At a time that national conversation is revolving around Botswana-Namibia diplomatic relations, poaching and the Botswana Defence Force, it is worth recalling what Dan Henk, a former military attaché at the United States Embassy in Gaborone, has written about how all three elements intersect. Save for a couple of stark falsehoods, The Botswana Defense Force in the Struggle for an African Environment is unmatched in its breadth and depth about BDF’s anti-poaching operations.Today, BDF’s role in anti-poaching operations is common knowledge but there was a time when it wasn’t. When the ivory market became lucrative in the 1980s, poaching kingpins sent poachers to wildlife-rich areas and as Henk writes, these poachers “were sufficiently well armed to intimidate Botswana’s police and wildlife officials, yet at the same time, they were very difficult to find and hard to catch.” They were also a menace to safari tour operators – which naturally meant that Botswana couldn’t guarantee the physical safety of tourists visiting its wildlife conservancies.In October 1987, President Sir Ketumile Masire responded by deploying a secretive commando squadron in the BDF.“This was a special forces unit with unique skills in small unit operations, tracking, patrolling, and ambush. Khama seems to have conceived this role in collusion with the commander of the Commando Squadron at the time, Major (later Brigadier) Otisitswe B. Tiroyamodimo,” writes Henk referring to Ian Khama.
Indeed Khama was crucial in the deployment of this squadron but in 1987 when these operations started, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe was the BDF commander and in as far as army business went, was the final decision-maker. Generally, the book whitewashes Merafhe out of BDF’s anti-poaching story but it is inconceivable that he would have played a minor role.The late 1980s was when what is now Namibia was still called South West Africa (SWA) and was a colony of South Africa. It was also when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was collapsing and upon conviction that communism no longer posed any threat, the west and west-aligned states were willing to grant independence to a future black state whose future leaders were aligned to the USSR. Thus BDF’s anti-poaching operations began when the future state of Namibia was about to be established. BDF determined that in order to fill technical gaps in its anti-poaching strategy, it needed to augment the commando squadron with additional bush-tracking capabilities.
“In this, they were fortunate,” writes Henk. “Southern Africa happened to be the home of hunter-gathering peoples that include some of world’s most accomplished trackers. By the 1980s, the South Africans had recruited extensively from these communities for their ongoing counter-insurgency war in neighbouring Namibia. The trackers had served their South African masters well. Using their traditional skills and hunting lore, they had proved adept at hunting down insurgents in the African bush in both Namibia and Angola. Khama and Tiroyamodimo were very familiar with these unique people and decided to harness them for their own war on the poachers.”
As South Africa prepared to leave SWA, it began consulting with internal groups and neighbouring countries about their withdrawal from the territory. It was under such circumstances that a Botswana delegation went to Windhoek to meet officials of the South African government. Posing as an officer in the Department of Wildlife and National Parks responsible for wildlife issues, Tiroyamodimo embedded himself within this delegation. However, his real mission was recruitment. Henk writes of this mission: “He now sought to identify those trackers originally from Botswana that might be amenable to employment by their own government. The idea paid off, initially with a small number of volunteers. The early volunteers recruited others. By late 1987, the BDF had hired several dozen. These volunteers brought not only their remarkable tracking skills but also a useful familiarity with military organizations—including their own and those of opponents. They subsequently played a critical though little publicized role in Botswana’s anti-poaching operations.
”In the book’s introduction, Henk gives a vivid description of this formidable tag team (commandoes and trackers) at work. Under the command of Lieutenant T. S. Makolo, a commando team and a Bushman tracker were patrolling south of the Linyanti River in the Chobe National Park. Picking up the spoor of three poachers and under the guidance of the tracker, the patrol carefully followed the poachers for hours, then …“Suddenly, a small figure dropped from a treetop observation post and opened fire with an automatic rifle. Poachers resting in a nearby hideout scattered in all directions. The lieutenant quickly deployed his troops, returned fire, and swept through the poachers’ camp. When the shooting stopped, three poachers lay dead, including the lookout. Without pausing, the patrol initiated a relentless chase of the fleeing poachers, four of whom managed to escape across the border into neighboring Namibia, barely ahead of their pursuers. Later, inspecting the abandoned poaching camp, Makolo and his men found two weapons: the dead sentry’s Kalashnikov assault rifle and a bolt-action hunting weapon. They also found the tusks of two elephants along with game meat being cooked for an evening meal. Other abandoned items pointed to the poachers’ origin in the country of Zambia.”
If nothing else, the above account confirms what Sunday Standard asserted in its last edition, about commercial poachers having basically initiated what is now referred to as the “shoot-to-kill” policy. Mindful of how encounters with poachers go, BDF patrol teams are also said to immediately open fire – which practice has reportedly led to the death of innocent Namibians and Zimbabweans venturing onto what is basically a war zone.Henk recounts another incident in which a patrol team came upon three elephant carcasses laying sprawled over a small area, their tusks removed and their bodies riddled with gunshot wounds. Continuing their search of the area, the scouts soon discovered a hidden cache of elephant ivory. The matter was reported to Major R. Makgato, the military commander at Kasane Base Camp, who quickly organized an ambush patrol.
The ambushers concealed themselves in a position overlooking both the hidden tusks and the likely avenue of approach for the poachers.“They then waited patiently for about 30 hours. At dusk the following day, five men approached the cached ivory, oblivious to the impending ambush. One of the poachers subsequently stood guard with an automatic rifle while the others ducked under the brush, apparently intending to retrieve the tusks. The BDF patrol leader now tried to apprehend the poachers. He carefully maneuvered his men into a position to cut off their escape, but before he could fully implement his plan, the man with the automatic rifle detected movement and opened fire. That poacher died instantly in a hail of return fire while his companions fled the scene. By now it was dark and immediate pursuit of the remaining poachers was impractical.”
Tiroyamodimo had insisted that his force employ its standard technique of dismounted patrolling and ambushes, which required the troops to travel very long distances by foot over rough terrain in small, four to six man groups. While “rapid and spectacular”, the commandos’ anti-poaching success was not easily achieved because they were up against a “lavishly equipped” enemy who, in some cases, significantly outnumbered the manpower in the BDF patrols. Some, if not most of the poachers had a military background and when they discovered that they were being hunted, “they countered with an impressive array of bush fighting skills, resorting to elaborate anti-tracking measures and ambushes.” That notwithstanding BDF commandoes had the upper hand and sustained few casualties.
In 1989, the mission was extended to the rest of the army as BDF began to rotate all its combat units to the border areas for anti-poaching duties, at the same time significantly increasing the numbers of troops involved in anti-poaching missions at any one time. “This produced a highly visible military presence in the northern wildlife conservancies. Then and now, the BDF has relied on company-sized units (of just over 100 men apiece) for its anti-poaching operations in the northern area, generally maintaining two to four companies on anti-poaching duty in the north at any one time. The individual companies were assigned a large area to patrol and were given considerable operational autonomy. The companies, in turn, typically broke themselves down and operated in separate platoon-sized units (of about 30 men). Each platoon maintained its own base area, patrolling out of the platoon base. Initially, the units were deployed to the north for periods of three months before rotating back to the garrison. By the early 1990s, tour length had been reduced to two months.”
With this development, the elite strike force now became “a reserve force to be used in circumstances requiring particular stealth, bush craft, or violence.” It now conducted anti-poaching operations at the same time as but autonomously from the other BDF units, and in reaction to specific intelligence. Generally in response to a credible report of commercial poacher activity, the strike force would deploy small teams to the wildlife conservancies. It made extensive use of two-man observation posts set up near water pans where animals and poachers could be expected to congregate. “The commandos developed their own technique for quick-reaction missions, maintaining at least one helicopter (typically a French-made Ecureille) near their operational sites in order to be prepared for quick-reaction backup operations in support of the teams in the field,” Henk writes.
Tiroyamodimo told Henk that he believes that this change was “politically-motivated.” Significant numbers of poachers, some of them Namibian, were still being intercepted and killed. Namibia, which shares the longest border with Botswana, was on the verge of achieving independence and Botswana was worried about jeopardizing relations with the future state. “Use of Botswana’s regular forces apparently reflected a desire to shift the emphasis from interception to deterrence. The new anti-poaching operations were partly a ‘show of force’ to discourage poaching and thus reduce Namibian casualties. A larger and more visible Botswana military presence probably also served to reassure a jittery local citizenry and tourist industry.”
