Prologue
After leaving the Rhodesian Army, Nicholas Della Casa spent some time travelling around South Africa. One journey took him into Botswana where he left a locked trunk with a friend. He didn’t disclose that it contained military items, including explosives, at a time when security in Southern Africa was at an almost paranoiac level. Once Nick had left Botswana, his friend’s house was one of several raided by the Botswanan Police. The baggage was opened, the stuff found and the man charged. As a consequence, he was to spend time in a Botswanan prison. Yet, a simple letter from Nicholas to the Botswanan public prosecutor – Nicholas was abroad at the time, so they wouldn’t have been able to touch him – could have circumvented this disaster. Instead, without good reason, he chose to do nothing. |
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Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars, Casemate Publishers, US and UK 2006, pp 445–460 |
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Chris Munnion, Banana Sunday, Ashanti Publishers, Sandton, 1992. This is a marvelous book that encompasses a wealth of stories collected by the author from journalists who worked the African beat, as well as other Third World outposts of the former Empire. |
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Peter Younghusband, Every Meal a Banquet, Every Night a Honeymoon: Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2003 |
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Arkady Babchenko, One Soldier’s War in Chechnya, Portobello Books, London, 2007. This book, though harsh and uncompromising, is a brilliant exposition of this kind of experience. It should be required reading for everybody going to war. |
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Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Despatches – The Best of Two Centuries of South African Journalism, Ashanti Publishing, Johannesburg, 1990 |
Chapter One: Getting to a Lebanon at War
Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001 |
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I deal with the revolutionary role of the Pasdaran, which became the forerunner of present-day Hizbollah, as well as its role of fostering terror both in the Middle East and the West, in great detail in my book Iran’s Nuclear Option, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, 2005, cht 12, pp 253 et seq |
Chapter Three: Levantine Woes
Al J. Venter, ‘General Lahoud’s Rise to Power’, Middle East Policy, Washington DC, Volume VI, Number 2, October 1998 |
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As the civil war progressed and car-bombs became commonplace, that situation changed radically. Although there are few cities as clogged as Beirut (parking had always been impossible, anyway) all Christian hotels started using security barriers for protection and we often had to look elsewhere. When that happened, you needed a permit to get anywhere close to the main structure: that meant more questions, more controls. The cycle was eternal, with one means of destruction supplanting another as soon as solutions were devised to counter them. |
Chapter four: Lagos and an Army Mutiny
Only after the Biafran War was the Nigerian capital moved to Abuja, a totally artificial city erected in the jungle that emulated what had taken place years before with Brasilia. |
Chapter five: Biafra: The Build-Up
Other countries involved in boundary disputes that led to conflict in the postindependence years included Uganda and Kenya, who had differences over the Mount Elgon area of East Africa; Chad and Libya; both Congos (involving differences about who owned the oil-rich enclave of Angolan Cabinda); Botswana and Zimbabwe, who were involved in shooting matches over territory along the Upper Zambezi; Morocco and Algeria (Polisario claimed stretches of former Spanish Sahara); and, perhaps the bloodiest feud of all, which took place quite recently between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and which claimed tens of thousands of lives. The Bakassi issue continues to fester and both Nigeria and the Cameroon have moved troops close to their respective frontiers. |
Chapter six: Survival in a West African Conflict
Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars, Casemate Publishers, US and UK, 2006 |
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Qat or Khat is a DEA-classified drug that contains the alkaloid cathinone, an amphetamine-like stimulant which causes excitement and euphoria. About 70 per cent of the population of Africa’s Horn and many people in the Yemen are addicted to it. |
Chapter nine: A Central American Conflagration
Al J. Venter, The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa, Stackpole Books (US), Greenhill Books (UK) and Southern Books (South Africa), 1994 |
Chapter ten: Somalia: Wars of No Consequence
Introduction to Chapter 29, Al J. Venter, The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa Stackpole Books (US), Greenhill Books (UK) 1994 |
Chapter fourteen: Israel’s Border Wars
Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, Andre Deutsch, London, 1986 |
Chapter seventeen: Bounty Hunt in Rhodesia
Al J. Venter, The Zambezi Salient, Robert Hale, London, 1974 |
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Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars, Casemate Publishers, US and UK, 2006, pp 217–222 |
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During the Rhodesian War, the colloquial term for guerrilla or insurgent fighter was ‘terr’, an abbreviation of the word terrorist. |
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Jerky made from the African kudu, which after the Eland was the secondlargest antelope on the continent |
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Government-controlled ‘Protected Village’ or strongpoint, similar to the Aldeamentos system in Portugal’s wars in Africa. |
Chapter nineteen: Zaire: Road to an African War
Al J. Venter, The Terror Fighters, Purnell, Cape Town, 1969 |
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For those not familiar with Afrikaans, the English translation of ‘kak’ is shit. |
Chapter twenty-one: Jailed for Espionage
An aside made to the author in Lagos in the 1970s by Angus McDermid who covered East, Central, South and West Africa for the BBC World Service from 1959 to 1972. |
Chapter twenty-three: Kill all Infidels – Allahu Aqbar!
Al J. Venter, ‘President Lahoud’s Rise to Power’, Middle East Policy, Washington DC: Volume VI, Number 2, October 98 |
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Paula A. deSutter, ‘Denial and Jeopardy: Deterring Iranian Use of NBC Weapons; National Defense University, Washington DC, 1997 |
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Like al-Qaeda, Hizbollah has long maintained that since Israel is a nuclear power, only the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons would achieve the desired objective of ‘wiping the Zionists off the map’ as it is so often phrased in both the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) and on Hizbollah’s radio and al Maneer TV networks. |
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The author deals with the Iran-Iraq War in detail in Iran’s Nuclear Option, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, 2005, cht 2, pp 45–66 |
Chapter 24: Tete Convoy in Mozambique
Al J. Venter, Africa at War, Devin Adair, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1973 |
Chapter 26: The Balkan Beast: Landmines in Croatia
Armor Express, 1554 East Torchlake Drive, Central Lake, MI 04966; Phone (231) 544-6090 |
Chapter 28: Helicopter Drug Raids in Zululand
The membranes of certain nerve cells in the brain contain protein receptors that bind to THC. Once securely in place, THC kicks off a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the high that users experience when they smoke marijuana. |
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‘Saturday Night Special’ is American law enforcement terminology for an inexpensive and usually badly made firearm, often produced in bulk with ill fitting parts, but still able to kill somebody. While a quality pistol or revolver might cost $600 or more if legally acquired from a registered gun dealer, gangs in the United States are able to buy ‘Saturday Night Specials’ on the street, sometimes for as little as $100. |