Abstract
In 1987, southern Africa was convulsed in conflict, much of it connected to the proxy struggles of the cold war. Zimbabwe, independent since 1980, had just brutally suppressed a rebellion against the government of Robert Mugabe. A large Cuban expeditionary force in Angola was assisting the Marxist government of that country in a desperate struggle against a growing insurgency now being supplied with sophisticated U.S. weapons. The South Africans had began backing those same Angolan insurgents long before the Americans, and they now were regularly intervening in Angola to beat back government offensives. At the same time, on the other side of the continent, they were aiding Mozambican dissidents locked in a vicious civil war against still another Marxist government. The South Africans were also fighting insurgencies of their own—one in occupied Namibia and another in South African itself. Weapons, rebels, and predatory criminals flowed freely across the region’s borders.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Lieutenant General Louis-Matshenwenyego Fisher, BDF commander, Sir Seretse Khama Barracks, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Brigadier E. B. Rakgole, BDF assistant chief of staff (operations), Sir Seretse Khama Barracks, interview by the author, March 4, 2004); Brigadier Otisitswe B. Tiroyamodimo, BDF assistant chief of staff (logistics), interview by the author, Gaborone, Botswana, March 8, 2004; Colonel Gaolathe Galebotswe, deputy commander, BDF 1st Brigade, interview by the author, Gaborone, Botswana, March 6, 2004; Major T. S. Makolo, Botswana Defence Force, Sir Seretse Khama Barracks, interview by the author, March 5, 2004. The gangs were not the only poaching problem: Botswana’s officials suspected with good reason that South African troops stationed in neighboring Southwest Africa (now Namibia) also were engaged in the cross-border wildlife raiding. See also Jan Breytenbach, Eden’s Exiles: One Soldier’s Fight for Paradise (Cape Town: Queillerie, 1997), 67–76, 204–55.
Fisher, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; E. B. Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Otisitswe B. Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004.
Wildlife biologist and veterinarian Larry Patterson, associated at the time with the Department of Wildlife, argues that by the late 1970s, there were relatively few rhino left in Botswana, a long-term legacy of hunting and environmental stress. Larry Patterson, interviews by the author, Gaborone, Botswana, March 2004, June 2004.
Fisher, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Patterson, interviews by the author, March 2004 and June 2004; Barney O’Hara, wildlife consultant and former member of the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks and Zimbabwe National Park Service, interview by the author, Gaborone, Botswana, June 18, 2004.
In February 1987, nine months before the BDF mounted its first antipoaching patrol, the Defence Force had approached the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation with a request for two Raider light attack patrol boats manufactured by (U.S.-based) Napco International Corporation. The boats subsequently were purchased with U.S. security assistance funds and delivered to the BDF in 1989. At the time of their delivery, U.S. Senior Defense Representative in Botswana Major Gary Walker (U.S. Army) indicated in his reports that the boats were intended for “antipoaching” and “counterinsurgency.” From the files of the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation, Gaborone, Botswana, reviewed by the author in June 2005. For details on the Zambian experience, see Clark Gibson, Politicians and Poachers: The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 57, 59, 62.
These peoples are drawn from a variety of small groups and often are identified as Bushmen or (less pejoratively) as San. In Botswana, they are called Basarwa, a somewhat pejorative SeTswana phrase meaning “people without cattle.” For their employment by the South Africans, see inter alia Fred Bridgland, The War for Africa (Gibraltar: Ashanti, 1990), 132–33; Breytenbach, Eden’s Exiles, 76–93; and Helmoed-Römer Heitman, South African Armed Forces (Cape Town: Buffalo, 1990), 147, 200.
Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Major Molefi Seikano, BDF Commando Squadron acting commander, interview by the author, June 18, 2004.
The troops were supplied overland by truck and by air—as late as 2004, the BDF Air Arm was still flying its venerable BN-21 Defender transport aircraft into the company bases. Forward bases are at times supplied by helicopter. Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Makolo, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Seikano, interview by the author, June 18, 2004
Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004.
Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Seikano, interview by the author, June 18, 2004.
These themes are stressed in BDF basic and advanced training, and troops receive regular lectures on the economic importance of wildlife. Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; and Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Major Max Ngkapha, BDF Protocol Office, interview by the author, March 2004, June 2004; and Brigadier J. O. J. Hengari, commandant of the BDF Force Training Establishment, interview by the author, March 9, 2004.
Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004.
Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Seikano, interview by the author, June 18, 2004; Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; O’Hara, interview by the author, June 17, 2004.
Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Seikano, interview by the author, June 18, 2004; Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004; O’Hara, interview by the author, June 17, 2004.
Dr. Cornelis H. M. Vanderpost, senior research fellow, Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Center, interview by the author, Maun, Botswana, June 9, 2005; Lovemore Sola, Conservation International Biodiversity Corridor manager, interview by the author, Maun, Botswana, June 9, 2005; and Debbie Peake, director of Mochaba Trust, interview by the author, Maun, Botswana, June 9, 2005.
Alice Mogwe, director of Ditshwanelo, the most prominent human rights advocacy organization in Botswana, interview by the author, June 18, 2004. BDF personnel say that their organization experimented in the mid-1990s with restrictive rules of engagement, including a prohibition against firing weapons unless fired upon, but these rules apparently proved impractical and were later dropped.
Louis-Matshwenyego Fisher, interviews by the author, March 4, 2004, May 19, 2006. E. B. Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004. J. O. J. Hengari, interview by the author, March 9, 2004. Otistitswe Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004. Gaolathe Galebotswe, interview by the author, March 6, 2004. Moeng Phoeto, interview by the author, June 14, 2004; Molefi Seikano, interview by the author, June 18, 2004; T.S. Makolo, interview by the author, March 4, 2004.
The South Africans withdrew their forces from both Angola and Namibia in 1988 as part of a regional peace arrangement. For specific details, see Owen Ellison Kahn, ed., Disengagement from Southwest Africa: The Prospects for Peace in Angola and Namibia (New Brunswick, ME: Transaction, 1991).
Tiroyamodimo, interview by the author, March 8, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, June 4, 2004
Fisher, interview by the author, March 4, 2004; Rakgole, interview by the author, March 4, 2004.
Copyright information
© 2007 Dan Henk
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Henk, D. (2007). Military Antipoaching in Botswana. In: The Botswana Defense Force in the Struggle for an African Environment. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610446_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610446_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37087-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61044-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)