South African History

Code Name Love 72 deals with two subjects. Firstly, the role of South African Army Cavalry Units during the long Border War 1966-1989. The cavalry use was a concept that came directly from the late South African Army Chief of Staff, General Magnus Malan. A man that I admire and one that was cruelly smeared as a child molester in a recent book that I consider to be unworthy in the extreme. Therefore, since the mainstream will spread their lies, I made sure to have on record that Magnus Malan was not, repeat not, a pedophile. If he was alive when the smear book came out he would have won a ...

In Code Name Lise, we deal with the idea of sinking warships with shore-bound artillery. It can be done and was done before, but you need the ships to be near, at a dangerously close range. They must be ambushed unexpectedly and destroyed, or you will be in deep trouble, as they call in heavy airstrikes or use their long-range weapons to maximum effect. The major problem you may face in this scenario is the air threat. All modern warships are armed with helicopters and South African warships at times have the Denel Rooivalk attack helicopter on them. This helicopter is deadly and feared for...

Beneath the Nelson Mandela Boulevard flyover on Cape Town's foreshore lives a community of stowaways, young Tanzanian men from the slums of Dar es Salaam. When journalist Sean Christie meets Adam Bashili, he comes to know the extraordinary world of the Beachboys, a multi-port, fourth-generation subculture that lives to stow away and stows away to survive.

A Black woman who suffered the outrages of apartheid - including the murder of her father - shares her outlook on her struggles with humanity and forgiveness.

After a 1960 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia, bus segregation was made illegal on new grounds. With this victory in hand, the Freedom Rides of 1961 began. Organized primarily by the Congress on Racial Equality, the Freedom Rides followed the same guidance that inspired the Montgomery Boycott—nonviolent direct action. The momentum generated by the Freedom Rides and the following activism would lead to the famous March on Washington and eventually the passage of a historic civil rights bill in 1964.

During his years of reporting from the world's most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide, and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds. As one of the BBC's leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on the front lines.