‘Forged in Battle’: The Transnational Origins and Formation of Apartheid South Africa’s 32 ‘Buffalo’ Battalion, 1969–1976

Abstract

Recent scholarship has begun to study the transnational and non-national aspects of southern Africa’s wars of decolonisation. It has focused primarily on the liberation movements, their hosts and allies, but remained mostly silent on their opponents. In this article, we explore the transnational origins and formation of 32 ‘Buffalo’ Battalion of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force. Formed in late 1975, the unit was led by white South African officers but consisted predominantly of black former guerrillas of different Angolan nationalist movements. Using oral history interviews with former soldiers and recently declassified archival sources, we investigate how these ex-guerrillas came to be recruited into apartheid South Africa’s military. Our argument is that these troops’ transfer of allegiance must be understood in the light of the fragmentation of Angolan nationalist politics and of situational factors such as guerrillas’ alienation from remote political leaders, personal allegiances to particular commanders and the need for protection and resources. These elements greatly facilitated not just military recruitment into the South African military but the making of various opportunistic alliances across the board during Angola’s chaotic decolonisation process. In addition, we emphasise that the common depiction of 32 Battalion’s first recruits as ‘mercenaries’ is factually incorrect and, more importantly, fails to capture their motivations for joining the South African military, which ranged from sheer survival to pragmatism to personal loyalty.