Everyone knows
Mike Horn
, the adventurer who hydrospeeded down the Amazon, who crossed Antarctica in 57 days alone and without assistance, who circumnavigated the equator in 17 months without motorized transport... But few know that, during the apartheid regime, he was a lieutenant in the South African special forces and took part in combat on the northern border of Namibia.
It is on this troubled past that the Swiss magazine “Temps present” investigated.
In a report broadcast January 19 on the RTS channel, journalists traveled back to 1986. Mike Horn was 19 when he voluntarily joined Battalion 101, an elite unit tasked with tracking down Namibian independence insurgents and renowned for his combat effectiveness and ruthlessness.
“It was our job.
We were considered the best counterinsurgency unit in the world.
[...] It was the war then inevitably there are unpleasant things.
Not only were we shooting at each other, we were rolling over each other.
In fact, the enemies couldn't run over us because they were on the ground, but we had vehicles.
And the driver's weapon is his vehicle.
So if someone was aiming at him, he didn't have time to stop and shoot.
He was rolling over her.
And that's how.
It was war
,” said Mike Horn's former supervisor, Waal de Waal.
Read alsoMike Horn: "On M6, I lost my identity as an explorer"
It was at this time that the adventurer lost a phalanx.
“Mike was lying on the roof, on one of the hatches of the Casspir, the driver passed through the middle of the trees, a branch touched the wedge which held the hatch open and the hatch fell.
When he fell, as he had his fingers under it, it severed his phalanx”
, detailed Pierre Blignaut, former officer of battalion 101. A version very different from all those put forward by the adventurer.
In one of his books, he wrote of having been the victim of Kalashnikov fire from Cubans.
In 2002, in an interview with the Swiss newspaper
La Liberté
, he replied that he lost
"the tip of a finger on a mine"
.
In October 2017, on the set of "C à vous" on France 5, he said he had to amputate himself because of frostbite during an expedition between Russia and the North Pole in 2003.
“
It wasn't hunt and kill.
It was managing to hunt people who want to kill other people
.
mike horn
“For me to be in this reputable unit was to play an active role in protecting South Africa. It wasn't hunt and kill. It was getting to hunt people who want to kill other people. It's a bit like the police, the protection not to kill people but to prevent bad elements from killing people I love
,” explained Mike Horn in broken French in the report.
According to Dave Smuts, who at the time was a lawyer for civilians trapped in the area and who is now a Supreme Coup judge in Windhoek,
"the rules of the law were no longer enforced"
.
“Civilians were treated appallingly, killed.
Just like captured insurgents who were often murdered.
[...] Battalion 101 sometimes went completely out of legality.
And we have a perfectly documented example.
But they couldn't care less about the law, they knew the authorities would bail them out
,” he added.
Read alsoMike Horn: "Man should remember that he needs the earth"
On November 30, 1986 in Windhoek, the SWAPO (the organization of the people of South West Africa) held a meeting for peace.
During this, dozens of armed men appear and the Namibian independence leader Imanuel Shifidi, a former political prisoner imprisoned for 18 years in the same jail as Nelson Mandela, is assassinated.
“It has been clearly established that Battalion 101 was deliberately involved in doing this.
It was planned and executed carefully
,” assured Dave Smuts.
Asked about this event, Mike Horn kicked in touch:
“It was so long ago.
I have to look in my diary but I'm not sure I was present
.
“I never supported the apartheid regime
”
mike horn
In 1990, the adventurer left South Africa to join Switzerland... the same year of the release of Nelson Mandela.
From these years at Battalion 101, Mike Horn keeps
"a good experience"
.
“Because it trained me as an adventurer.
It was part of my life like going on an expedition or going to buy croissants
,” he said in the report.
A few days before the broadcast of “Present time”, the adventurer wanted to provide some details.
“I was part of the official forces of the South African army at the time.
I was doing my compulsory military service there.
I strictly obeyed the orders given to me.
I had no particular love for the apartheid regime.
I was only fulfilling my civic duty”
, he justified himself.
About the operation of battalion 101 which is accused of having assassinated Immanuel Shifidi, Mike Horn assured that he was not
"present"
in Windhoek in 1986.
"I never supported the apartheid regime, not only during my military obligations, but also once they had been fulfilled"
, he added before ensuring that he had
"never maintained a relationship with Battalion 101 or with its members
.
"My coming to Switzerland is not linked to the operations but is due to chance as I had the opportunity to explain in all my books"
, he then assured.
And to conclude:
"It is clear that today, I regret having participated in these operations, although I fully assume everything I have done in my life"
.