" Terrs No More! "

By Mrs. Leandre Hanekom

"Terr"  is the abbreviation for "terrorist".  You know what people do
to terrorists. They hunt them down and kill them.

    Under the previous South African Apartheids regime, the African
National Congress, (ANC) which is presently the ruling democratic
South African government,  was termed terrorists.

  They were forced underground or to escape to Tanzania or Russia.
Here they became exiled freedom fighters, who fought a  desperate
guerrilla war, filled with blood, bombs, and random killing sprees and
assassinations in  churches and in restaurants. They stood up against
their own people, who killed them with equal gusto.

    A nation with oppressors and terrorists, their different political
ideas culminating in years of bloodshed, anguish and tears.

    Then that great icon, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, finally brought
democracy to this sun drenched, blood-filled country.

     I was a civilian military speechwriter for 10 years for the
General Staff  of the South African National Defense Force during both
the Apartheids and  ANC regimes. I even had a Secret Army clearance!
Then the Army retrenched me as speechwriter and historical researcher,
due to the policy of Affirmative Action, together with hundreds of
other women, to appoint black male comrades in our posts.  Call it a
pogrom, call it ethnic cleansing, call it Affirmative Action,
whatever,  I had to leave. I am not angry any longer…

    No pension, no job, but new beginnings.

    I had to survive, so I made my previous writing hobby my present
occupation, and became a freelance writer.

    When I  left,  I asked " What do I do with all the papers and
stuff?   I was told  disinterestedly by a bored administrative officer
"Oh, take it or leave it."

    So I took it. All of it.

    I am sitting on a veritable treasure trove of precious ANC freedom
fighter documentation, magazines, lectures, speeches, you name it,
I've got it. You do not burn documents, ever!

    I made lots of friends under my black male colleagues, the
so-called "terrorists",  for whom I had to write the induction
lectures into the South African Army when they first came out of the
bushes of Angola and Namibia to be assimilated into the Defense Force.

    If I had a year, and enough money to live without worries, oh,
what a splendid, wonderful, explosive, heartrending, fabulous  book I
would write!

    I would take all the courage, the joy and tears, the physical pain
from their bullet wounds and the soul-searing pain from being
considered black, second class barbarians, and turn it into a
best-seller,  a story never properly told before – the Chronicles of
ordinary terrorist foot soldiers in enemy territory, men and women
fighting and giving their lives for two basic human rights, namely
freedom and democracy!

     I  lived their lives through their company and tales for 10
years, every day. I have all the original documented background
information, which I took with the official permission I got from the
Army when I was retrenched,  I  have the talent and I have proved it
with my 46 published fiction and non-fictional prescribed school
textbooks written as hobby and as survival mode so far.

    Can you imagine, being a qualified historical researcher, having
the whole day and whole night for a whole year to do nothing else but
live and write,  can you imagine having stacks and piles of bona fide
research documents to go through and use freely, can you imagine
plotting, sorting, drafting, editing and redrafting, re-editing and
completing this book "No More Terrs!" ?  Can you imagine getting into
the souls of my friends and putting their true stories to paper for
the first time?

    Oh, what writer's bliss!

    One of the ANC Captains, in charge of Covert Intelligence
Operations for the ANC in Angola, had to work as a waiter in a Wimpy
restaurant in Johannesburg while waiting to be inducted into the SA
Army!   "At least here I had hamburgers," he grinned wryly. "In Angola
we sometimes had only moldy porridge to eat and many days I chewed on
a few locusts for protein, just like Elijah in the Bible!

    I would make these brave freedom fighters come to life, shouting
their indignities and their triumphs from my pages for all to see.

     But… I would have to find an overseas publisher, for no local
publisher would touch such a controversial topic. They play safe.

    No! The truth shall set you free. And freedom, after all, is what
they fought and died for.  Thank God, they are  "Terrs No More!"


Lee Hanekom,  Bloemfontein, South Africa - leandre@iburst.co.za