The following is a paragraph from another section on this website that I sent to friend Johan Schoeman in South Africa asking if he felt it was still relevant. It also contains his views on the subject and makes for very interesting reading.
Quote. There is another problem that has reared its ugly head that may cause problems further down the track. At this time of writing (2010) more than a third of the Contractors come from South Africa and its rumoured that the South African government wants to pass a law that their citizens are not allowed to leave their country and fight for a foreign country. If and when this law is passed many of these Contractors will not be able to return home because of the threat of imprisonment. And this from a so called democratic government, who refuse to add the names of white South African soldiers who have fallen in combat on their National War Memorial!!!!! Unquote.
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Very well said, Terry...
Yes, it’s a fact that was on the table, especially when it came out that some South Africans were involved in the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea.
A news item on ‘News24’ on 2009-11-04 indicated that: "Pretoria - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will have to consider whether the legal precedent of double jeopardy is applicable should the four released South African mercenaries be charged again in South Africa. According to legal experts, the question is whether an accused had in essence already been punished enough. The NPA indicated it would comment in more detail at a later stage. The four South Africans were held since 2004 in Equatorial Guinea after a failed coup and assassination attempt on President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. They were part of two groups of South Africans who were arrested in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea in March 2004."
I think the important thing here is the paragraph that in essence they have been punished enough. The fact is still that it depends on the National Prosecuting authority whether to take action in cases like these... A couple of interesting articles can be found on News24 here: http://www.news24.com/Tags/People/nick_du_toit
An Article in the ‘Business Day’ of 4th Aug 2010 indicates that the 2010 South African Citizenship Amendment Bill is in the process of been enacted. It has been referred to as an "erosion of rights"... See the article:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201008040503.html
In the MEMORANDUM ON THE OBJECTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL, 2010 page 9, Para 1.6: "The Bill also proposes a further condition for loss of South African citizenship. It is proposed that
a South African citizen shall cease to be a South African citizen if he or she engages in a war under the flag of a country that the Government of the Republic does not support."
It appears they are not threatening imprisonment, but loss of Citizenship!
The controversy about the white South Africa casualties NOT appearing on the National Wall of Freedom has been like flogging a dead horse for many years... The Afrikaner fallen from the Boer Wars have been listed, as well as the Cubans of the Angola War....and the Russians are also proclaiming to add the names of the 54 Russians that has fallen in Angola to it....but not a SINGLE member of the SADF that has fallen since 1961 to 1994.. We had to erect our own Memorial at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria which we honour every year at the Memorial Service (see my entries about the Wall Of Remembrance on www.warinangola.com: at
http://www.warinangola.com/Default.aspx?tabid=720.This annual service was conduced last Sunday. I am waiting for feedback about the service...
We will honour our own fallen...!
Regards
Johan Schoeman 28.08.10
www.warinangola.com
