu stick crossed the road behind one of these motorbikes sulties, then disappeared once more. Meanwhile, back at Sumip, Commandant Jain Dipana, who is in charge of 61 Mac, gave orders to crash the Swapu insurgents, and Operation Carrot was born. But it was more stick than Carrot. There would be no prisoners taken, but this was not a formal order. It was just known. 2,000 troops were gathered from Krutfantane, Otavi and Sumip, both national servicemen and permanent force. The farmers of the Triangle of Death were demanding protection, and Dipana had to move to Kwell, but started to appear like a mini-uprising first. German farmer, Reinhardt, personally confronted Dipana, and let him know what he thought about the escaping Swapu gorillas. He was beside himself with anger that his uncle was now shot dead by the same, and then to compound the terrible moment there was the idiotic action of riding motorbikes around, like they were trying to scare wild animals. These were highly trained insurgents, not ill and. But they had one positive piece of news. The Swapu soldiers responsible for the farmer tanks were still inside of Bumberland. They still had not managed to make it north of the cutline. Because of a huge increase in manpower, every road, track, waterpoint and cattle trail, and village was being watched. The army also managed to rope in a number of umbers as eyes and ears. Eventually these attackers would have to get water or food somewhere. Two soldiers were assigned to each farmhouse. Alluret gunships continued their low-level sorties. Soldiers were on horses. This was not going to end well for these planned gorillas. They had broken up now into small groups, and one by one they were hunted down. Every on the 20th of May, two weeks after the ruts and Adolf Friedrich were buried, the infiltrators were all killed. Some say the number of Swapu killed top 30, and it was the first time that 61 mech had been deployed. As I've said, the irony was that this battalion was set up on conventional lines, but its first action had been in an unconventional role. As farmers in the triangle took stock, there was no rejoicing. Omo ruret had been buried with her two grandchildren in a single grave. Adolf Friedrich, on the farm, there would not be the last farmers killed in the border war. On the 8th of June 1979, almost a month later, tiny bumpy fund of air stays in was sitting in a kitchen listening to her military two-way radios when she picked up urgent information. This was after the triangle of death had been supposedly declared free of danger when 12 Swapu gorillas crossed the cut line once more and headed into this troubled area for the south. This time, there were a chunk before they had a chance to attack farmhouses, and the firefight developed. Corporal Swat of the Swaspus dog unit was shot dead on the snipe fight, and his animal then ran off in shock. Besahili, the dog showed up a few days later on bumpy fund of air stays in, and her husband dank his farm Kudu's flay, and was later picked up by the dog unit. And so the follow-up operations continued through June, and on the 22nd more Swapu incursions were killed. This fight took place in a symbolic part of southwest, at the combat copper mine, south of Tumib, at the bottom of the triangle of death, half way between Nottavi and Krutvente. This lies in the Otavi mountains, and is where the sand people and the damadas fought off the Germans almost a hundred years earlier. It's also close to Korab, where a general Louis Butter had defeated the Schutztruppe, thus ending German occupation of South West Africa, in 1915. The history of this land flows in bloody circles, as Dion Lumprecht remarks in his book on bumpy fund of air stays in called "Dani pompisa urla", "anti pompisa ur". This spiral of violence would continue with Swapu seeking blood in the south, and the SAD of seeking blood in the north. Outfuxing the opponent became the byword, with both sides seeking to trick the other into making deadliness stacks. South West African commander General Dianne Heldneres was trying to perfect, but he called Fox operations in Sharpen, his men's widths and fighting spirit, while Sam Niyoma, the Swapu leader, was cajoling his men and women north of the Kutland. Swapu was suffering from morale problems, interrogation of prisoners and reports from SAD of intelligence in the operational area, and from inside Angola painted a pretty gloomy picture of morale, including public executions of would-be deserves. Abductions of Avambaland civilians also increased, with at least 450 reported in 1979, although many of these weren't abducted, they voluntarily signed on as Swapu freedom fighters. Southern Angola now had turned into an even more terrible place of carnage, and Unita had begun to affect MPLA supply lines, leading to food shortages at times. This in turn caused citizens to raid each other for basic foodstuffs. By September 1979 General Dianne Heldneres went on the record when he spoke to media saying he believed the tide had turned. That Swapu was weak, although a long struggle lay ahead. He was both incorrect and correct. The tide had not turned, but the struggle would be long, indeed. On the same day Heldneres went on record, the 11th of September, Angola's president Augustino Netta arrived in Russia on a state visit and promptly died. Some say suspiciously. It was a rather and abrupt symbolic end for a man who had survived two coup attempts already at home in Africa. It sparked infighting in Angola by appointing light-skinned Portuguese-speaking volatos, or mixed Angolans to senior military positions, ignoring blacks. It's always someone staring at someone else's skin color in Africa, wondering about these things. Then, on the 1st of October 1979 settlement talked went into another round when South Africa's UN Ambassador Leon X-Team was handed a revised independence plan drawn up by Western nations. Amongst other things, the SEDF would be allowed to maintain five bases within a 50-kilometer DMZ along the border for the first three months. It would be confined to these bases for 12 weeks and then withdrawn close to elections. That plan went down like a lead balloon with Swapu as well as the SEDF. Swapu said it would only respond when the entire text had been presented while African nations said it was unlikely that Pretoria would stick to its word. While the ponder is pundered further north, the Zimbabwe Redition negotiations were on the go inland and then both Swapu and the South Africans were watching these with a great deal of interest. Meanwhile, Commodan Dian Ferreira of 3-2 battalion was perfecting FOX operations along with Major Morsi Basant of the SAAFs. They had established tactical headquarters at Iannana right on the Angolan border. It had been founded in 1930 by Finnish missionaries who, of course, would have turned in their graves if they had seen what was going on in 1979. 3-2 battalion conducted operations in the Angolan border area and were constantly involved in skirmishes and contacts, as they were known. Trickery and deceit was the order of the day. Troops would be positioned at selected places north of the border where they stacked waste oil rags in old tires. Then an aloewett helicopter with smoke grenades attached would fly above the area and dive suddenly as though meeting its end. At the same time, the grenades would be released leaving a dock trail of smoke. As it reached the area where rags and tires were set up and by now, at treetop level or lower at times, the troops would set the pile on fire and the chopper would then head back to base at low level. The idea was to trick Swapo into believing that it had been downed and ambush was ready for any Swapo soldier. Of course, this wasn't carried out arbitrarily, first they had to be Swapo around somewhere, so the SIDF would wait for sign of spurt or reports of a Swapo stick in the area and the idea was to attack from a position of strength. They needed a clear view of the firefight. This trick was used time and again across the western and eastern Angolan regions and into Zampia. Hellnese also deployed an unusual weapon at this time. He ordered carbide-powered orchard cannons used in South Africa's Berlin region of the Cape to scare away birds from fruit crops. He ordered these carbide cannons set up near Eonana along a pipeline which had been so regularly sabotaged by a plan that the base was now suffering from dry periods. Hellnese thought he'd lay an ambush for plan to come to investigate the bangs. Instead of that, the gorillas stayed away and troops at Eonana were able to wash more regularly once more through the end of 1979. By late October of that year, the SIDF claimed that killed almost 500 Swampa gorillas and large numbers were deserting. Physical violence was being used to instill discipline amongst the gorillas, but Swapo's UN representative Theo Ben-Guridab scoffed at these comments ominously, he said. Hellnese is daydreaming busy with wishful thinking if he wants to live in the world of Alice in Wonderland, let him do so. Gorillaub also issued a warning, Swapo was in the Mibio to stay, and the arms struggle with only intensive care. So we had two forecasts. Gorilla would be proven 100% correct. So if you're keeping score, it's Hellnese won. Good luck. The end of the year approached with the usual plans for Christmas, but this year there was a nasty edge to matters. As the reins began once more, the farmers girded themselves for another surge in plan activity inside the Triangle of Death, and three two battalion and 61 Mac prepared for more action inside Angola. Through November 147 planned insurgents were killed versus three security force members. The biggest battle took place right at the end of the month when the SEDF clashed with a planned group in Ovumberland, killing seven and following the survivors into Angola and hitting several bases. 61 more planned guerrillas were killed in these follow-up operations. So by early December, the South African government formally accepted the concept of a DMZ subject to the own conditions. Then another 25 insurgents died at the end of December, along with four more security force members. The death toll was going up, but 1979 had been difficult for swappers. That achieved little in the way of military gains and lost almost 1,000 men and women. But the SEDF and SWATF had very badly too. At least 50 security force members had died, which was a massive spark in casualties. The number of contacts had almost doubled in one year from under 51978 to well over 900 in 1979. 55 locals had died in landmine explosions. 102 had been murdered by swapper, including 18 tribal headmen and six white farmers or family men. More than 50 cases of sabotage had been reported on power lines, waterpipes and telephone lines. Thus, swapper was ready for 1980, and in February of that year the insurgents had another go at killing farmers in the triangle of death. This led to one of the more dramatic attacks on a farmhouse ever recorded, taking place 45 kilometres south of Crudefantane at a farm owned by the Dressel family. As you go to here next episode, the 15 year old daughter of Iberhard Dressel Sonja was going to end up fighting single-handed against a planned group in an attack that was going to end badly for the insurgents, but the Dressels would also be bloodied. Plan attacks also started even earlier in January, and they would draw the first blood of 1980. Please rate the podcast on iTunes if you can, and head off to the website abwarpodcast.com, where you can send me an email. If you're really in need of a quick chat, you can reach me on Twitter, my handle is @deslatham. And a quick thank you to Nick at Ward Dog Actual, where we've been talking for a while, and he's kindly sent me one of his really classy Ward Dog t-shirts, which was a gift. Well received. Thank you, my friend. So until next, goodbye. [Music]